Well, I said I'd link to here when the book went live on Amazon - I didn't, because of various technical issues (which boil down to the fact that I am not very technically minded. Note to self: must try harder).
Anyway, it turns out to be a good thing that I didn't link to the book earlier. Because now it is FREE all weekend on Amazon, in the UK and the USA. So please download a copy, anyone who is interested, and please pass the word on to anybody else you think might be interested.
I really would like to know what people think of this book, so please take the time to review it if you can. It's not a gripping story (because there's no drama in recovery, that's a large part of the reason why you recover). But hopefully it's readable, and hopefully it will help some people on their own path to wellness. Which is why I would like as many people as possible to download it for free this weekend!
Here's the link to the book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Surfacing-Memoir-Sequel-Surviving-Schizophrenia-ebook/dp/B00SFPU2YQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1422116895&sr=1-1&keywords=surfacing%2C+a+memoir
Have a great weekend!
Saturday, 24 January 2015
Monday, 19 January 2015
STOP PRESS! 'SURFACING, A MEMOIR' PUBLISHED AT LAST!
When I think about my blog these days, I have a sense of dissatisfaction with it. I seem to have spent a lot of the last year or so dithering - starting to write fiction but never really finishing any of it to my satisfaction, promising a recovery book that then doesn't materialise, having panic attacks... Also, I haven't written on here nearly as much as I used to, so I feel that there has ceased to be much sense of continuity or coherence to the blog.
But from now on I am going to be more focused. And, as the lovely David just commented on my last post, I am going to remember to befriend myself. Because for all my shortcomings, I write this blog with a good and genuine intent, of helping others who have suffered emotional distress to find a way to wellness. Even if they increasingly have to sift back through the years to find some useful information.
And I have finally published my recovery book! I didn't end up publishing the eight thousand word version that I said I was going to in my last post though. It would have been such a waste of the lovely cover that Briony from Goldust Design created for me, right back at the end of last summer. This version is forty thousand words (about two thirds the length of 'Surviving Schizophenia'). It's from one of my previous drafts, but with the most boring bits edited out. It really is hard writing a memoir when nothing much has happened to me in the last few years. But hopefully it explains some of the things that have enabled me to move on with my life and it may prove to be useful to other people. I hope so.
It's called, 'Surfacing, a Memoir' and it mostly is memoir, but there is a section at the end (about ten thousand words long) which is a more straightforward recovery manual. Just in case anybody can't be bothered to read through the memoir bit and draw their own conclusions as to what helped.
So, finally I have done what I set out to do, years ago, just after I finished Surviving. I always had a sense that I should have written more about the nuts and bolts of recovery, and now I have. I have put down pretty much everything I can think of that might help and I have tried to make it as readable as possible. I am almost certain that I couldn't have done more - not at this point in time anyhow.
I'll link to the book on here as soon as it is approved by Amazon, which should happen in the next day or so. And I'll do the whole Twitter and Facebook thing too (I have shied away from self-publicity recently, but the sad fact is that nobody else is going to blow my trumpet for me so I might as well get on and do it myself).
A new book out - how exciting!
But from now on I am going to be more focused. And, as the lovely David just commented on my last post, I am going to remember to befriend myself. Because for all my shortcomings, I write this blog with a good and genuine intent, of helping others who have suffered emotional distress to find a way to wellness. Even if they increasingly have to sift back through the years to find some useful information.
And I have finally published my recovery book! I didn't end up publishing the eight thousand word version that I said I was going to in my last post though. It would have been such a waste of the lovely cover that Briony from Goldust Design created for me, right back at the end of last summer. This version is forty thousand words (about two thirds the length of 'Surviving Schizophenia'). It's from one of my previous drafts, but with the most boring bits edited out. It really is hard writing a memoir when nothing much has happened to me in the last few years. But hopefully it explains some of the things that have enabled me to move on with my life and it may prove to be useful to other people. I hope so.
It's called, 'Surfacing, a Memoir' and it mostly is memoir, but there is a section at the end (about ten thousand words long) which is a more straightforward recovery manual. Just in case anybody can't be bothered to read through the memoir bit and draw their own conclusions as to what helped.
So, finally I have done what I set out to do, years ago, just after I finished Surviving. I always had a sense that I should have written more about the nuts and bolts of recovery, and now I have. I have put down pretty much everything I can think of that might help and I have tried to make it as readable as possible. I am almost certain that I couldn't have done more - not at this point in time anyhow.
I'll link to the book on here as soon as it is approved by Amazon, which should happen in the next day or so. And I'll do the whole Twitter and Facebook thing too (I have shied away from self-publicity recently, but the sad fact is that nobody else is going to blow my trumpet for me so I might as well get on and do it myself).
A new book out - how exciting!
Monday, 29 December 2014
Surfacing - or, How to Recover from a Nervous Breakdown
Well, everyone, it's a red letter day! I have just finished my 'recovery book'. Not for the first time, admittedly, but this time I am going to go ahead and publish it.
I wrote it in a bit of a rush, over about eight hours last night and today. Well, I re-wrote it really - I've lost track of how many previous drafts I have done. But I didn't look at any of those - I wrote this off the top of my head, hoping that the important points would drift up to the surface. So. Literally. Surfacing.
The thing is, I really feel as though I want to move on from mental health, in my writing. I find the subject fascinating, and I'll keep posting on here from time to time and I'll stay in contact with people through social media. But I want to write about more than mental health and I want to write in a different form, not journalistically. I'm going to see how much fiction I can churn out, in 2015. That's my aim.
So, obviously the recovery book is really short, but I've just checked it against some of the earlier drafts and I think it pretty much encapsulates what I want to say. I am going to price it as low as Amazon lets me, so nobody feels ripped off, and I really hope that it will be useful, and help people and maybe even influence future mental health policy (I've got a few things to say about the misuse of force in the system and how this has arisen because the administration of the criminal justice system has been confused with the treatment of mental (emotional) health. It might not be anything I haven't said before, but I'm hoping that maybe somebody might read it and take notice. You have to keep trying).
I just wanted to get on and publish this book, and I have been attempting to write it for so long. I have surprised myself with how it has just suddenly appeared. I kept thinking about the person who commented on this blog that they hoped it would come out soon because they wanted to use it in their recovery. I felt an obligation to this person and to anyone else who might have been waiting for me to come good on my promise. And now here is the finished book - not perfect, but it was never going to be perfect.
I have had the cover of this book ready to go for ages now, since the summer. It will need changing a little - just the wording of the title, because it was a (very boring) memoir in its last incarnation. But as soon as that is done it will be ready to go - it should be published in the early New Year, if not before.
Hurrah! Job done!
I'm exhausted now. I'll post again here, and Twitter and Facebook, when the book is available.
I wrote it in a bit of a rush, over about eight hours last night and today. Well, I re-wrote it really - I've lost track of how many previous drafts I have done. But I didn't look at any of those - I wrote this off the top of my head, hoping that the important points would drift up to the surface. So. Literally. Surfacing.
The thing is, I really feel as though I want to move on from mental health, in my writing. I find the subject fascinating, and I'll keep posting on here from time to time and I'll stay in contact with people through social media. But I want to write about more than mental health and I want to write in a different form, not journalistically. I'm going to see how much fiction I can churn out, in 2015. That's my aim.
So, obviously the recovery book is really short, but I've just checked it against some of the earlier drafts and I think it pretty much encapsulates what I want to say. I am going to price it as low as Amazon lets me, so nobody feels ripped off, and I really hope that it will be useful, and help people and maybe even influence future mental health policy (I've got a few things to say about the misuse of force in the system and how this has arisen because the administration of the criminal justice system has been confused with the treatment of mental (emotional) health. It might not be anything I haven't said before, but I'm hoping that maybe somebody might read it and take notice. You have to keep trying).
I just wanted to get on and publish this book, and I have been attempting to write it for so long. I have surprised myself with how it has just suddenly appeared. I kept thinking about the person who commented on this blog that they hoped it would come out soon because they wanted to use it in their recovery. I felt an obligation to this person and to anyone else who might have been waiting for me to come good on my promise. And now here is the finished book - not perfect, but it was never going to be perfect.
I have had the cover of this book ready to go for ages now, since the summer. It will need changing a little - just the wording of the title, because it was a (very boring) memoir in its last incarnation. But as soon as that is done it will be ready to go - it should be published in the early New Year, if not before.
Hurrah! Job done!
I'm exhausted now. I'll post again here, and Twitter and Facebook, when the book is available.
Tuesday, 2 December 2014
Greetings, and apologies
Hello, and sorry for the length of time since I last wrote this blog. Funnily enough, just as things were starting to pick up, in a good way - a request to write for the Huffington Post, a new book almost ready for publication - it all seemed to get too much and I have had to take a step back. Maybe that's not odd at all, maybe it's just natural, given my history with stress.
There was simply too much going on. I finished my recovery book, but then realised that it really was not good enough to publish. I wrote it as a memoir and always had a niggling feeling that it was not going to be very interesting, but then took a long, cold look and had to acknowledge that things were worse than I had feared - it was really a stultifyingly boring piece of writing. The book was only going to disappoint readers, and I didn't want to do that. I am just pleased I realised in time before I published it. So I have been trying to re-work it into a self-help book for those who have suffered emotional distress.
Although, to be honest, I have not been trying all that hard in the last few weeks. I have had a lot going on at home - I won't go into details but I will say that there has been no crisis or upset, just a lot of domestic stuff to deal with.
I hate letting people down, and I had announced on here that the book was going to be published on World Mental Health Day. At least one person had said that they were waiting to use it in their recovery, which felt like a huge honour but also a huge responsibility so I felt particularly bad about letting that person down. But I have decided not to beat myself up any more - I am doing the best I can, and in the end everyone will be better served by a book which I am satisfied with than one which was published despite my misgivings.
So, just to check in really and to say that I have been having a short break from mental health matters but will be back soon. I also signed out of Facebook, but will be back on there soon, and on Twitter.
Oh, and by the way, I have already dipped a toe back into the water - I just wrote a review of Lucy Johnstone's fantastic book, A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Diagnosis. Here's the link, in case anyone wants to take a look: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Straight-Introduction-Psychiatric-Diagnosis-Introductions/dp/1906254664
There was simply too much going on. I finished my recovery book, but then realised that it really was not good enough to publish. I wrote it as a memoir and always had a niggling feeling that it was not going to be very interesting, but then took a long, cold look and had to acknowledge that things were worse than I had feared - it was really a stultifyingly boring piece of writing. The book was only going to disappoint readers, and I didn't want to do that. I am just pleased I realised in time before I published it. So I have been trying to re-work it into a self-help book for those who have suffered emotional distress.
Although, to be honest, I have not been trying all that hard in the last few weeks. I have had a lot going on at home - I won't go into details but I will say that there has been no crisis or upset, just a lot of domestic stuff to deal with.
I hate letting people down, and I had announced on here that the book was going to be published on World Mental Health Day. At least one person had said that they were waiting to use it in their recovery, which felt like a huge honour but also a huge responsibility so I felt particularly bad about letting that person down. But I have decided not to beat myself up any more - I am doing the best I can, and in the end everyone will be better served by a book which I am satisfied with than one which was published despite my misgivings.
So, just to check in really and to say that I have been having a short break from mental health matters but will be back soon. I also signed out of Facebook, but will be back on there soon, and on Twitter.
Oh, and by the way, I have already dipped a toe back into the water - I just wrote a review of Lucy Johnstone's fantastic book, A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Diagnosis. Here's the link, in case anyone wants to take a look: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Straight-Introduction-Psychiatric-Diagnosis-Introductions/dp/1906254664
Monday, 20 October 2014
So, How Can I Tell If My Kids Are Weird?
I am stinging a little at something that just happened over on Twitter. Here's a little background - I was catching up on Style magazine from The Sunday Times today, and reading the second extract from India Knight's new book, which is about how to cope with middle age. Very topical, in my case - I am about to turn 46. Anyway, I was struck by a small part of a section about how to deal with kids - and surprised by the way the writer expressed herself. She basically said, nobody likes kids who are weird, lots of kids are weird and if yours are more than ordinarily weird you shouldn't delay in getting a diagnosis for reasons of social embarrassment or stigma.
I mean, what? Hang on a minute, I thought. Does she have someone particular in mind - or, lots of someones? Who are all these kids she thinks are weird? Is it just kids or does she think lots of adults are weird too? What sort of diagnoses is she referring to? And the whole thing kind of jarred, because I have a book by India Knight and I read her columns and articles regularly and she had always previously come across as kind. Not a pushover - a straight-talking, no nonsense, sort of person, but kind.
Anyway, I put it to the back of my mind. I stopped subscribing to The Times a month or two ago, because I realised I could get the paper free from Waitrose. Waitrose is an indulgence for me, but I have grown to like the routine of going there every day, getting my free cup of tea and paper, browsing the aisles to buy a few bits and pieces. I read an article a while ago about how the regular, old-school Waitrose shoppers are upset by the likes of me, just turning up for the freebies and lowering the tone, but the staff certainly don't give any indication of thinking like that. It's a really pleasant shopping experience.
My point is that if I had still been subscribing to The Times, I would have commented on the website, underneath the article, and I am sure that Ms Knight would have explained her thinking. But I don't subscribe any more, so I couldn't.
I had forgotten all about it by this evening, when I was browsing Twitter. I was on Twitter to link to my latest HuffPost piece, on the subject of pet therapy (here's the link by the way http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/louise-gillett/pet-therapy-and-why-dogs-_b_6013862.html) And then I noticed India Knight promoting her new book, so I took the chance to ask her (by tweet) how I could tell if my kids were weird. Silence. I expanded. I was asking because, I said, as far as I was concerned, anyone who thought my kids were weird would be weird. Especially me. Still silence. So I realised she might be feeling attacked, and sent another tweet saying that anyway, I would buy the book, I was sure it would be an excellent read. No reply. Now, meanwhile, Ms Knight was still tweeting about her book and replying to others who were saying nice things about it. And within a few minutes my tweets had been removed from her timeline (not sure if timeline is the correct term, but basically my comments had been edited out of the conversation).
That hurt. Mostly because I was really not trying to be unpleasant and she clearly thought that I was. And I really have never deliberately provoked or hurt anyone in my life, and don't intend to do so. I really just wanted to understand what she meant. But I suppose Twitter is not the place for that sort of a conversation.
So I thought I would just air my thoughts here. And what they amount to is this - a lot of damage is done in society by some people branding other people as weird. I guess they do it because of fear or lack of understanding - but why they do it is not really the point. It's wrong.
One of my sisters often refers to other people as weird. The funniest time was when she told me how weird she thought one of my friends was (they had just met, at a party in my garden for one of my children). 'She is a consultant psychiatrist,' I told my sister. I thought that would stop her in her tracks, but she persisted, 'Well, she's really weird'.
The thing is, my friend was not, and is not weird. My sister is not an unpleasant person either. She is just freaked out by people who are not like her - and she fails to realise that actually none of us are like anyone else in this world. We are all different. Society dictates that we form groups, and if we happen to be outside the group we are in danger of being ostracised. But society is now so fragmented that the groups are increasingly small, and instead of trying to be more inclusive they tend to be getting exclusive. And society is becoming less cohesive as a result.
Does this make sense. Or am I becoming incoherent? What I am trying to say is that we should not call each other weird. It makes people feel bad to be set apart. And we really should not call our children, or anyone else's children, weird. Children are different, people are different. They can still be good, and valuable and worthwhile. We do not all need to be the same.
I honestly think that it would be very, very wrong of anyone to consider their own child weird. All they are really saying is that they do not understand that person, that they are different from themselves. But they are saying it from a position of such power because they are the parent, that the child will almost certainly believe them and internalise the message.
And I do know that Ms Knight did not say 'weird' without a certain irony, or tongue-in-cheek intention. She means - what? Disturbed? Strange? Different? Not normal? Whichever way you look at it, it's wrong. The kids who are outcasts in the playground now will almost certainly be outcasts in adulthood. The ones that are diagnosed - with what? - ADHD? Aspbergers? - are marked for life. Some children are now diagnosed with worse - schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder. Some are medicated from a very young age. It happens more in the USA than here, but what starts there usually follows on here, within a few years.
And these kids are not, in fact, inherently different to anyone else. They are simply reacting to their experience of the world. If they are having difficulties of any kind, they need to be helped. And the best way to help them is to make them feel safe and loved and normal. Not to make them feel wrong. Or different. Or weird.
It makes me so sad. We need to be kind above all, and to teach our kids to be kind. We need to be understanding, inclusive, to help others, to be non-judgemental. I will always reassure my children that they are normal, I will always love them unconditionally. I will do my best to be non-judgemental towards other children and adults.
I am not looking to start a witch hunt against India Knight. I am sure she didn't really think about what she was writing and hasn't had personal experience of stigma. Lucky for India Knight, really, if she has no knowledge of mental health issues. I mean it. And I know how it feels to have negative comments about something you have written so she was probably just freaked out by my comments on Twitter and that's why she didn't reply. But I really was making a serious and very important point, so I thought I would just come and make it over here, where there is nobody to silence me.
Readers, I do hope you understand.
I mean, what? Hang on a minute, I thought. Does she have someone particular in mind - or, lots of someones? Who are all these kids she thinks are weird? Is it just kids or does she think lots of adults are weird too? What sort of diagnoses is she referring to? And the whole thing kind of jarred, because I have a book by India Knight and I read her columns and articles regularly and she had always previously come across as kind. Not a pushover - a straight-talking, no nonsense, sort of person, but kind.
Anyway, I put it to the back of my mind. I stopped subscribing to The Times a month or two ago, because I realised I could get the paper free from Waitrose. Waitrose is an indulgence for me, but I have grown to like the routine of going there every day, getting my free cup of tea and paper, browsing the aisles to buy a few bits and pieces. I read an article a while ago about how the regular, old-school Waitrose shoppers are upset by the likes of me, just turning up for the freebies and lowering the tone, but the staff certainly don't give any indication of thinking like that. It's a really pleasant shopping experience.
My point is that if I had still been subscribing to The Times, I would have commented on the website, underneath the article, and I am sure that Ms Knight would have explained her thinking. But I don't subscribe any more, so I couldn't.
I had forgotten all about it by this evening, when I was browsing Twitter. I was on Twitter to link to my latest HuffPost piece, on the subject of pet therapy (here's the link by the way http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/louise-gillett/pet-therapy-and-why-dogs-_b_6013862.html) And then I noticed India Knight promoting her new book, so I took the chance to ask her (by tweet) how I could tell if my kids were weird. Silence. I expanded. I was asking because, I said, as far as I was concerned, anyone who thought my kids were weird would be weird. Especially me. Still silence. So I realised she might be feeling attacked, and sent another tweet saying that anyway, I would buy the book, I was sure it would be an excellent read. No reply. Now, meanwhile, Ms Knight was still tweeting about her book and replying to others who were saying nice things about it. And within a few minutes my tweets had been removed from her timeline (not sure if timeline is the correct term, but basically my comments had been edited out of the conversation).
That hurt. Mostly because I was really not trying to be unpleasant and she clearly thought that I was. And I really have never deliberately provoked or hurt anyone in my life, and don't intend to do so. I really just wanted to understand what she meant. But I suppose Twitter is not the place for that sort of a conversation.
So I thought I would just air my thoughts here. And what they amount to is this - a lot of damage is done in society by some people branding other people as weird. I guess they do it because of fear or lack of understanding - but why they do it is not really the point. It's wrong.
One of my sisters often refers to other people as weird. The funniest time was when she told me how weird she thought one of my friends was (they had just met, at a party in my garden for one of my children). 'She is a consultant psychiatrist,' I told my sister. I thought that would stop her in her tracks, but she persisted, 'Well, she's really weird'.
The thing is, my friend was not, and is not weird. My sister is not an unpleasant person either. She is just freaked out by people who are not like her - and she fails to realise that actually none of us are like anyone else in this world. We are all different. Society dictates that we form groups, and if we happen to be outside the group we are in danger of being ostracised. But society is now so fragmented that the groups are increasingly small, and instead of trying to be more inclusive they tend to be getting exclusive. And society is becoming less cohesive as a result.
Does this make sense. Or am I becoming incoherent? What I am trying to say is that we should not call each other weird. It makes people feel bad to be set apart. And we really should not call our children, or anyone else's children, weird. Children are different, people are different. They can still be good, and valuable and worthwhile. We do not all need to be the same.
I honestly think that it would be very, very wrong of anyone to consider their own child weird. All they are really saying is that they do not understand that person, that they are different from themselves. But they are saying it from a position of such power because they are the parent, that the child will almost certainly believe them and internalise the message.
And I do know that Ms Knight did not say 'weird' without a certain irony, or tongue-in-cheek intention. She means - what? Disturbed? Strange? Different? Not normal? Whichever way you look at it, it's wrong. The kids who are outcasts in the playground now will almost certainly be outcasts in adulthood. The ones that are diagnosed - with what? - ADHD? Aspbergers? - are marked for life. Some children are now diagnosed with worse - schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder. Some are medicated from a very young age. It happens more in the USA than here, but what starts there usually follows on here, within a few years.
And these kids are not, in fact, inherently different to anyone else. They are simply reacting to their experience of the world. If they are having difficulties of any kind, they need to be helped. And the best way to help them is to make them feel safe and loved and normal. Not to make them feel wrong. Or different. Or weird.
It makes me so sad. We need to be kind above all, and to teach our kids to be kind. We need to be understanding, inclusive, to help others, to be non-judgemental. I will always reassure my children that they are normal, I will always love them unconditionally. I will do my best to be non-judgemental towards other children and adults.
I am not looking to start a witch hunt against India Knight. I am sure she didn't really think about what she was writing and hasn't had personal experience of stigma. Lucky for India Knight, really, if she has no knowledge of mental health issues. I mean it. And I know how it feels to have negative comments about something you have written so she was probably just freaked out by my comments on Twitter and that's why she didn't reply. But I really was making a serious and very important point, so I thought I would just come and make it over here, where there is nobody to silence me.
Readers, I do hope you understand.
Saturday, 18 October 2014
How to Self-Publish Your Recovery Story
I decided to write this post on the spur of the moment, although it's quite late on a Saturday evening. I just wanted to say a few words for anybody who wants to publish their own story, as I have done. Recovery stories are invaluable in the mental health world (I was reminded of this recently while reading 'A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Diagnosis' by Lucy Johnstone) and publishing them in the form of a book is a very good way to disseminate them.
So - how to do this?
You can write your story as fiction or memoir. Both types of writing have their advantages, and I am sure you can work them out for yourself. I would just advise you to write your story as simply and clearly as you can. Because if you want people to read it - and you do - there is no point in making things difficult for them. Mastery of the English language is best shown by expressing yourself as straightforwardly as possible.
You can self-publish your book as an ebook for no outlay at all. The best way to do this is on Amazon Kindle - go to Kindle Direct Publishing and you will be talked through the process. I say Amazon is the best because I have sold an awful lot more books through them than on any other site. If you sign exclusively to Amazon you can use their Kindle Select Program, which is really useful for promotional purposes.
Obviously you need to make sure your book is in the best possible shape before you publish - get it read by a friend, several friends if possible, get it edited if necessary, do your research on the sort of cover that would help your book sell, and think about how best to price it. This might all sound complicated, but there are lots of blogs out there on self-publishing, or 'indie' publishing, which can point you in the right direction.
You can also set up your book to be sold as a paperback - again, the simplest way to do this is through Amazon, on their CreateSpace site. You will have to pay a very small upfront cost - less than fifty pounds.
Well, that's all for now. It may not be that useful - I am not entirely sure why I suddenly felt the need to fire off a blog post about self-publishing. And please note - Amazon are not sponsoring me to write this. (Thought - maybe they should be!)
So - how to do this?
You can write your story as fiction or memoir. Both types of writing have their advantages, and I am sure you can work them out for yourself. I would just advise you to write your story as simply and clearly as you can. Because if you want people to read it - and you do - there is no point in making things difficult for them. Mastery of the English language is best shown by expressing yourself as straightforwardly as possible.
You can self-publish your book as an ebook for no outlay at all. The best way to do this is on Amazon Kindle - go to Kindle Direct Publishing and you will be talked through the process. I say Amazon is the best because I have sold an awful lot more books through them than on any other site. If you sign exclusively to Amazon you can use their Kindle Select Program, which is really useful for promotional purposes.
Obviously you need to make sure your book is in the best possible shape before you publish - get it read by a friend, several friends if possible, get it edited if necessary, do your research on the sort of cover that would help your book sell, and think about how best to price it. This might all sound complicated, but there are lots of blogs out there on self-publishing, or 'indie' publishing, which can point you in the right direction.
You can also set up your book to be sold as a paperback - again, the simplest way to do this is through Amazon, on their CreateSpace site. You will have to pay a very small upfront cost - less than fifty pounds.
Well, that's all for now. It may not be that useful - I am not entirely sure why I suddenly felt the need to fire off a blog post about self-publishing. And please note - Amazon are not sponsoring me to write this. (Thought - maybe they should be!)
Thursday, 16 October 2014
New Huffington Post Blog on Anxiety
I have my friend Karen to thank for this. I anguished all week about what to write about for my second HuffPost blog, having decided to try to publish one a week. I overthought it, to be honest - but what I wrote for the Huffington just seemed to be more important than what I write on this blog. I still think of this blog as private in a way, because although I get a steady number of hits - usually around two thousand a month - the Huff has a readership of seven and a half million in this country and one hundred million worldwide. That seemed like a lot of responsibility.
Anyway, I realised eventually that not all of those people are going to read what I write, and the ones that do won't have any emotional investment in it - nobody's going to think I am letting them down if what I write is not original or ground-breaking. So, Karen told me that anxiety is a good, current topic, and I knuckled down to writing some words about my experience of it, off the top of my head.
Here's the link to the post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/louise-gillett/coping-with-anxiety_b_5992304.html
Hopefully, I won't spend the next week wondering about my next topic. But if anyone wants to suggest anything, feel free to write it in the comment box here!
Anyway, I realised eventually that not all of those people are going to read what I write, and the ones that do won't have any emotional investment in it - nobody's going to think I am letting them down if what I write is not original or ground-breaking. So, Karen told me that anxiety is a good, current topic, and I knuckled down to writing some words about my experience of it, off the top of my head.
Here's the link to the post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/louise-gillett/coping-with-anxiety_b_5992304.html
Hopefully, I won't spend the next week wondering about my next topic. But if anyone wants to suggest anything, feel free to write it in the comment box here!
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