Six weeks ago, I decided to write a book. I had pondered the idea several months already and it was time to finally jump and simply do it. I had written a book in the past, but not a non-fiction book with a wealth of knowledge to be put into. One point five years ago I had put together a 500-page long online training presentation, losely and raw, that I wanted to put together for a life and on-demand training. But I never really did. It felt like knowledge I already received, it felt weird, teaching people something I already knew while I was more curious to move on and learn and produce new things. But a book I felt was more than that. It was not only about the book, but also about the process of writing a book — the process of creating something new, the process of bringing alive of what would otherwise lay somewhere in a dusty corner of my apartment, the process of learning to publish a book and selling it via Amazon
And so it began, my journey of writing the book out of the material I created that one point five years ago enriched wiht some new material as well. I planned to put it together in 3 days and publish it. You can imagine, well, that did not turn out as planned. But instead, it took me four weeks and many more learnings along the way. Let me share with you what I learned from writing my book.
It always takes longer than expected
I guess, that is an obvious one. But we often forget. We forget how much time it takes to finish what we have envisioned. I heard people tell me that they normally add a factor of 2.5x to projects to get a rough real estimate, others speak of x2, others of “add another 1/2 time of the total project time”. It really depends on the project, but I never heard anyone say “take 2x the time away” or “it will be less than planned”. I recently experienced it while driving by train through Germany, that the time was less than anticipated (which happens veeeery rarely), but for projects? Would be curious if you experienced something similar once.
Thus, take the time you think it will take and add an x amount of time to it. I had no idea how long it would take, as I was only roughly aware of the steps I had to take. But there are detours, you may miss parts of the process and so on. So better to plan some extra time.
At one point in time, I wrote very specific timelines. For example for writing and the for editing, I would count the number of pages I was able to edit within an hour, then the next hour and the third hour. When it took me 20 pages or 30 pages per hour, then I would check against that value for the hour after and so on. This gave me a rough estimate of the time I would still need for the task at hand. And helped me to better plan my time.
And this brings me to the second thing I learned:
Trust the process
When I counted pages, I tried to find shortcuts. I tried to fasten up the work, to get it done faster. It bothered me to put in all that work without being able to speed things up. Of course, I could have hired someone doing it for me, but I wanted to first learn how ot works myself and secondly I discovered that I woul need for one process another 25 hours of work. So this was my mark to go against, to set myself some benchmarks. I worked against myself, my time. But still, as much as I tried to speed up time, to find corners, I knew, I had to put in the work. There was no way for me to cut corners in that specific process for that time. In the future, for sure I could create an AI book writer and editor, or some other tool that would do part of the work for me, but creating it for that process (as I even tried with the help of AI) would have taken me much longer than simply doing the work.
I had to sit down and do it. Hour by hour, page by page. I got frustrated, I felt the pain of sitting in on these long hours, I wanted to meet friends, I wanted to get excited to go out and do other stuff. But no, I knew, only when I get the work done and trust the process, and keep working, will I see any results. I had to trust the process, the work I was putting in. And so I put the work in, step by step, hour by hour. Cutting corners, becoming fast, did not work. I got slower overall. I made more mistakes, I oversaw more grammar mistakes. I had to do it, step by step.
And that brings me to the third learning I had.
The process is not always fun, enjoyable and happiness-inducing, and that is ok for the outcome it brings
There is popular advice out there, “find what you love doing and you won’t have to work another day in your life”, “follow what you love doing, what is joyful and great”. This is in and by itself beautiful advice, and I love it. And I agree to a high degree to it, but it is also misleading advice. It is important to find what you are passionate about, it is important to enjoy what you do. Yes, it is. Because otherwise you will be working against your innate self, your innate self-expression and it will make you sick (I experienced it myself). But when you want to have a direction, a goal, a vision in your mind, you feel the urge to do something, the curiosity to try something out, to bring an idea to life, then the process may be painful, frustrating, just plain boring and annoying, but you are still doing it. It is uncomfortable, but you still enjoy it (deep down), it is painful, but you still put up the work that makes you cringe and being pissed. You do it, while you could do something else, because you know deep down that it is something you value, something you want to bring to life, something you will be proud of when you are done. and for that feeling of accomplishment for yourself, you are willing to put in work that is just not great. But the rewards will be. For your own learning, your own values, your own feeling of proudness. And that makes all the difference.
So, follow your passion, follow your joy and excitement, but don’t forget that sometimes, to achieve and bring our visions to life, the path is not always roses and butterflies and excitement, it is draining, painful and frustrating, but often, even within these uncomfortable emotions, and unwanted actions (on some first layer), deeper down, there is still enjoyment, because we know, that when we put in that work, there is a high level of joy, more excitement, more contentment, more fulfillment, and more personal proudness. and for that, we are willing to put in the hard work.
Creating is one piece, the other one is to share it with others
And when you are done? How do you feel? I am simply loving the process of pain and frustration and bringing this to an end and holding my bok in my hands. But I realized (and still am working on it), that it is much more beautiful to share my creations with others. To learn how they react, how they like it, if it resonates with me, if they find value in it. It is that fine balance of simple producing for ourselves for bringing our vision and ideas to life, but it is even more beautiful, to create something that friends, colleagues, people in this world connect with, feel happy and beautiful and excited and curious about. that induces something with them, something that leaves a positive impact in one way or the other within them and brings them to take action and change and develop and grow themselves.
Thus, when you created something, produced a new piece of creation, art, processes, products, moments and experiences, share them with the world, share them with those you think could benefit from it. Otherwise it is still a level of having a published book staying i the dusty room in your apartment. Now it is the packed Amazon fulfillment center’s computer that it is parked and some members of the team might have ssen it, mabe a computer that is waiting for someone to buy it so he can print the pages and ship it to that person. It is still not shared with the world. And I realize that. I never liked sellers. Those that reach out simply to sell and then disapear once they realize you are not interested. But what if we turn that around? What if done right, it is an act of love. An act of sharing what we have created, sharing what we have put out in the workd, produced and then asking people about what they look for, and what they value and what they need. And maybe there is a fit. They are desparately looking for the book, the product, the experience, but haven’t found it yet. and then you come along and you present them with exactly what they need and were looking for. And they are so happy as you give them what they need so desparately. You help them and they help you and you both win. That is when I changed my opinion about sales. And about sharing what we do. It is a fine balance, for sure, and not always easy to determine who genuinely cares about sharing his or her work and who is motivated by something else. And maybe it does not matter. When there is a fit, it a win-win. And a creation, a product that brought value not only to you producing it and learning from the process and bringing your vision to life, but it will be a shared vision, others will buy into it as well, will be excited and will be infused with something ppositive and beautiful.
And last but not least, there is always a way to make it work
And then there is this overaching element. Silent and not directly recognizable. But always there. The power of simply trying and figuring things out on the go. when I sat down to create that book, I had no idea where it would lead me, what exactly I needed to do, I simply jumped in and tried to figure it out. there is so much insight, so much information, so much knowledge out there, that we can literally find everything we need to figure it out, to make it work.
When I think about the sources I tapped into to bring this book to life, it was a multitude of writings, blogposts, Youtube videos, asking friends, researching new tools, learned new tweaks. It was sometimes 50 tabs open, then switching back and forth, then checking videos, seeing if they give me what I am looking for, diving deep, zooming in and out. I did a research on which publishing and editing tool to use. I did not wanted to pay for another InDesign recurring subscription (I used it once before), so looked for an alternative, a friend mentioned Affinity Publisher to me in a different context and regarding a different topic a week earlier, I checked it out for the book, liked it, found a good video about a guy who explained the basics in a 60min long video, watched it once, figured out: “that is good”, watched it again while creating and designing the book manuscript in there. Edited the text styles in the program, wondered which ones best to use for a non-fiction book, selected one of the non-fiction books in my living room that was about a similar topic and checked the book structure and styling, adapted my book accordingly, learned about text size and typography on various blogs, and added them to my book, and so on.
For each of the steps, it took me various iterations, experimentations, figuring things out. But I was able to figure it out, I was able to make it somehow work. And I feel that at this age, there is so much knowledge out there, the question is not whether we find knowledge, the more important question is, are we able to bring the knowledge together in a way that we are able to produce the outcome we want to produce? And are we willing to put in the work, simply go and figure it out?
How about you? What have you learned bringing your visions to life? Which of the learnings resonated most with you? And why? Would love to hear your feedback :)