Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Hailey’s Bali Diary


Hailey’s Bali Diary


And now for something completely different.

I wrote a book. There's something I don't say everyday. It's not an epic masterpiece of vast scale and worth. It's pretty short and contains no wizards, vampires or medieval tomfoolery. I don't really know how many pages it is. That's the first thing people always ask. I can tell you the word count, but page count is relative. How many pages is War and Peace? Quite a lot more than my book, but no one really knows because it all depends on the format. And with books that old, different publishers have different editions. Then there are e-books. Every single person reading a book on an electronic device can change the page count.

After I got back from Bali, I sat down to write a blog post about the trip. After I typed for a while, I just kept typing and typing. Sooner than I expected, it was far too long to be a blog post. So I did the natural thing and decided to post it in installments. More than a few of my posts are divided into separate parts because other things often happen in between each one. The Bali trip would have to be in separate parts because it was too long.

I could have never written it all up all at once, so I went back to it and wrote more later. Whenever I went back, I found myself typing and typing again. By the time I was finished, I knew it was never going to be a blog post.

Lily noticed I was doing a lot more typing than usual, especially since I did it on her computer, and I told her I wrote the world's longest blog post about my trip to Bali. She suggested I publish it as if it were a real book. That seemed absurd. It's too short for a book. It's just a really long blog post. Who would want to read such a thing?

As it turns out, there is a sizable market for books by expats about their adventures in foreign countries. The fact that the Bali book has nothing to do with the foreign country where I live is irrelevant. The stranger in a strange land concept is the same. An unfortunate fact of the world of books and publishing is that the author's biography is often more important to the people in charge than the book itself. I don't think JD Salinger would approve of today's book market. But in my case, being an American woman who lives in Hong Kong is marketable.

The Bali book is more graphic than I intended. You might not want to read it to your children as a bedtime story. But I'm ok with it.

Feel free to buy a copy or ten. Tell your friends about it. I only need to sell about a million copies to get rich. That's a joke, obviously. No one makes any real money from a single book. Even people who have written dozens of books have to keep their day jobs. I don't actually expect it to sell very well. I didn't write it for money anyway. Anyone who writes a book to make money is a fool.

“The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.” Karl Marx.

Maybe quoting Marx is not the best marketing strategy.

7 comments:

  1. Favourite actors, Gene Kelly????

    Never mind. I wish you well anyway, Hailey.

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  2. Thanks, but what's wrong with Gene Kelly?

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  3. Good for you! I am going to buy your kindle book just because you wrote it. ;)

    Had some major life changing events that kept me off expat blog for a while.

    But now that things are less crazy it is good to see you still living the international life.

    Good luck with kindle sales. They always start slow and grow. You should write more to finance your life adventures.

    Wishing you love, money and happiness.

    ericwt at expat blog

    http://www.capitalistenigma.com


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  4. Holy moly. Look who's back from the dead.

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  5. I am not back from the dead. I just got real busy.

    Besides, I am the perfect internet friend. I do not hassle you will PM's. I only comment occasionally on your blog.

    Plus I have referred multiple people to you blog.

    Good job on the Kindle book. Will order it later today. Keep writing.

    From you good, not dead, internet friend. ;)

    Best wishes.
    Eric

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  6. The eBook journey begins...

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No hate, please. There's enough of that in the world already.