What I Learned After Writing My First Book

What I Learned After Writing My First Book

by

Sean C. Sweeney

Writing is a long and painful process. Things are confusing, words don’t fit, and the plan you may have had initially gets turned on its head and shoved through a blender. And that’s just the first draft. We haven’t even talked about the countless revisions that must be done, editing that has to take place, layout of the book, cover artwork, book size, marketing, uploading the manuscript to the correct marketplace, and setting the right price. Nothing about it is easy, but it can become a rewarding experience if you take the time to appreciate what you are trying to do and accept that writing is not the only thing that must occur.

In my case, the book's central idea was leadership-focused and must emanate throughout the book. It has to have some connection to the title. Within “Leading While Being Led,” each chapter aims to provide some advice for being a junior leader within an organization. To do this, I had to write out the chapter titles in a list and structure them in a way that made sense. For most writing, this can be considered an outline of sorts. That enabled me to remain on topic without burning out too quickly from the same topic. The chapters of my book, of which there are 50 (with many more just waiting to be published), were learned throughout my military career. For me, just listening to others, writing things down that imp

acted me, and letting those thoughts stew for a while, sometimes years, enabled me to put my thoughts and ideas on paper. I guess we can call that a tactical pause. Some of the best writing I could do took years to make sense to me.

My process for writing was not structured in a way that I would recommend, and looking back now, I wish it had more structure to it. For instance, instead of writing at random times throughout the week, I wish I had set aside a few minutes (5, 10, 30, 60, etc.) daily to write at least a little. Remember, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, and those small writing chunks would have compounded on each other over time.

Writing was about 50 percent of the entire process. There was still much to do regarding editing, revisions, cover art, book layout, and book size and binding type. Even after all that, I still had to submit my book for audiobook auditions, set up pricing, request a buddy to do the foreword, and figure out the release date. All these things took significant time and made me question whether I was cut out to become a published author…but I gritted through it and did it anyway.

The editing, which I did a few times beforehand, felt repetitive and forced a few times. I didn’t know why I kept reviewing what was written and adjusting it so much. I did it anyway. I figured out that these steady revisions saved me a lot of time and money when I finally selected someone to do the copy editing for me. The site I used was called ‘Reedsy’ and it was a fairly straightforward process. I just created an account, browsed their editors on their services offered section, and sent a message to several editors who specialized in my book type and were willing to take on my book and return it in a reasonable amount of time. I chose someone who was less expensive but had great reviews and could get the book back to me fairly quickly.

While that was being done, I started the process of designing the cover of the book. For this, I hired someone from ‘Fiverr.’ I gave them the book's title, some broad strokes of information about the book’s main ideas and let him know a little about myself and who I was trying to cater this book to. The artist came back a few days later with the first proof, and it was great. Only a few tweaks were made, and the cover for “Leading While Being Led” was completed. Again, the person I chose did great for what I was looking for, but I had to keep in mind my budget, so I decided on a reasonable budget option with great reviews. One thing that went into this that I did not expect was that I had to know what size the book was going to be, whether it would be hardcover or paperback, what kind of paper, and how many pages it would be. The artist needs this information so he/she can ensure the cover and bindings art fit. I highly recommend using Fiverr for things like this.

While both of those things were cooking, I had some time to browse the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) website and create and link my Amazon account. This allows the author to upload their manuscript for review, start becoming familiar with the features within the KDP marketplace and get more smarter on things such as getting paid, publicity, marketing, recommended marketplaces, price adjustments, starting or pausing book printing etc. One of the more unique things I found from KDP was that I could order “author copies” of my book. The copies could be used for anything and given to anyone; you only pay the shipping and printing costs for the books. I ordered a couple dozen hardcover and paperback ones for gifts and orders from friends, family, and others who asked for one. I also received some free Kindle versions of my book that I could send people. Apparently, this is meant to get some reviews and drive sales, but I gave them out for free to the people who asked.

After getting my book back from the editor, I reviewed his suggestions for over a day and accepted most of them since they did not take away from my voice, the intent of the book, and the target audience. Once that was done, my manuscript was complete and was ready for publishing. However, during this time, I decided to send the book out to get an audiobook made through ACX. This is linked to Amazon as well. I uploaded a small portion of my manuscript to the platform and gave them information about the book they would be auditioning for. I received a few dozen auditions from all types of readers, some sounding like James Earl Jones and some sounding like a cat in a rat trap. My wife and I listened to all of them and decided on the one that made us want to listen to the next words. He uploaded each chapter as he went through the reading to ensure everything sounded right. This also showed us his progress and ensured our deadline was met. I think he did a great job. It took a couple of weeks, but he got us the book back, and we could not have been happier.

The next part for me was finding someone I trust and respect to write the foreword for the book. Although this is not a requirement, I do believe this was a necessary part of the book. The person I asked to do it was someone I served with during my first two deployments. He himself is a published author of several books (Lest We Forget, On Assimilation, First Train Out Of Denver, and several others). I love his work, and he seemed like the perfect person to ask, so I reached out. To my excitement, Leo Jenkins obliged my request and wrote a compelling foreword for the book, to which I am eternally grateful.

The next part involved figuring out how to upload the final manuscript to KDP…a process that sounds easier than it was for me. I had to learn how to use the Kindle Create app to adjust the final manuscript for uploading to KDP. The book's editor did me a solid and sent me the version I needed to upload to the program. Hint: it is not a Word or PDF document. Once uploaded, I had to ensure the margins fit right, and none of the words were cut off. The hardest part of this was the middle margins between the pages. You’ll need more room than you think you will need, but you can check how it looks during this process. Once that was done, I also had to do the same for the hardcover book.

Now that the book was complete, the manuscript was uploaded, the audiobook was completed, and the release date was set, it was time for the book to go live on KDP. The first version was the Kindle version of the book, followed by the paperback version, the hardcover version, and finally, the audiobook version. The ACX platform was also gracious in sending me a good amount of redeemable codes for the audiobook that I could send to people. Again, I think this was for reviews, marketing, and increasing sales, but I chose to send them to people who asked for them either on Facebook or LinkedIn or those who texted me asking for one. After all, sales are great, but getting the book out to people was more importanter.

After all of this was done, I had to sit back and enjoy the millions of sales and reviews that the book brought…😉. While one may not see this book as a groundbreaker or bestseller, I can say without a doubt that it was a rewarding experience, full of learning opportunities, and ripe with second-guessing myself. Furthermore, I can say that this book was written by my own hand, in my own words, without a ghostwriter or drastic editing from industry professionals. That is something I am very proud of.

So, what's stopping you from doing the same? Pick up a pen or open up your laptop and start. The process will be long, but it will be worth it in the end. Remember, you can’t be great at something if you’ve never sucked at it, and you can’t suck at something if you never tried.