Those people who once would have journalled or written countless letters home as a way of documenting their experiences in a new country now turn to blogging. Canadian, Danielle Barkhouse, is no exception. Only she turned the blog about her life in Chennai, India into a blook (no, that is not a typo). When a blog becomes a book it is called a blook. The blog at Earthtodanie became The Expat Arc, and Danie published it herself through CreateSpace. She markets it using social media. Find out how her book was born and how no one is as surprised to have become an author than Danie, herself.

Danie expatriated from Canada fifteen years ago, ‘trailing’ her husband through twelve moves for his job with a multinational manufacturing company. She has enjoyed traveling, taking photographs and geocaching in the 20 countries she has visited. Having lived in four nations, they recently returned from India and call Texas “home” with their third-culture son and their third-culture golden retriever.

JP

Tell me about your own story, the one that is the basis for your book. Can you describe it in just a few sentences? To show that a book has focus it is vital that it can be described briefly and succinctly.

DB

The Expat Arc: an expat’s journey over culture shock is my personal journey through our first year of living in India. Written in an as-it-happens blog format, readers follow me through a whole range of first-time experiences and a roller coaster of emotions. Without the benefit of retrospect, I wrote an honest portrayal of culture shock from within it.

JP

Why did you write it?

DB

The blog started as a place where I could share India as I was experiencing it, with my family. My audience grew to include expats from around the world. And although they weren’t in all in India, they seemed to relate to my stories.

For someone who had always hated writing in school, writing a book was not on my life’s to-do list. The more I did it, though, the more I enjoyed it, and the more I needed to do it. I began receiving feedback and comments, urging me to publish my stories into a book. Initially, I put the blog posts into a book so I would have a bound copy as a souvenir to share with family. When I found a print-on-demand self-publishing option that didn’t cost me anything upfront but my time, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I published it.

JP

Who do you think will read your book? What made you think that there was a market for it? Now that it’s been out for a while, what proof do you have that you were right?

DB

Truthfully, I didn’t think anyone would read my book except for my family, friends and maybe a few expats. I didn’t know if there was a market for it or not, but I was going to publish it anyhow. Stubborn, aren’t I?

The book is by no means a best seller but more copies have been sold than I originally expected. I had pretty low expectations from the onset, though.

JP

It does not matter how good a book is, or how good your writing is if no one knows about it. What steps have you taken or do you plan to take to promote your book? Are you a speaker or trainer? Do you have a blog? A website? A newsletter? Do you use Facebook, Twitter or other social media tools? What about press releases and sending out review copies and free articles? Have you had any other ideas? Which methods do you think work best and can you give me any examples?

DB

As with publishing, marketing was learn-as-I-go and I’m still learning. Because my book is about me, promoting it makes me feel like I’m promoting myself instead of my book. For that reason, it has not been promoted as much as it should. I’ve used social media as a passive way of marketing, allowing people to stumble upon the information or receive it from a friend. I should have done pre-launch marketing but I didn’t know enough to know that I should.

I created a book trailer video and posted it in as many places as I could—YouTube, blogs, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter. I did a mini virtual book tour of expat blogs. I freely shared digital and print copies with other self-published writers who were willing to write reviews.

I made a huge mistake in the marketing of my book. After I published the book, I did not delete the posts from my blog. I thought those posts would bring in more readers from search engines because of the wide range of topics (correct), then my site could point them in the direction to buying my book (wrong). I eventually deleted the posts from my blog because who will buy the book if they can read it for free?  By then, the number of hits from search engines had decreased significantly. I received some advice that I should lock down the blog and only allow people who buy the book the ability to read it. That may have worked, but the last thing I wanted to do was to lock my blog. I’m not sure how I would do it differently if I had another chance but I’m certainly open to suggestions.

There are some finer points of social media that I think make it all more effective. Carrying the brand of your book or website through all social media outlets is important. People should load a twitter page or Facebook fan page and be able to quickly connect that they’ve been to your blog, or have seen your book in another place. Instant and repetitive brand recognition can be effective when there is so much other social media information whizzing back and forth. Automation is also important. The more automated your social media outlets are, the more likely people will see it through the other social media noise. And the most important is to add the ability for the social media reader to SHARE and pass it on.

JP

How did you publish your book? What was your route to publication?

DB

I’ve had a few people ask me this question. Usually, I tell them how I published my first book, and then I tell them how I would do it differently the next time.

For my first book, I made the decision to self-publish. I researched how I could do that from my computer in India. I knew I would self-publish because I felt the book had a niche topic. Lightning Source (which I would use the next time) was not a viable option for me from India. In order to use their service, I would have to register the business name of my publishing company in the US. That can’t be done unless you have a physical US address. Then I discovered plan B: CreateSpace. It seemed to be a good fit for my circumstances.

I formatted the book using Adobe InDesign software. I edited, re-edited and edited some more. I uploaded the file to Create Space and ordered a draft copy of the book. I had to wait while it was mailed to our international banker in the US and then forwarded on to me in India. Then I edited and edited again. In retrospect, I should have sent it on to someone else for editing. Now I know better.

To address two points of feedback that I’ve received about the format of my book—the reason the dates were dropped from the blog posts was because not every blog post was included in the book. Nor did every included post remain in strict chronological order. The size of the posts dictated the format for each page. With Create Space, I was limited to 100 pages so I needed to fit as much as I could into each page. Some blog posts were moved a day or two into the future or past for the sake of formatting, but it did not change the overall storyline.

JP

Self-belief can be a big problem for writers. How did you manage to stay confident in your ability and remember that you were good enough to write your book? How did you cope with the days when you thought you could not do it and that it was rubbish?

DB

I’m sitting here laughing over this question. Who has been lying to you and telling you that I’m confident in my ability?

I’ve taken a few smacks from acquaintances and have hit a few marketing roadblocks for self-publishing my book. You know, the slight look of pity you’re given as they say, “It’s really tough to get published. You have to be really good.” Or, “We can’t feature your book as we do with other writers, so we’ll just put it a little graphic way at the back of our website where nobody will see it since it’s not a real book.” Or, “So sorry, we only review traditionally published books.” Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. These are the kinds of things that wear down a person’s self-belief.

In fact, I had so little confidence in myself the first time I was contacted by Jo Parfitt to review my book–I ignored her. Yes. I did. (So sorry, Jo!) I thought she would hate the book, hate my writing, and tell me both were rubbish. So, I did not want her to read it. A mutual friend introduced me to Jo via email and I couldn’t ignore a second offer for a review (and I had hoped she didn’t remember her previous offer via Twitter). I felt completely ill having to send her my book. As I was mailing it, I was hoping she would forget to actually write the review after she’d read it. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I read the review! I had to read it again and again because I thought I must have missed the word rubbish somewhere! That one review has opened doors to other opportunities (thank you, Jo). Good things happen when I can muster up enough confidence to get out of my own way. And that’s what I think of, on the days when the doubt creeps back in.

JP

It’s easy to procrastinate, to blame writers’ block and to put off finishing your project. How did you keep yourself motivated? And how long did it take you to write it? What was your routine?

DB

To keep motivated, I live life. Life is my topic and writing is my therapy. When I’m excited, I feel the need to write about it. When I’m struggling, I feel the need to write about it. Usually, living life gives me plenty to write about.

My routine is to write first thing in the morning either while my family is still sleeping or when they’re off at work and school. Although, there are times when I’ve crawled into bed and had something stirring in my mind to the point where I can’t sleep. Then I’ll get up and write about it so I don’t keep my husband awake from the tossing, turning and sighing.

I’m more of a procrastinator when it comes to answering interview questions, mailing out books, and making my book into Kindle format. If someone has any advice to keep me motivated and on task there—I’m open to it!

JP

What was your biggest challenge regarding the writing of your book? How have you overcome that?

DB

My biggest challenge was in trying to balance between look how culture-shocked I am with not offending the people of India. I think one of the reasons other expats related so well to my writing was because I often said aloud what they were thinking. There were many times when India frustrated me, and the people I interacted with on a daily basis frustrated me to my wit’s end. There were so many vast cultural differences that I experienced and wanted to share with my friends and family. At the same time, I didn’t want to offend India or its people. I made every effort to portray that it was my adjustment to India, not India’s adjustment to me, that had to take place.

There have been times when I’ve managed to offend people with what I’ve written. Usually, it’s when people read one small blurb and take it out of context without knowing the kind of person who is behind the words. I’m also not as good of a writer as I would like to be so there are many times when I write something, hoping that it’s an accurate depiction of how I feel, and I manage for it to come out all wrong. I hope when people get to know me through my book, they’ll learn that I’m writing from my experience (or lack thereof) as honestly as I can and that any offense I cause stems from my lack of knowledge or not having such a great way with words, and not from intent.

JP

I believe that getting feedback is really important to help you recognise when your writing is really good and to find ways of making it even better. How did you get feedback on your work?

DB

Without a doubt, I should have obtained more professional feedback. Fear is a powerful thing. My blog readers constantly told me that I should write a book. They seemed to like what I was writing—so I did it. I published the best book I could with the resources that were available to me from India. I do feel I could do better a better job with my next book from within the US and with what I know now.

JP

If you were to give advice to someone else who is thinking about writing a book based on their life experience what would be your number one tip?

DB

There are certain aspects of writing or publishing a book that only the writer can do and should do. There are other aspects that the writer can do but a professional should do. Do what you have to do as the writer and let the professionals do what they should do. In the end, you’ll end up with a better product and less self-doubt.