Writing my first book
The trials and tribulations of self-publishing
Programmer’s log. Epoch time 1741366167. Spring has sprung! I never realized how many plum trees there are in Oakland. The showy pale pink-purple blossoms are absolutely arresting on my neighborhood dog walks. The peach and fig trees I have been husbanding (extremely amateurishly I must add) are tentatively putting out new growth. The sounds of birds and squirrels at their feeders fills the air…
I’m excited to announce my first book, 🍁 Autumn: A Local’s Guide to Travel in Japan 🍁. The book is available in both digital and print formats! You can get it here on my website and also through your favorite retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org.
Writing a book has always been a life goal, and I have put it off for many years because I knew it was a tremendous amount of work. Once I got down to business, it was still even more work than I expected!
Apparently, it’s general consensus that writing your first book is not finished until you write an essay reflecting on the process of making the book. Who am I to argue with tradition? Check it out below!
✍️ From the blog
Self-publishing my first book
The journey from manuscript to market
On Valentine’s Day 2025, I officially announced the release of my first book Autumn: A Local’s Guide to Travel in Japan. It’s been a long journey from initial idea to the final product, more than 14 months from start to finish. It still feels slightly unreal to hold a physical copy in my hands. And now that the final product has been realized, I want to take a moment to celebrate and reflect on the entire book-writing process.
Writing and self-publishing a book is not for the faint of heart. In preparation, I read many other writer’s thoughts on producing their first book, and everyone agreed that it’s truly a terrible time-to-money investment. Nobody gets into the business of writing books to get rich, and for every one runaway success there’s thousands toiling in obscurity. People write books in order to distribute ideas, to gain visibility, to archive and reflect on their life, to nourish their undeniable creative spirit–and in the same vein, this has very much been a passion project for me as well. My goal was to write the book that I wished I had access to, back when I first started visiting Japan.
Here’s how it happened from beginning to end, plus thoughts on what’s next.
Beginnings
It all started, like with most personal travel recommendations, as a Google Doc.
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(Click here to read more)
Now that the book is finished, I’ll be writing more regularly on my blog again. I already have a few essay ideas in the hopper, and I’m planning on participating in April Cools’ Day this year as well.
Some other house-keeping updates:
The website has received a refreshed look, in order to add a new section for books
I’ve created a publishing company (details in the blog post), which you can follow at @oddimprintco
📖 Links and books
Writing and websites I’ve enjoyed recently:
The art of making apps for the small screen (WePresent)
The opposite of documentation is superstition (Hillel Wayne)
Proof (Spencer Wright)
Make it yourself (NODE)
The Place of the Handmade Artifact in a Tech-Obsessed Era (Untapped Journal)
Why 60 degrees in the fall feels different than in the spring (Popular Science)
The Pentium as a Navajo weaving (Ken Shirriff)
I recently read Babel by R.F. Kuang and I just started Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide by John Cleese.
That’s all for now! See you later alligator 🐊
Thanks for such a comprehensive write-up! It's cool to see that there is some infrastructure for self-publishing but that that trial and error process is pretty aggravating.
And congrats on your first book!