Father Sez

Last week, I wrote my first book review on this blog. It was on ‘Top Money Tips for Malaysians” written by fellow Malaysian blogger, KC Lau.  

The book is, I think, KC’s first in hard copy print, though he has earlier released e books, including a co-authored one titled “Secrets to Writing an EBook in Three Easy Steps”.  
Holding his book in my hands, I started to wonder if I could get my book published.  

I wrote my book in 2000 whilst I was in Ghana. I spent a fair amount of time on training my Ghanaian colleagues and the thought struck me that many of the lessons I was imparting had been learnt from experience. What if I put my experiences on paper - then my children, at least could learn a bit from my experience and not have to repeat the mistakes I had made or waste the time as I had.  

Having no literary slant, I just wrote the book as I would write anything else. I did spend some time figuring out a title and the best I could come up with was “WE WISH WE KNEW ALL THESE WHEN WE WERE TWENTY YEARS OLD”. 

Here it is. My first book in print!

I got the book printed by my cousin and distributed it to some of my friends as well as my colleagues in Ghana. For my children I made special hard cover editions as it was my hope that they would keep it for the rest of their lives and if possible write an updated one to pass on to their children.   

Unlike KC’s book, which has his original ideas and thoughts, my book is a collection of lessons learnt from my experiences including those from books I had read. I have also reflected on the story told me by quite a famous and accomplished Malaysian who wrote his life story. He got his story published, about 5,000 books and I think failed to sell much.  

Still, now that KC has shown the way the desire to be an author is growing stronger. Maybe I should update the book (after all it has been 8 years) with the lessons learnt since then and also include the journey my wife and I are taking to ensure that the kids learn from our mistakes.  The book is also a little slanted towards Islam. Perhaps I should do some research into the other great religions of the world and include the comparative verses where I quote from the Quran or the Sunnah.  

Well, as at now it is still just a feeling. Let us see how it goes. I am not making any firm plans on this….yet!