Many of you have asked me how I became a fiction author from being a practicing optometrist and here is the answer!!
I began writing 'The Truth in is Essence' on the 26th of June 2020 during extending lockdowns due to COVID - 19 pandemic. This started because my husband was writing a book and he encouraged me to write one. Maybe he thought, that way I would not disturb him! Jokes apart, without his initial nudge, this book would not have existed. Deep inside, I have always wanted to write something big. In the past, I have written small poems, phrases, and a few other professional writeups. These can be found in my other blog pages Peace and Love and Real-life experiences.
But this book was something huge!
All that I remember now is that I typed the first sentence and the rest just came as a flow. It was like an invisible electrical pulse travelling from my subconscious mind to the brain which in turn transformed into words that my fingers typed. I am not very fast at typing, so it was difficult for me to keep up with the speed at which my thoughts were flowing. I was amazed to see that I had typed more than seventy thousand words to complete my first draft on the 2nd of August 2020.
This was the most exciting period for me. I was adding chapter over chapters on google docs and my siblings read it along. All three of us were curious to know what would happen next. Yes! I was also curious. The mango tree kept returning over and over again in the story. I began wondering, 'What's up with this mango tree?!' But in the end, I knew what it meant, so did my sister and my brother. I am sure you realize it too.
The advantage of the whole situation was that we three were free from our respective jobs, our minds were free and we interacted more. I received a lot of input about what was missing, how things could be different, etc. My brother exclaimed that he really enjoyed reading the book, 'I binge-read the book!' he said enthusiastically. My sister who lives in the US was the 1st one to be updated as and when the book progressed every morning when she woke up.
The next few people who read the book were my friends, Sangeetha and Deepa, and my niece. My brother's wife and my husband's sister were early readers too. Sangeetha was my best critic. When I was excited to publish the book after my first draft, (yes, that's how ignorant I was about publishing a book) she told me everything the book was lacking. I took all her comments constructively and reworked the story. Later my niece, from the US, gave inputs as basic as where to punctuate (long forgotten), and how to frame sentences. Her younger sister said all names in the book sounded similar as they all started with the letter S. Even these feedbacks were addressed. Every change I made in the book was learning, and I am still getting to know many things.
By the end of October 2020, the book was ready to be sent to a professional editor. I shared the book via google docs. I was lucky to get a substantive editor who saw the big picture and helped me add and delete many descriptions of instances, and characters. There again, I learnt a lot. He continuously worked with me, guided me to make the narration interesting.
In the first week of Jan 2021, all the suggestions were completed by the editor. The best part with the editor was, he made me think and write in my own words instead of spoon-feeding with statements. By the first week of February 2021, I addressed most of the suggestions given by the editor. I ignored some because I liked my original.
Honestly, sometime during the editing process, I was so frustrated that I almost gave up thinking this was not my cup of tea. I sat over the completed book for a few more months. I had just switched jobs and moved to a new city. Life had become hectic. But, the constant urge to publish was rattling me subconsciously. After one detailed round of re-reading and editing, I had my manuscript ready. I did a lot of research about publishing and realized that I did not have any further patience to wait for a publisher to accept my manuscript which most of them said, could take 2 to 3 months or even more. Suddenly, the stars started lining up, my niece presented a beautiful painting for the cover page and everything else began rolling.
My next option was to self-publish using online amazon. But in India, amazon publishes only ebook versions and not paperback versions. After checking out plenty of forums and analyses, I decided to publish the ebook version on amazon kdp and paperback on notion press. The journey was again tedious - right from learning to use canva.com to finalize the book cover, and then using the cover creator tool on both amazon and notion press, kindle-create software to create the upload file for amazon, and using the interior formatting tool on notion press to upload the book content - phew! It was a lot of work, but I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed doing it.
On the 13th of December, 2021, my dear husband clicked the submit button and I was amazed that within an hour, my ebook was live on the Amazon platform! Subsequently, the paperback for international readers on amazon (other than India) became live in the next four hours! But, on the notion press platform, there was a technical glitch - there was someone else's book showing up on my dashboard. However, I managed to contact them after a few days wait through their website and their technical team resolved the problem in a couple of days. The paperback version was live on the 18th of December on notion press. It took a few more days for it to appear on the Flipkart platform.
Currently, my book is available as an ebook on Amazon, paperback on Amazon (sold by notion press), notion press, and Flipkart platforms.
After a while later, I came to know that there are ways to promote my book. Most of the promotion that I did was through WhatsApp and Facebook platforms. Later I learnt to use Instagram. Yes, I learnt to use Instagram! My book sales was mostly through word of mouth by those who liked the story. Two months after my book was published, I came to know that there are coupon codes that the publisher provides for the readers. Had I known about that earlier, I would have given those to the initial readers. This again is a lesson in the promotion process.
With very little knowledge about the whole process to start with, I think by now, publishing another book doesn't scare me.
But the only thing, that scares me is to keep up with the expectations of my readers in my next book! Wish me luck!
