Journey from 'A Blank Page' to 'The Published Book'

 

 'A Blank Page' to 'The Published Book'

 “Journey of my first Self- Published book”- Anshul D. Sinha

  

Many of us aspire to write a book to make a difference and so did I. The journey of Self-publishing my first book was nothing less than a roller coaster ride. In this blog, I would like to share the journey.

It was in the year 2012 when I first dreamt of my Book. Back then I had many architectural sketches in my portfolio and thought it would be great to put them together in the form of a book. I was excited, the same day I scanned all my sketches and was geared up. The book should have a unique name and I named it “Archisketch”. At first, I thought of compiling around 500 sketches. I was overwhelmed with the idea and ended up designing the cover and page layout too.

 

Caption: First Cover page Design of the book back in 2012

Caption: First draft page layout of the book designed back in 2012

For a Few days, I worked aggressively on the manuscript. I thought of supporting the sketches with text highlighting the experience, the story behind or the techniques used for the sketch. It took around 15 days to complete the text for about 100 sketches. I happened to take my friend’s help for the proofreading as I was not very good with writing skills but like it is said sometimes it takes time to manifest.  It was a few months later when while I was going through my sketches and text I thought it was not worth publishing. The inhibitions about the sketch and language quality started disturbing me. I paused for a few months and focused on building the portfolio with daily sketches. At this point, the dream faded and went dormant for the next few years. I got busy with my job and master's studies.

A couple of years later while I was referring to a book on sketching, I saw many freehand sketches. This reignited the spark and I started to work again in 2017. Until now I had a few hundred sketches added to my folio. I was more confident this time about the sketch quality and refined my text language too. I carefully selected around 350 of them for the first edition. I was unclear about the chapters but decided on the total number of drawings to include. I worked further on editing but had no clear target to release. I went through immense procrastination for a few more years.

I have my uncle who has published many fiction and non-fiction books. I once informed him about my book and spoke about the concept too. He advised me about the publishing process. The next biggest challenge was to find that publisher. It was a nightmare; I had the content but lacked the courage and belief to approach it. For many years I didn’t even think about the publisher as I thought ‘Jab ready hojaygi tab dekhenge.” I would check once the script was ready. Whenever I met my uncle he always asked me about my book’s progress and I always told him “ chal raha hai…..” I had no clue who would publish my book. The doubts demoralized me, Is it worth it? What is there in it for the publisher? Why would someone publish it? Will it be of any use? The self-doubts made me settle again, I was afraid to approach. I had a manuscript of almost 25000 words along with chapters with over 350 sketches, a content of 150 pages but I didn’t know what to do. I was waiting….. In the year 2020 during COVID-19, I received a call from a publisher after he came across my social media account with sketches and asked me if I would be interested in publishing a book for them. I was overwhelmed and told them about my dream. I have been thinking about this for many years. The same day I completed the formalities of sharing the proposal and the sample content. In the next few days, the agreement was signed and I felt that the time had come for the dream to be a reality. A few days passed and I received the first draft of the page layout. I was super excited to see it materialize however a few more days passed, days became months and months became an year and I didn’t receive any further draft. I kept asking about the status and was informed that the book was in progress. After some rigorous follow-ups, I received a few more chapters. I was not at all happy with the layout. The process stalled for a few more months. I kept consoling myself that maybe the content was heavy. That's why it’s taking time. Almost 1.5 years passed and I was frustrated and almost gave up. Self-doubts started sneaking in again. I thought maybe the publisher has realized that the book has no worth and that’s why a delay. Maybe they don't want to publish it anymore. Finally one day I asked the publisher to be honest and tell me about the status and I was told that they were not going ahead with it. I was disappointed and saw the dream shatter.

It was embarrassing to answer my parents. My uncle had advised me about self-publishing but I never took it seriously for years as my book had a lot of visual content and it is very difficult to use the available templates for composition on Word. I didn’t know the software to compile this heavy content. Finally in 2023 November I decided to give it one more try. This time I wanted to be my Boss. I learned the basics of Adobe In-Design Software and finally dumped all the content on it. It took 3 days of Diwali vacation spending 7-9 hours daily to format the content. I was feeling good because I had full control of what I wanted, the kind of text sizes, Sketches, and the composition. As I was composing the book I was regaining my lost belief and felt confident.

The story doesn’t end here. I went through a month to proofread every chapter. I initially planned for a 10”x10” Hardcover but found that the format wasn’t available with the publishing platform. I had to reformat the entire book into 8.5”x 8.5 “format. My book was complete for the upload. It took a week for the review and finally, my “Archisketchbook” was ready for the launch. At 5.30 am on 24th January 2024, the book was released on Amazon.com. I was super happy to see the dream come true through the cover page on the website. It was a proud feeling to be able to do this independently and self-publish.

Caption: Cover page of the published book

I realized that this was not just a book but was my win over my inhibitions and self-doubts and about acknowledging the people who contributed to making me who I am. It’s proof of my hard work, Discipline, sacrifices, and investment in the art of sketching.

I feel great to see people benefiting from this compilation. This journey has boosted my self-esteem to write a few more and contribute to my field of Architecture.

Today I understand something that Les Brown said

“IT'S NOT OVER UNTIL YOU WIN”

By,

Ar. Anshul D. Sinha 

(Associate professor, TSAP)