The story of a book that readers love
One of my friends is convinced that this book doesn’t sell because the cover is wrong. These are the things you learn as an author, the hard way in my case and many cases.
The cover is actually perfect when you know the reason the book was written, it describes my journey down to the cat who used to move my keyboard so that she could have a fuss. it illustrates the state of my mind. Of course no one else knows any of that.
I tried asking AI for a cover design and I really like these two. They capture the mystical nature of it very well. Ignore the spelling, AI still has a lot to perfect.
Bad Title?
Again, it doesn’t express the contents to a stranger in the same way it does to me. I lost myself. I couldn’t tell you who I was, except an idiot because lots of people had spent a lot of time convincing me.
I didn’t know how I landed up where I was. The world didn’t feel like a friendly place to me, it felt like an unnecessarily unkind one and I couldn’t make sense of it. In other words – what is this place? I think we’re all asking that now.
A title that represents a path to follow
So I decided to change and to do so I had to answer those three questions:
- Who am I? Leading to who would I prefer to be? What was the real me?
- Where am I? How on earth did I get into this mess? What led to it? Who led to it? How did I allow it and why?
- What is the Place? It’s a Spirit World. Souls come here to have the human experience, but because we don’t know that we operate primarily at a human level. Changing to that thinking helped me to see the world and myself in a more positive way. This is the hardest section to explain briefly, but it’s not an airy-fairy section, it’s about using new thinking to change everything. Releasing the norm and exploring new ideas.
However, that’s only the three foundations of the book. There’s much more to it.
Structure
Obviously it has the normal forward, preface, introduction, but I structured the book in a way that feels realistic to me.
Section one: In the beginning
I didn’t dwell on the specifics of my journey for two reasons. Firstly, it was mainly minutiae, I used to refer to myself as the person nothing bad happened to because my problems were entirely what I now recognise as emotional abuse.
As such it would simply have been a drip feed of ‘he said and she said, he did and she did”, that could never have demonstrated the sheer grinding hell of it. It’s very hard to word the subtlety of words and behaviour that sound and appear to be nothing, but the person on the receiving end knows what it means.
Secondly, I focused more on the effects of that journey as I felt that would be something that hurt people could relate to more. I wanted people to see as they read that even if nothing really bad happened to them, they had been hurt and the hurt was real.
This section includes one of my favourite turn-arounds in thinking: The positive power of negativity.
Section two: Getting Ready to Change
I didn’t launch into the process of change because by the time you realise that you need to change you’re often too exhausted to even think about it. Most importantly, it can be a knee-jerk reaction:
- I need to change
- Get divorced/separate (oh no that wasn’t the problem)
- Change my job (nor was that, rats!)
- Walk away from my family (part of it but I still don’t feel good)
- Emigrate (bit extreme, bit better, but nothing has really changed)
- Damn!
Okay I’m exaggerating, but the truth is that you should give yourself time to think about your life, review it, and start changing your thinking.
I see here that one part is “Stand by your right to be human”, another is “The limits of intellect”. They’re both really important things to recognise and consider.
Getting ready to change is a deep dive into ways of thinking and being, ways to look at and approach life. It covers relationships, choices, strategy, judgement, and so much more.
Section three: The commitment stage
This is where you start to take action, and hopefully the reader will be well prepared to do so.
Clearer in their mind about who they are and who they want to be. What they want and need. Mostly I hope, realising that they deserve nothing but the best.
At this point I would hope that most of the emotions that hold you back, and the events that caused them, will be disappearing into the past and affecting you less and less.
Building a new life not based on the past
My favourite section in this part is: Making it real. This is a shorter section and it does cover moving from pure human to soul-human.
The perception of spiritual is, to me, questionable. It often gets wrapped up in religion, beliefs, or the work of psychics and mediums. There is another way to be, and it’s the one that makes everything real.
You are soul, you are animated by atoms, atoms cannot be destroyed so what animates you, what holds your blueprint, what contains your memories, does not die with death.
You are not solely the product of your genes, that’s physical stuff, or ‘just like your parents’, you are something unique and wonderful. A very very old one off original.
That’s one of those things that may sound too out-there, but look at it another way. Does that idea do any harm?
It’s about listening to your heart not with your ears. It’s about making the right decisions for you as a result. It’s about considering the words of others but not being influenced by them. If your heart says it’s wrong then it’s wrong for you. Maybe not forever, but certainly at this time.
There are no absolutes, everything can be reviewed and changed if necessary.
But making it all real, consciously choosing to be different, to learn about yourself and change your actions and reactions if necessary, these are the things that change thought to outcome.
The last line of the book is:
“I promise you it works, and it can work beyond your wildest dreams. It transcended mine years ago.”
Obviously we end with the obligatory: About the author, which is very short and had to be written in the third person even though I wrote it. Makes me giggle.
I’ve considered eradicating this book
Getting rid of every hard copy, removing it from Amazon, forgetting the disaster ever happened. Except…
It’s not a disaster. People sleep with this book by their bed. A friend who has never read any book more than once has turned to it three times when they were in trouble.
It may only have 10 Amazon reviews, I found it easier to pull hen’s teeth, but those reviews are good, they’re heartfelt, and they’re appreciated beyond words.
The reason I’ve decided to put this blog out there is that for years I’ve fallen for the idea of massive success – I probably need to read the book and remind myself why that’s a bad idea.
Some people do have incredible success, but overnight success is reckoned to take about 25 years a lot of the time. Is that what’s important though?
No it isn’t and the idea can demoralise you and hold you back. Here’s what does matter.
I wrote it with all my heart, to help and support people I couldn’t reach any other way.
That matters and it’s staying right where it is!
That’s where you will find it, it should be on Amazon.com too.
Let me know if ever you buy it and it helps, it’s just nice to know that it was all worthwhile.
As to you, whomever you are, never give up. It doesn’t matter how many take up your offer of help and inspiration, it matters that it’s available.
Best love
Amorah – Deb
Deb Hawken - Amorah 