Why you should (self-)publish your first book

Receiving that box in our mail from Create Space (an Amazon company) was an amazing feeling! After having worked on the project for so long, it was a great feeling to have real and beautiful results in our hands! Real books. Written by us (I like to call everything my wife does 'us', one of the beauties of being married!)

If you never thought about producing a book, you should take a minute and think... Why haven't you? I am not saying that everybody should write books (Google estimated in August 2010 that there should be around 130 million books!) but I meet so many people that really should!

What about you? Ask yourself the following questions and seriously ask yourself if you should write a book. Or a manual, a comic, a poetry book, a picture journey, a 101 on a subject that has your interest...

Ask yourself; 

Do i have an interest in any particular matter? 

Whenever a conversation hits a certain topic, do I get instantly involved in the discussion?

Do I get excited about a hobby, a cause or a certain holiday destination?

Do I like to express myself through art? Paining? Dancing? Drama? Photography?

Do I keep a journal?

If you answer 'yes' on even only one of these questions you should consider if you should write about it! Tell others you're thinking about sharing your passion (don't mention you're thinking of writing this book - too many people that never produced anything for themselves will tell you why it's a dumb idea...but they are wrong! Seriously!)

You know something about something that others don't. At least not in the way you see it! (self-)publishing a book is great for...

• others: we want to know what you think and how you see things. your art, insight, passion, conviction, know-how can really help us! 
• you: writing a book is a great journey in which you learn much more about the subject you already know so much about! It can also help you to become an authority, or at least a voice, in a certain area. don't ever do it for the money - at least not if you don't already have a great following. you only get little money per book, and the idea that you would already find a publisher that's going to pay you for your amazing manuscript is very small (and that seems an understatement). 

I am aware that I might have lost some of you along the way. But for those of you that are still reading, I would love to ask you this: if you were to write a book, what would it be about?!