It’s still a bit surreal to think about, but I actually have a book published under my own name. And I didn’t pay a cent for it!
Around this time last year, I was thinking about a list of big goals I wanted to accomplish — sort of like a bucket list. One of those was to write my own book. Since writing and publishing an entire book seems like such a huge and daunting effort, I was hoping that maybe I’d be able to do it in 10 years’ time.
But as things turned out, less than a year later, it’s right here — in beautifully printed paper — right in front of me! It’s been quite a journey getting it published, but in the end I can honestly say that I’m proud of everything I’ve done.
Getting The Idea Pitched
Everything started in October 2019, when a small publisher contacted and asked me to write an IELTS vocabulary book.
For context, IELTS vocabulary books are very popular. Really, in Vietnam any kind of English vocabulary book is bound to sell well. And since this is a very new publishing company, they wanted to play it safe with a genre that guarantee sales.
I… didn’t like that idea. Yes I do have a decent arsenal of English vocabulary, but I’m no linguist or academic. There is no way I can write a study guide. And plus, there are so many reputable vocabulary books out there already — does the market really need one from a random English teacher from Vietnam like myself?
And so I thought that perhaps I’d be better suited to write an autobiography of my study journey. This way, the content would be far more genuine to myself and, at least I hope, more engaging than a dry vocabulary book.
I proceeded to write an early draft of the book. The publisher kindly rejected the idea — the whole “English study biography” seems like such a novel genre that they would not want to take the risk.
I decided to send the draft to a bunch of different publishers. And Alpha Books — one of the largest publishers in Vietnam — expressed interest in my draft. They invited me over for a meeting, and after several rounds of discussion I got a contract. And away I wrote!
The Writing Process
Over the course of 3 months, between November 2019 and February 2020, I spent a couple of hours each day working on the manuscript.
The editor recommended about 50,000 words in minimum which gave me a pretty well-defined goal in mind.
The premise of the book is that I’d chronicle my English learning journey, with all the motivation, the difficulties, the study materials and methods that I used along the way that eventually culminated in me getting the 9.0 IELTS score.
To make it easier to write, I divided the book into 4 sections:
- The beginning: the early motivation that sparked the interest in studying English in me.
- New Zealand: my chapter in New Zealand and what I learned from that period.
- The IELTS journey: from when I began taking the test and my methods to get the highest scores.
- Stories from my teaching career: It seems… wrong to just write about myself, so I decided a portion of the book should be about the students I met during my teaching career.
That’s it! With that outline of the 4 chapters, I started writing.
I had to do quite a bit of digging to get the materials to write. Finding my old essays, my old study notes, the old emails I sent to my IELTS examiner, the old notebook in New Zealand. It was really fun and nostalgic at times.
I tried numerous environments to write in — a coffee shop, my bedroom, my office, outdoors, in a park bench. Eventually, I just stuck to writing in my bedroom where it is most quiet. I didn’t use any background music at all. I came to realise that distractions can absolutely destroy the flow of ideas. You can be fully immersed in the moment and the words keep pouring out, but one second of external distraction and poof — the stream of ideas just vanishes. It’s very frustrating.
The whole process was… not fun, to say the least. Hours after hours of mental labour. And at least I’m lucky that I did not encounter the dreadful writer’s block, since I’m just retelling my story. I can’t imagine what fiction writers must go through trying to come up with new details.
After quite a bit of writing, revising and updating, finally in early February I finished the manuscript and sent it to the publisher. That moment of hitting the “Send” button was a huggeee relief. I. Am. Done.!
Even More Revision
No, I was not done. The editor started going over my manuscript. Many edits and suggestions were made. Many e-mails and messages were exchanged.
For the most part though, the core parts of the book remained the same. The structure and content were left untouched. They mostly edited the wording to make it more formal and suitable for a published book. The biggest change is the switch from the pronoun “Mình” to “Tôi”. At first I felt like saying “tôi” would make it overly formal, distant, and kind of… condescending?
But I made the edits according to the editor’s suggestions anyway. I didn’t really contest anything. I’m a first-time and clueless writer and they are the pros; I definitely should listen first.
The artist came up with 3 different versions of the cover artwork before we settled on the final version. It’s really fun to look at.
Around April, just when I thought 2 months of revision was enough and the book would be ready for publication, I got news that my book needed a foreword. Oh man, they really should have told me this earlier!
I started thinking about the people who could write me a foreword. I came up with a list, and eventually decided to contact the former IELTS examiner who helped correct my essays back in 2018. I also talked with him quite frequently about other topics, so we were certainly on good terms.
I contacted him, sent him the manuscript and a summary. We had a long video chat and he gathered all the information he needed from me to produce a foreword. And in May, his foreword — the final piece of the puzzle — was done! I sent it off, and the editor told me that the book should be ready in a month’s time.
A month later, in late June, in turned out that the book was only ready for… printing. So I’d have to wait another month or so for the printing company.
A month later, in late July, after almost half a year from when my first manuscript was complete, finally the book was out in print!
Looking Back and Forward
So I’m a published author now! It’s not something that everybody gets to say. I don’t feel like I’ve earned any kind of bragging rights, or that this has made my life any better really. Life still goes on and I’m still after my next goals, except that every once in a while I get to sign a copy for my readers.
Also I’ve received a few reviews and testimonials from a couple of readers. They are all extremely heartfelt, but are from people I know so I guess it’s not entirely unbiased.
A couple of people have asked if I wrote the book as sort of a PR tactic for my English centre? Well it’s certainly something I’ve thought about, but definitely not my original intention.
Really, I wrote the book because I just felt like this is a story worth telling. I have spent so many years of my life obsessing over the IELTS test, and I feel like my experiences might just be useful to a younger person thinking of taking the test. I do feel like I’ve poured my heart out into the story, and I’ve made sure it stay as close to the truth as possible barring some small details from the past I might have got wrong.
I’m not sure how, or even if, my writing career will continue. I might consider writing another book in the future, especially if this one sells well. But at least for now, I can say that I got paid to write a book which is definitely something I can be proud of myself for!