“I did everything wrong.”
These were the words that leapt to my mind Monday afternoon as I was preparing for the launch of my first e-book, “Scandalous: Lessons in Redemption From Unlikely Women.” The thought wasn’t simply nerves or anxiety. It was the truth.
With everything I’d learned about launching an e-book, given all the videos I’d watched, articles I’d read, and blog posts from authors I’d devoured, I knew I had done it all wrong.
But I also knew this: I did everything wrong, but I did it!
Last December I had a choice to make regarding my blog. My site was – quite frankly – floundering. Readership was low. I hardly posted. The blog had very little focus and the few times I did post only landed me in trouble. I didn’t know whether it was worth continuing.
But I enjoyed writing and engaging with people, even if no one ever told me I was good at it or very effective. The choice, then, was whether to shut the whole thing down or actually try and do something worthwhile and meaningful. I talked to my wife, Rochelle, and we agreed we’d give it one year. I decided to put some money into my blog, get a self-hosted site, adhere to a strict posting schedule, leverage Internet tools to build a platform, to wake early and stay up late working, and – for lack of a better phrase – work my butt off.
attitude to work. I asked that it should be looked upon, not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself to the glory of God. That it should, in fact, be thought of as a creative activity undertaken for the love of the work itself; and that man, made in God’s image, should make things, as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing.”
