Physical copies, publicity and plugging away

Do you sometimes take a step back and look at your life and think something like "How the hell did I get here?" Or "What was I thinking? This will never work." I think we all have those moments, and often they occur when negative events occur - like when you find out your husband is cheating on you, or you start a new job that isn't going to plan. But sometimes those words come to you when you've achieved a goal, or you've nearly achieved it and you're still trying to get that last bit of work done - well that's how it can happen in my life anyway.

Physical copies of the book

Last week I picked up 130 copies of my book, as surreal as that is to write it's even weirder to hold a copy of my book in my hands. When I finally got the proof copy a couple of weeks ago, my first thought was "wow, it's like a real book!", and now I have boxes of them.

Then there is the process of someone giving you money to own a copy of said book. Yes, I know people have been buying the ebook, but it's different when they hand me cash and I hand them a physical copy of this thing I created. I'll share a secret with you here, for every one I've sold so far I've wanted to give them their money back and say "look, I'm not sure it's all that good, so you can just have it." - which leads nicely into publicity...

But just before we go there, I will say that all the feedback so far has been that people are enjoying it, and it's a collection of online material that people also enjoyed - so I'm sure it's good, I'm just like a lot of people who feel weird charging for items they create.

Publicity

I've done a bit of asking in the last couple of weeks, well a bit of emailing out the press release to media outlets and seeing if they are interested in the story. The Mercury newspaper here in Hobart decided to feature me in their Scratch the Surface section of the TasWeekend supplement yesterday. That was pretty odd, especially when one of the women at the market I was doing yesterday came up to give me the page.

Okay, let's be brutally honest here, this was always going to be my biggest problem. Putting a book out into the world is an easy process in comparison to saying to other people "hey I did this thing that is really interesting and maybe you should read it or write about me" - well that is off my scale of difficult tasks I never thought I would be doing. I'm not naturally inclined to promote myself, I am an Australian female, which means self-deprecation and downplaying my achievements is standard operating procedure in my world.

This is one of the reasons I'm only just publishing the book now, over four years since I started the project! I had downplayed the achievement of My Year of TED for so long that I forgot it is quite extraordinary. Yes I would talk about it with people, but more along the lines of "I discovered this interesting fact/truth", rather than saying My Year of TED was something special.

Plugging Away

Which brings us into plugging away, or the fact that I'm still trying to get this publicity action going, but it feels like a lot of hard work. Oh, and I always knew it would feel this way, but I'm at a point where I'm not sure I can keep going - or I feel like I need a well earned break, but I don't feel like I can take it.

The worst aspect of this is that I know I'm not doing 'enough' - ah the arbitrary word of enough, what is enough when it comes to this sort of task? Well, it is a subjective definition I've come up with in my own brain, because I know I should be doing more! I've been using the excuse of wanting to make sure the paperback was available before I started pushing harder - well that's here now, so why haven't I ticked the ten emails off my list that have been waiting for that magical event?

Partly, it's because I'm scared I will fail; that I won't do it right and I will miss my one chance; that they'll think it is ordinary and uninteresting; that they'll ask that question I have fought so hard to overcome in myself "who does she think she is..."

On the other side of all of this is the continuing desire to keep this small. If I don't publicise it then fewer people will read about how crazy I can be; fewer people will know about the more broken parts of my personality; and I won't have to own this journey and these lessons. I know that this is not the outcome my rational brain wants for the book, you don't go through the stress of publishing a book in under three months to keep it small - I said I'm crazy, not insane!

So what now?

I keep plugging away! I tackle at least one email on the list each day, more if my brain and ego and cope with it. I keep pushing through those voices that are trying to convince me that I can't do this, so I may as well not try. And I wait to see what the people who are buying the book have to say about it. I wait to see if they do enjoy it, if they find it as valuable as I found the project - and if they connect with all the broken parts of me like hope they will.

And I continue to ASK! I ask people to share the story, write reviews if they've read it, join my mailing list, and generally become part of this adventure and the lessons it has to share. Importantly, while I'm asking I will continue to provide free insights and content - providing you with resources and posts that I hope will connect with you and make your life a little simpler, or a whole lot more difficult :-)

Which reminds me - the new version of Finding Your Way Home is now available to subscribers of this blog. If you've already signed up go to the welcome page for access - if you aren't subscribed yet, what are you waiting for?What are you plugging away at? What do you doubt your ability to do, but refuse to give up trying? I'd love to know.

And above is the photo of me reading my book while on the trapeze - I think I'll do some more of these shots, they're a lot of fun :-)