My new book, 52 Lessons for a Better Relationships, is available to buy on Amazon or download for FREE on my website, http://www.chaddavid.ca/books/. In an ideal situation, a couple will read one lesson a week for a year as they try to reflect on and implement what’s taught. It is better than any relationship book I’ve ever found for a couple looking for practical advice to have a better relationship whether they’re in a good or bad spot. For the record, that’s not bragging; that’s an observation and more fact based. That’s a distinction good people often struggle to recognize: being self aware isn’t arrogance; thinking you’re better than others is.
To me, the best thing about this book is self publishing through Amazon is free, which lets me offer it for free without any real loss. Other self publishing groups charge about two thousand dollars for a basic package, and don’t give that much more than Amazon. The unfortunate part is being self published it’ll likely be read by ten people including my family (that’s not self deprecation; that’s an assumption based on past experience). That’s the strange part of our world; quality doesn’t mean anyone will know about it. In fact, the best craftsmen tend to be those who are word-of-mouth and not mainstream.
In the publishing world, which I learned a lot doing my first book in 2012, Emotional Sex: Making good relationships great (now offered as a FREE download on my website as well), it doesn’t matter how good you are as a writer; it only matters how many followers you have. I was told at a conference I was tricked into paying to attend in New York City (self publishing is all about making money off the writers rather than selling books), unless you have a 100k followers, a real publisher won’t care about you because book sales are 80% the responsibility of the author even in mainstream publishing. Occasionally, if you have a lot of self published books, someone might notice you, but that’s like winning the lottery. As someone who hates spending more than a couple minutes on social media, that puts me in a difficult position. Plus, as a librarian said, there are over 250k books published a year not including self publishing, so a book is brutal to promote. There is the option of hiring a publicist, but as I learned firsthand, you can hire a publicist, but anyone a normal person can afford will be no different than me. In fact, with my first book, I hired someone to try it, but I had better luck on my own, which makes sense because the publicist didn’t really care; they got paid regardless of me getting something or not. Even worse, if I somehow got on a radio station like I did years ago, who hears about a book in a couple minute interview and buys it? Getting people to care about your book is tricky business even if it is something as useful as mine.
Thus, when you publish a book (or do anything that takes a lot of work) you need to have a healthy goal. My overall goal is to publish a book a year for this decade, and I’m on a good path to do it. This year my goal is to publish a Christmas sequel, The Happy Squire: More Christmas stories to encourage and inspire, so hopefully I’ll have another book to share with the ten people who read my books by the late fall.
My main goal for publishing books is to have something for my daughters to have as a memory of me and pass on the advice I’d want them to know. Hopefully writing these isn’t foreshadowing an early death, but at least I’ll be prepared if something happens. Since both my grandpas died in their 50s and my dad passed away at 63, it’s not farfetched. Meanwhile, the dream (which is different than a goal) is to be able to be a real author one day who has a lot of readers, but for now, I’ll enjoy having a dream. On the plus side, dreams are incredibly healthy and harder to find as you get older. Sometimes the worst thing for us is to achieve our dreams, which is why so many successful people end up in rehab centers and/or depressed.
The final thing I’ll note is publishing a book isn’t a great “A-ha, I’ve done it,” experience. It’s not like finishing a race. Even when you have the book in your hand, you’re looking at it to see what can be improved, so there’s never a sense of true relief. In fact, I’m afraid to look at my book because I know I’ll find little mistakes, which will drive me crazy. Fortunately, Amazon lets me fix things, but no matter how many times I go over my book, I’ll find something to change, so I need to stay away unless someone else points out something. Like many activities, publishing a book is more about the process because it gives us purpose and something to focus on besides feeling sorry for ourselves.
May this year be a wonderful one.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, Learning to love dumb people (like me)