Dublin, December 2025

I first published my book almost four years ago.  You may not know, or maybe you do, but self-publishing a book is hard work. Before I decided to self-publish the story of my wonder year I pitched it to many publishers. Nobody took interest on it.

It was a crushing experience when I thought of all that time, love and dedication I had put into writing my story. But the worst thing of all was that I felt the publisher’s rejection was a confirmation of what I was fearing all along, my book was just not good enough. If you have read my book, you’ll know I have a history of second- guessing and doubting myself, basically of me being my worst enemy.

So, when the publishers didn’t think my book was good enough, they didn’t say that, but that is the way I took it, I thought the book was indeed not good enough. So, what then? My husband and my friends told me to self-publish it. After all, what did publishers know about books anyway? 

I was reluctant about self-publishing my book; I didn’t want to do it. I was afraid of what people might think of the book. At least if the book was published by a publishing house, it meant it had sort of an approval stamp that said, ‘This book is not crap’. But without that approval I just felt silly publishing it myself. What if people didn’t like it? Didn’t enjoy reading it? What would the people in the book think of it? Think of me?

Anyway, I faced those fears and self-published my book. I put a post on my Facebook page that is not very active.  I thought that, miraculously, people were going to find my book and read it and enjoy my story.  I wanted the rewards without doing the work. Just because doing the work meant putting myself out there and that was, and still is the hardest thing for me.

So, almost four years have passed since I published The Wonder Year, in that time I have sold around eighty copies. I love the fact that eighty people have read and hopefully enjoyed my book, thank you!

But to this day I have not done the work, I have not shown up for my book, I haven’t put my face out there to reach more people, to build connection, to show I really care about what I have created.

Of course, this reluctance to do this goes back to my self-belief issues but I’ll take it slow and start tackling them one at a time.

So here you have my book with  a shiny new cover, where I show my face, and this website where I plan to connect and interact with you.

It is time I started to believe in my book and show it, so here I am showing up for it!

Thanks for reading.

Lucía xx