It is done.
This has been a strange an intense week, one that I am still elaborating.
Last Sunday I published the book online and then I had some issues regarding the cover with Amazon which did not seem to accept a white border I wanted to add: they thought it was a mistake on my part and it is not one of the easiest things to communicate with Amazon overseas and in the middle of the night. I had to cave in and amend my own cover for what they wanted and accepted. I wasn’t happy but hey! the book was out.
And it tells a story of death and rebirth, transformation and hope, pain and awareness; it touches existential topics such as suicide and consciousness, it is inspired by the Advaita Vedanta teachings and the lectures by Swami Sarvapriyananda, and the style is pure self-enquiry and first-person narrator. Hence, the whole process was intense. As writing a book can be.
And it also tells the story of a woman and a cat, alone in a large house by the sea.
So my cat has decided to disappear, for the first time ever in 8 years, on the evening of the launch of the book.
It felt ominous, pregnant of hidden meanings; and extremely painful. I only have her, in my life and every day. I define myself as Virginia’s owner.
Anyway, I forgot about the book, I focused on finding the cat.
And after just over three days she came back in the middle of the night as if nothing had happened.
I can now refocus on the book and hence this post of mine today: the book is out!
Should you be interested in reading it, it can be found online on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2MmU6aE and on any other Amazon platforms. I am also making the ebook version but I chose personally not to publish them at the same time.
I have created some ads to use on fb, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc such as the following ones:
And here following is the final cover, after all the testing and trying of the past month:
I have decided for the whole image but shading it to Black&White: it is not too chaotic, too busy and the palette is still limited, which is what I wanted. One of the things I am planning to work on is to study more about illustration / cover-making etc when at university in September.
I made sure that the description on Amazon contained the disclaimer and word of caution re. writing about death and suicide, from an ethical perspective and that the book is marketed only at an adult group of people.
Well… it is done! And this time I cannot wait to have a copy in my own hands! It felt nice, it felt right and I wasn’t scared during the publishing process. I know it is a difficult book and that it can take you emotionally to places you don’t want to go to, but I also know that this is a good book. And for this, I am very proud of myself! I had some feedback from people who read some of the final drafts and they all said it is highly poetic and very well written but not an easy book, emotionally, to deal with. And I am very much ok with that!
Here following are some of the pictures of the place that always sees me happy, where I have my most intense imagination and where, in March 2017, I imagined the first words of the book: the little church of St Tysilio, Menai Bridge, which dates to the early 15th century and has been a listed building for longer than I have been in this world. If you don’t find me, I am probably here: