Become a Book Author

 

                                 “When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go.”

If you ask me, have I ever thought about becoming a book author? I never even dreamed of becoming a book author. I never even knew that I could write something or make something out of writing. In my youth I never even wrote a diary for my daily life.

I'm a book lover. I love reading and I've been doing it since I was a kid. At that time I started to be interested in reading comics. I like Doraemon, Detective Conan, Kariage Kun, Sailor Moon and various other comics. Besides reading comics, at that time I also liked reading children's magazines that were sold in my country.

As I became a teenager, my reading choice grew to become a teen magazine. I started to like reading short stories. When I was in high school, I started to like reading novels. The first novel I read was by author Danielle Steel. She is my fav author. All of her novels really inspire me and my life. Apart from her, I also liked Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels, J.K. Rowlings, Agatha Christie. For authors from my country, I like Tere Liye and Habiburrahman El Shirazhy.

It's still fresh in my memory when it was my dad who was the most supportive of my love of reading books. He knows reading is my hobby and whenever we spend time outside, he always lets me buy all the books I want.

It continued until I grew up, got married, and had kids. When my kids still need more attention from me, I was busy taking care of them and I had less time to read books. It went on for a long time until when they were teenagers, I started to have a lot of free time. I started to focus on reading the book again. Sometimes I do it while waiting when they go to school.

I'm not young anymore and that's probably why I wasn't very tech savvy at the time so I never knew I could read books through an app on my phone until my lil sis told me we could read books through an app on a phone.

Two years ago was the first time I joined one platform for reading books. At first I was there to read the various types of books that I like. Until it came to a point when I was scrolling through there, I got an inspiration, why don't I try writing a book?

At that time I started trying to write a short story. It took me months to finish that one short story. When I wanted to publish it for the first time, to be honest I was really not confident, worried and unsure about all of it. Many things crossed my mind starting from what if there were no readers? What if they hate me for my writing? What if they bullied me for that? And so on.

I was never serious about doing more than that because I realized that my knowledge of technology is still minimal, I'm busy with my life and I don't know if I can do other crazy things besides that.

Why do I say that it's crazy? Because where I'm from, I'm nothing, I'm not someone to be proud of so when I do this kind of thing, I think it's crazy and trust me, a lot of people in my real life doubt me, underestimate me and belittle me because they think what I do is a waste time and it’s just a dream that impossible to be come true

But in the end I tried to get rid of all those negative thoughts and got up the courage to publish it. Even though at that time I was scared, but I just thought to give a shot. There's no harm in trying. I don't know what the result will be if I don't try.

When I was just still reading, I often gave reviews for authors and ended up getting to know and befriend some of the authors there. When they found out that I wanted to publish my story, they supported me and encouraged me to do so.

When the story was published for the first time. It took me a while to get a reader. Many other authors have supported me and said that sometimes it takes time, never give up and never get tired because writing is a process. And all of that is true, it took me a few months in the end when readers started reading my story.

At that time, when I knew I had my first reader, I still remember how happy I was when I found out that someone wanted to read my story. For me it is a great honor and achievement when someone sincerely wants to read my story.

Since then, many people have read my story. Sometimes they reach out to me via DMs and say they like my story. It was a dream that I never thought would come true. Knowing someone foreign likes my writing and they give me a review is really a happy thing and for me it is a very big achievement for me.

Time passed and without me knowing there I had already written four stories. At that time I thought I was happy there, able to produce work there and I had some good friends there. It's all enough to make me happy.

Then I wonder if I can only do that there or can I achieve more than that? I started googling and found info that we can also find a publisher to help us publish our story. Making a novel.

In my country, that's something I don't think I can possibly do. Publish my writing? Seriously making my own book? Own novel? Am I serious? I think I've gone crazy. It took a lot of effort and a crazy intention for me to do something like that.

Maybe I'm the one who really is crazy and I'm the type who likes to try new things. Even though at that time everyone closest to me thought I was crazy to have that idea, but I ignored all of it. I stayed on my feet and started getting serious about turning my writing into a novel. I want to do it with the right way. 

It took me over a year to complete my project. I really put all my best effort and my best intention to be able to do that. Many times I had to edit, read it hundreds of times and make sure that it was worthy of a novel.

My only goal is to create a novel by myself. After my baby was complete I started to figure out how to self-publish my novel. Maybe I'm sounding stupid here but since I'm old, I'm a lot slower to learn all that stuff.

It took me six months to self-publish and I'm lucky that there is an online publisher who can help me make my dream come true. They guided me and really helped me. It was not easy for me to do all that and it really took time and it was an amazing process for me to be able to make a novel and self-publish it.

If I was asked why I dared to challenge myself to write and write novels. I always remember that there are some people who know me well, they told me that they first knew me, it's because they want to get acquainted with me because they like my writing.

They always support me and encourage me that there's nothing wrong with trying something as long as you want it and it makes you happy. Whatever the result, whether it's good or bad, but as long as you put all your best effort into it, there will be no regrets.

At least I've done my best and I've managed to make my dream come true. Something that I never imagined I would be able to do, I never thought that it could happen, but in the end all the process paid off even though it took a long time to make it happen.