Wins, Mistakes, and why marketing is not my thing
Nobody tells you that writing a book is the easy part.
Actually, that's not quite true — the writing is hard. But it turns out that everything around the writing is a completely different kind of hard, and I was not remotely prepared for it.
Let me catch you up.
The memoir problem I accidentally solved
When I last updated you, I was cracking on with the memoir. What I didn't mention was the habit I'd developed of opening the manuscript, reading it from the beginning, and editing it into a progressively shorter, blander version of itself. Less personality. More clipped. Like I was slowly ironing all the life out of it.
Not ideal.
I reached out to a distant cousin in Canada — a number one bestselling author in his genre, as it turns out, which made asking for advice slightly nerve-wracking — and one of his suggestions was to join some Facebook groups for authors.
I did. And it opened up a whole new world of marketing strategies and pain. More on that shortly.
The memoir is on a brief pause while I focus on the workbook. But when I go back to it, I'll be going back with considerably less self-sabotage.
The workbook is going really well
This is the good news. The content is nearly finished.
For anyone new here, the workbook is a practical guide designed to help women take their first steps towards solo travel within six months — small goals, no overwhelm, working through the fears and the "but what ifs" until a solo trip starts feeling possible rather than terrifying.
The next stage is working out the design, the marketing, and whether it'll be digital only or available as a printed copy too. Lots still to figure out. But the writing itself? Genuinely enjoying it.
The 1,700 likes I nearly wasted
Here's a story about a win that almost wasn't.
I posted about my journey in a Facebook group for female solo travellers and — I'm still slightly stunned by this — it got over 1,700 likes.
1,700 women who connected with what I wrote. 1,700 women who are probably exactly the kind of person my workbook is for.
And I didn't mention the workbook. Didn't link to my website. Didn't mention my own Facebook group.
I know. I know.
Lesson very much learned. I've since put a few things in place — including a link to a free PDF with my top five destinations for building the confidence to travel solo at 50+. So if you're wondering what to do with a sudden unexpected audience, apparently the answer is: have something ready for them to find.
Marketing. A brief and heartfelt complaint.
I love the writing. I genuinely do.
The marketing, however, is not for me. It's a relentless rabbit hole of strategies, platforms, content plans, algorithms, and an overwhelming number of people who want to explain it all to me for a fee.
To be absolutely clear: this is not an invitation for every Jane, Jill, and Mary with a Canva account and a digital marketing side hustle to slide into my inbox.
I'll keep persevering. For now.
But if anyone has discovered a way to make a book find its own audience without the marketing bit, I am genuinely all ears.
As always — if you're a woman thinking about solo travel and not sure where to start, my workbook is nearly ready and it's written for exactly that. Watch this space.
