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 1http://www.TheCreativePenn.com W
riting, self-publishing, print-on-
demand, internet sales and marketing…for your book
 
People
’
s reactions when you say
“
I
’
m writing a book
”
 
When you say “I’m writing a book” or “I’m an author”, people have a number of 
different reactions.
 
You can get support and enthusiasm or you can get negativity…and
anything in between!Sometimes it hurts, as this may be a lifetime goaland something you feel vulnerable talking about.You expect your partner or your family to beinfinitely supp
ortive but sometimes they just don’t
get it. You may also surprise them by what youwrite.
“Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it.” 
 
William Zinsser, “On Writing Well” 
 
You will put a great deal of yourself into your book.
Even if it is non-fiction, you will find itan expression of who you are. After all, what you choose to write about reflects on theperson you are. People will judge you by the material (but then they judge you anyway!).The problem is worse when you only have one book, as this is your only child. Your soleexpression of yourself in book form. It then becomes the only thing for people to judge youon and the main thing for people to attack. Once you have some more books, you can startto relax as there are different facets of you on show. Your confidence will also grow
 –
youare now an author!
Everyone will have an opinion about you writing a book.
At the beginning you might nottell anyone you are writing for fear of what they think, or might say
 –
after all, lots ofpeopletalk about writing a book, but few actually finish one. When you tell people you arewriting a book, the comments are a mixed bag. In my experience it went like the followinggraph of criticism and praise.Initially, there was criticism, negativity and judgement
 –
or at least that is what it felt like. Thisis also directly related to the editing process. The criticism I got at the beginning of theproject was justified based on the quality of the writing. However, the criticism started to dieoff as the editing process continued and as I showed I was actually going to achieve this. AsI then started to tell more people, the praise started to come in. The criticism also dies away(unless you have a controversial book!)
 
 2http://www.TheCreativePenn.com W
riting, self-publishing, print-on-
demand, internet sales and marketing…for your book
 
This is also related to your confidence as you may often start out sounding apologetic aboutwriting a book, but this will change over time and you become proud of what you have done.
SOME PEOPLE WILL NOT LIKE YOUR BOOK.
 This is inevitable and something you have to face. This will be difficult especially when youare still a new author and emotionally involved with your book. I remember bawling my eyesout when challenged on why people would buy it. I felt that a rejection of my book was arejection of me.
I have learnt that this isn’t so
- perhaps the message was not for them at that time.
How can you deal with this difficult time?
 
Understand that how you feel is not unusual.
You are out of your comfort zone.You are not an expert in writing books, so you need to get used to it. Be gentle onyourself, and accepting that you have some lessons to learn before you make it.
 
When someone says something that you consider hurtful, take a deep breathand reassess their comment.
It is useful feedback that you can try to incorporate to
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