Ask Others, Trust Yourself by Elisa Balabram

My journey to becoming a published author

The Day of Self-Discovery workshop on October 22^nd 2011 was great, thank you to all the women who participated, shared, opened their hearts, created their own action plans and are now on their way to achieving something wonderful!

The workshop got me thinking about my own journey in writing Ask Others, Trust Yourself. I realized that this journey started long before the idea came up to write this book. I remember that as a teenager, I would go with my little sister (10 years younger) to the club, stay by the pool, and I would come up with stories for her to keep her out of the pool so I could sunbathe (I know, horrible! But she forgave me. I think). Years later, the first book I attempted to write was a fiction one, but it was never published or appreciated.

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A few months ago when I wrote about the process of editing the book, I shared that one of the chapters didn’t make the cut. Both my mentor and the book’s editor thought that it didn’t make sense to talk about setting boundaries in a book that teaches how to ask for help. In the end, I agreed with them and took the chapter out.

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I didn't think editing my own work would be as hard as it was. I spent a long time moving information around, deleting paragraphs, and trying to choose the best chapters' order. After a few months, it was time to hire a copy editor. A friend of mine posted on a few lists she belongs to, what I was looking for. I interviewed a few of the respondents by email or by phone, and chose one.

She was great and helped me a lot. In the end, one chapter was eliminated from the book (more on this later), and a couple of chapters became one. After the editor's review, I asked two friends with business expertise to read the book and give me feedback and their suggestions were very helpful.

If you have a book inside of you and don't know where to begin, or if you have started one but don't seem to be able to finish it, the first thing you need to do is to commit to it. Once you make a decision that this book is important to you, and you need to write it, then it is time to write an outline or storyline, and then start writing.

I was able to write most of “Ask Others, Trust Yourself”, after committing to work on it every morning, every day, even if it was only for 15 minutes. Take some time to reflect on the time you are the most creative, and discuss with your family or let them know, that you need a few minutes each day, to work on this project, and that you need their support.

It wasn't that difficult to come up with an outline for the book. But it wasn't easy to follow the outline, though! 😉 Once I started writing, I soon realized that I had to allow my creative mind to write without limiting it to the outline. After I wrote a big portion of the book, I started editing it and making it fit into the outline. I was advised by my editors to delete one of the chapters, and to modify the title of a few other chapters. It was a lot of work to edit it, and to move chapters around, but we were able to do it.

When I met with the first editor to get her comments and edits, she suggested that next time I write a book, I should write an outline before I start writing it. I told her that I had an outline; I just didn't follow it every time I wrote!

After I had a better idea of the book I was going to write, I started researching book proposals information. I listened to a few podcasts and read articles online, and heard that the most important thing about getting a publisher is having a platform to promote the book.

I also learned that you need a book proposal, an outline and a couple of sample chapters, and that most likely than not, the publisher will make changes to your outline. Since I wanted to publish the book I had in mind, I decided to publish "Ask Others, Trust Yourself: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Key to Success" with POD. I had been studying self-publishing and print-on-demand for several years, and then it was a matter of choosing which POD to use.

The question that people have been asking me the most is how long it took for me to write the book. From idea to completion it took a little over two years. First I was going to write a directory of associations and business centers available to women. But after discussing the idea with one of my mentors, I realized that it was also important to discuss why, when, and how to ask for help. And the idea was born. I'll tell you more about it later.