Okay, So You Wrote A Book…Now What?

In the self-publishing world, there is a belief that you don’t really start making money until your fifth book. I learned that last night from who else but my friend and mentor Latasha Jimerson from Buddy Teacher.

I didn’t think about writing five books, I am only starting to think about my second book now that my first is ready to be published. Only this time I want to take my time with it. It’ll be at least six months before the next one comes out, probably in January or February.

I had a defined plan of how I wanted to do things, but as per usual when you’re busy planning the Universe is busy tearing those plans apart as soon as you have them figured out.

I hadn’t planned on writing a book until I had at least five hundred blog posts written, but I realize now that I was holding back out of fear. I was so focused on doing the things that I want to do, that I wasn’t learning to hone the things I am good at.

The reason I want to wait so long for my next book to come out is that I want to have it edited by an actual editor. Hopefully, I will make enough with the first book to follow through on that path with the second book.

I’m also really focused on getting healthy too though. I reached out to my Psych Nurse and asked her if she could help me find someone to go for a walk outside with me once a week or so, to help me get over my social anxiety.

I know it sounds silly, needing someone to help me to get outside of my house, but I’d rather look silly for a little while than continue to stay inside and give up on all the hard work I did last summer.

The truth is that I don’t exactly know what is next. More blog posts, more content creation, more hoodie and t-shirt designs, more of the same doesn’t appeal to me though. I am stuck as to “what comes next”, and that’s frustrating because there is no real path to success when you’re a Blogger. It’s hit and miss, and that can be really time-consuming when you don’t really know what you are doing.

I sort of stumbled into being a Blogger the way I stumble into everything in my life. Now that I am here I am finding my comfort zone, and with everything that I am doing, I am finding more and more pride in myself and my environment. There is still a lot about my life that I need to change, but for the most part, I am really in a good mental and emotional place and that’s the first time I’ve been able to say that for a while.

That being said I haven’t meditated in months, largely because I become overly emotional and am almost always forced to deal with things that I am often not ready to deal with.

That’s the hardest part about this mental health journey, confronting the darkness can be the scariest thing that you deal with, but it’s almost always worth it. That doesn’t mean I want to keep putting myself through the wringer.

An honest to goodness part of me just wants to let me move on, wants to just ignore the past, and forget it all happened, but unfortunately, the universe doesn’t work that way.