My e-book is out! FINALLY!

After months of data collecting, writing (literally!), editing and ding ding dongs, I’m finally seeing my e-book in Google Play Store and Amazon! It’s not easy, really. But I’m glad I finally got through it.

“It’s only publishing an ebook! Don’t be a whiner!”

I’m not whining (hold on, my brains’ talking); don’t judge. Let me finish what I want to share.

Writing this e-book was not an easy task. First of all, I’ll need to know, and practice, Fengshui. Yes, I know Fengshui, and you can shut up and read on.

Then I needed case studies to make this ebook happen. It took me years of collecting the cases from audits and analyzing before they could be compiled into a file prior to my selection before writing them out. Publishing an e-book wasn’t even my intention in the first place.

Why did I write it then?

Thanks to my friend Vinay for the inspiration. Once during our conversation, he spoke to me about his dream of building an e-book store, and he suggested that I could write some Fengshui related books that I could sell there. I did not agree to him immediately, but still, I took it into consideration. Not because I didn’t want to write, but because I did not know what Fengshui subject I should write. I’ll let that last sentence digest for a little while.

Teach Fengshui through ebooks is way too common. Do a google on “Fengshui book” and you’ll know.

Quick Fengshui tips? Not what I advocate. Furthermore, if you read my book, you’ll understand why I never considered quick tips.

Fengshui Calendars? You kidding? They’re everywhere.

Then came one day when I felt a tinge of frustration because I realized that this art that took me some time to learn, had nothing to write about. I was about to give up when….

I read the Chinese newspapers.

The rest about my discovery from reading the newspapers is history. Let’s just settle with this: I decided to write on the misconceptions about Fengshui (now you know what my book is about).

I started to write. You don’t quite understand. I mean, literally writing. No, not type. No computers, no keyboards. Only pens and more pens. I wrote, word by word until I completed the book.

Naturally, I was happy when I dotted the last period after the last sentence. But that was not all. I got in touch with my editor Su-Ann, and had her sent it to her intern to have it converted into soft copy (basically, leaving the legwork to someone who was willing to do it for a fee), before I ran the first run of proofreading, then editing, then proofreading again, then editing again while the cover’s designing, which was concurrently in progress, completed before it was ready for formatting. Before we knew it, another problem surfaced.

Too modern would mean no touch of Fengshui. Too traditional, and it wouldn’t meet my style (read it if you want to know why).

In the end, we settled for this one, and I had it sent to Ohio for the professionals there to convert it into various formats, before I got the final editorial done. Once it was back in my hands, Su-Ann and I had to proofread and point out the mistakes that we had overlooked, and I had to compile a list before sending the it back to Ohio for amendments. All took me about 2 months more.

That was only the preparation. I’ve not touched on the uploading yet.

Then there’s Google Play, Payhip, Amazon Kindle Direct and Smashwords. Creating account after account and linking the bank and paypal blah blah blah. Took me whole day yesterday, and today, I didn’t have spare change of time because I still had to ensure that everything was running. Luxury of time and play wasn’t with me for the past few days.

Finally, I’m seeing them on the Internet. While I do not know what would the response be, it sure feels great to know that I have a product online available for downloads. I’m going to look at forever, unless the Internet is going to disappear anytime soon. So technically, I’m going to sell it for as long as it takes.

Wish me best of sales!

Andy Lawson is the average man on the street that you’ll not even trouble yourself looking at him if he passes by you. He’s sensitive to bullshit, and he hates mediocrity in most people. He is the author of his self-published book: Facts and Fiction of Fengshui: Facts that Masters are NOT Telling You. He doesn’t have Facebook or Twitter, because he hates to be associated with people who tend to be passive-aggressive online, but he does have a very limited set of vocabularies, terrible grammar, a twisted mind that makes himself God in his own twisted world and an ability to communicate with people who wish to be his friend.