Your Soul Family – one year old

Your Soul Family – one year old!

Next week it will be a year since I left my corporate job to pursue Your Soul Family (YSF). My aim is to help others find a calmness and sense of completeness for a happier life using YSF techniques.  YSF helps you to take an honest look at yourself, to explore your inner wisdom in order to guide where you want to go.

I left work with what I thought was a publishing ready book and a publisher showing interest in it.  My year has taken many twists and turns with some highs and lows… It certainly has not been boring; in fact I have learnt so much and am continuing to learn.  This really is a whole new career.

My first book is a ‘how to’ in the use of YSF techniques to find calmness and to know yourself.  The publisher thought the concepts were good but the pace of the book would overwhelm readers.  Guided by him I did a re-write.  He still did not like it.  At this point I really did not understand what he was driving at.  Then I approached traditional agents and publishers but the rejections kept coming.  In the end I put the book to one side.

I focused on developing and delivering workshops.  I learnt much from this including the challenges of;

• finding affordable work space in London and still at least breaking even,
• attracting students,
• delivering workshops which were both insightful and fun.

Attending the Book Fair was a breakthrough for me in terms of understanding my new industry.  I learnt that self publishing had moved on from being a vanity affair.  Professional editors and book designers would engage with self publishing authors to achieve a quality book.

Launching a book was a project!!  Thank goodness I was back on familiar ground as I came from the project management world.  I know how to run a project.  I diligently set about doing some research to know what to put in my launch plan.

Also I discovered;

• Having a published book gives credibility to what I do, so I should keep trying.
• Self publishing is acknowledged now but as a first time author publisher I was the lowest in the pecking order for editors and designers accepting work. First timers can be an overhead asking too many questions, not understanding the importance of deadlines etc.  I have tried really hard to be easy to work with and to be as independent as possible.
• Marketing is my greatest personal challenge as I know little about the topic.

I decided to create a short first book called ‘Creating Your Soul Map’ as a precursor to the original book.  It is a much briefer description on how to create a soul map which is a geometric picture representing you and your life which aids connection with your ‘inner you’.   My logo is a soul map. 

I am actively working towards publishing this as an ebook on Amazon Kindle.  Its purpose is to start to get YSF out into the world using the might of Amazon.  In the process I will also learn the process of publishing.  It is a whole new world of fonts, links, pictures and licensing.

If economics allow, I will go on to create a print version of the book.

The full book ‘Finding Your Soul Family’ has two parts.

Part One is a much more detailed version for creating a soul map with more insight and depth.  It has;

• multiple exercises to aid finding out about yourself
• exercise templates,
• worked examples,
• student feedback
• full case study.

All the experience gained from running workshops has now been poured into this version of the book. I now understand what the original publisher was trying to explain.

Part two is a discourse on whether your consciousness survives death and considers perhaps you are an eternal being living a physical life to enhance your learning of life lessons such as to listen, being patient or holding your personal boundaries.

‘Finding Your Soul Family’  is currently with the editor and the cover designer starts in September.  The book will be launched on the 1^st January just as everyone is making their New Year resolutions for 2018.

Finding Your Soul Family really needs to be available in print as I think a printed book is much easier to work with when you are learning new techniques and doing exercises.  However as colour is so important to this book I will need an international print and distribution contract as Amazon’s rates for colour books are too high.  To achieve this I need to demonstrate a significant and engaged audience.  So if you are interested in joining our community please sign-up here.  I can promise you will not be spammed!

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Be a pre-launch book reviewer, just drop me an email me at alison.wem@yoursoulfamily.com  I understand I should be able to send you a free book but more on that as I learn how to do it.

Launching quality books are important to me so I have sought out a great editor and book cover designer.  One lives in California and the other in Athens so we are a very international team.  It is so good to have a team again.

Progress at last…   The first book has been edited and the cover design done.  Now it is for me to sort the images – size, compression and licensing. What a hassle this is.  Having spent a week getting my images processed only to find they look rubbish on Amazon Kindle Publishing previewer – back to the drawing board.

Thank you to the friends who helped me to choose the cover design.  The target is to launch in late September.

The second book went to the editor on the 1st August after much late night working to achieve the deadline, phew.  Putting the workshop experience into the book I had originally thought was a tweak, then a major edit but finally became another re-write!

Thank you to my family and friends who have attended the workshops and allowed me to practise on them.  All of your feedback has been taken on board.  My daughter is a secondary school teacher so one workshop included all of her teacher friends. How scary was that but very worthwhile feedback on improvements to be made.

My focus has now moved to marketing.

Once again lots of reading and research with some help from a former colleague and friend who has marketing experience.  He has constantly said ‘Know your audience’.  I have a significant international audience on Facebook so I have been learning to use their insight tool which is very good.  Now I know more about the type of person who engages with YSF.  This has helped me enormously in designing my first adverts to go into three magazines which publish in September and October.

Help arrived with another friend who critiqued my messaging in the adverts and quizzed me on what I was trying to convey.  Then I had to learn how to create a layered software copy of the design in a PDF to give to the magazine. More learning, it does my head in but at least my brains are not atrophying.

Through all of this another friend was learning to be a business coach and asked me to be one of her case studies.  Our sessions were enormously useful in helping me to know my priorities and keeping a balance with home and work where work is with me all the time in my home and in my head.

My mentor and teacher at the College of Psychic Studies has encouraged and nurtured me.  She has constantly re-affirmed I will make progress and encouraged me to believe in myself in what is quite a lonely industry until you learn to create your virtual colleagues around you.

I have been amazed how helpful and generous people have been of their knowledge and time to assist me to progress.  I would like to say a big ‘Thank you’ to all of those who have helped me and especially to those who have attended my workshops to help me to be a better teacher.  Thank you all for helping me to look forward to the next exciting year with joy.

Please share this email with any friends who you think may be interested in YSF.  This is the year of spreading the word on YSF.  Join our community at www.yoursoulfamily.com

Remember to email me at Alison.wem@yoursoulfamily.com if you would like to be a pre-launch book reviewer.

Love,

Alison