If you have been following me on Instagram (@iamhakme) for awhile, I am sure you will remember earlier this year (after my U.K. revelation), I “kinda” announced that I had this book concept and I would like to make it in time for Book Fair. I remember that particular Live Video and the overwhelming positivity from all of those who were able to join me, I was touched and it confirmed that my gut feeling was right once again.
Some of you have asked for my book writing journey, to be honest with you, I really don’t have much to say. To me, it was a simple “Oh I want to do this and I know what I want to write about, let’s see how I can bring this into real life.” What I could share is some of the behind-the-scene thoughts and what I did learn from this whole process, I thought maybe these would be more value added to some of you on a day-to-day basis as I understand writing a book might not be everyone’s goal in life.
When There is a Will, There is a Way
I have never written a book in my entire life! Yes, I have been dreaming to have a book of my own since I was little, but like most dreams in life, they eventually got buried, you never really take any action and you just go on with your normal life as usual. To be honest, a couple years back, I did think “IF a book publisher finds me and offers me a book deal, that would be bloody excellent!” Here, please notice I use the capital letter “IF”! So basically, I was sitting on the idea and I was hoping somehow Harry Potter would cast a spell to make things happen for me. Nah, he never did! Couple years went by, when I was visiting the U.K., I got this urge again that I wanted to write a book, I am not getting any younger each year and suddenly I have a feeling that it’s either NOW or NEVER. I could either talk or think about it all day long, or I could do something about it. I chose the latter and I chose to take this whole matter into my own hands. With the popularity of Google (greatest teacher of all time), it’s not hard to research how things are done in this day and age. I decided I wasn’t going to write a business proposal and knock on god knows how many publishers, because my goal wasn’t to be a professional writer, the idea was simply to share my perspective of life through my own experience, so I decided to go for the self-funded option. It only took me 1 week to find a publisher, discuss the timelines, read and sign the contract, make the deposit and confirm to go ahead. I didn’t even know it could be so simple until I did it myself. I had always imagined that it would be a lot more complicated. Oh well, it’s not! Once you put your mind to something, then you start cracking the code, and you will find that it’s not that difficult. Fun fact: my publisher wasn’t too convinced about the topic at first and I could see the doubt in his eyes. BUT since it’s self-funded, I got the final SAY of what I wanted to write, not to mention that I know all of you a lot better, I’d like to think that I have a rough idea of what would be useful to you or not. I am really glad that I went for the self-funded option, because I do think it suits my style the best. I don’t get the commercial people pushing me to do something that I don’t want to do. And, in a way, this explains why I didn’t get a book deal from anyone, I simply enjoy my freedom way too much. See, something not turning out doesn’t mean that you are not good enough, it could just well be that there are other more appropriate ways (for your personality) to achieve the same result (aka a book that’s written by your beloved – me!). You just have to be determined enough to make it happen, and it will happen for you, my dear.
Being Committed 100%
Once the publisher is sorted, my job is to write the book. I got a rough deadline of 2 months to make it in time for the book fair. When people give me a deadline of 2 months, my deadline to myself is 1-1.5 months. I am a bit OCD like that because I want to have a buffer period just in case some other shit happens in my life (and it does happen from time to time) and absorb my time. Then I planned out my bullet journal, break down how many chapters I needed to write per day, and moved everything that’s not important to “after the project”. Of course while I was writing this book, my life didn’t stop. I still did my usual online sharing and managed Hakme Beauty like normal. Writing the book was more like an add-on to my usual schedule, and I needed to prioritise better each day. This is where commitment and self-discipline come into play, well, there is no point for me to plan out what my day would look like but not sticking to it, is there? I don’t know how many times my mind went blank after I typed out the bloody title. I just sat there and stared at the lovely BLANK MS Word Processor. I am not going lie, it wasn’t fun. I don’t even know how many times I said, “crap, what am I getting myself into?” when I experienced a brain malfunction moment. It felt like I had a date with my MAC Book but we didn’t have anything to say to each other, there was only silence…and the silence was almost painful. How did I overcome it? I just sat and stared, until my brain got bored of the silence, until it knew that I was serious about this, until it got the idea that I wasn’t going to bloody move if I didn’t get this done. Finally my brain surrendered and gave me the words that I needed. I guess no matter how much you want to do something, there would be bits that are less glamorous and fun, and usually those bits are the fundamentals of whatever that you are working on. You just need to be committed, push through the boredom and you will get there eventually. I did finish writing this book in 1 month and it’s well within my own deadline. Am I proud? Hell yea! And this also meant that my editor got all the extra time she needed to edit the book, no one was stressing out!
Keep Expectation Real
False expectations create disappointment and take the joy away. I can’t stress this enough. To be fair, I didn’t expect anything like more money or more popularity from this book launch. I only had one hope which I held really dearly to my heart – I hope my own experience would be somehow useful for those who might have gone through a similar situation. Like I always say about my YouTube channel – “if I ever only touch 1 life, if only 1 person finds it useful, that’s good enough motivation for me”! The idea is very similar. I really didn’t expect that it will rank really high on the sales chart or it will sell out in 3 days or something crazy like that. I am not bothered about the sales numbers, I am more bothered whether you find it useful or not. I guess because I have no expectation of how this book thing would go, it really surprised me when my publisher told me that my book ranked No.7 on Book Fair Day 1, and some days it ranked No.3 on their chart. And I have to say, it was at that point, I started freaking out (kinda like a happy freak out if that makes sense). The first thought after hearing about the chart wasn’t “oh great, the book is selling well.” The real first thought was more like, “oh my lord, people really get to read the book now…I hope that it will be useful.” Writing a book is one thing, knowing that people actually get to read the inside of it is another. I had been really nervous for a few days until I started getting comments of how some of you find it useful and how some others find it quite entertaining to get to know me on a different level. Now I am relieved and I smile every time when some of you message me and tell me you got the book and would start reading it shortly. See, because I don’t have any expectation on how many should be sold within whatever time frame, I am happy every single time when someone holding the book in his/ her hands and take a picture for me. And because I am not comparing myself to some other people’s figures or journeys, I am able to enjoy every precious moment of you holding my book in your lovely hands.
If you are following me on Instagram, you will know that I have been blahing on about moving my paper bullet journal to digital bullet journal. I am still playing with the idea and I have to say as much as I am old school (pen and paper kinda girl), I am really enjoying the digital bullet journal format. The above image is a page on my digital bullet journal dated Jul 25. It’s a collage of different comments and images some of you sent me regarding the book (I got too many messages, so I think there will be many pages similar to this going forward *laughs*). Well, it’s so easy to create pages like this on the digital bullet journal format and it also allows me to export it as an image and easily share it online with you all. Enough about the digital bullet journal, let’s get back to the book. I think this is the best image to round up this blog post. Thank you for inspiring me to check off one of my life goals. Thank you for supporting the book and what I do and not do in general. Thank you for spending the time to read it and send me your lovely thoughts. As always, I really can’t thank you enough.
P.S. Some of you have been asking me whether Hakme Beauty would stock my books. Yes, they are now available in the 4 stores and online.
P.S.S. I know some of you are not from Hong Kong and you are wondering if you could get the book somehow. Thanks in advance! I am not too sure, I know I am having a digital version coming out but I need to check with the publisher on a few details, so I will update you as soon as I can.
P.S.S.S. Back to the digital bullet journal, some of you are really interested in what my findings would be after experimenting. I think give it a few weeks, I will be able to share my full-on experience and my final decision. The question to you is whether you want the whole thing as a one off YouTube video or as a mini series on IGTV whereby I update you as I go along? Your call. I don’t mind. Let me know your thoughts on Facebook or Instagram.
