#171: You can pre-order my book
I have some exciting news.
You can pre-order my book; ‘Mental Health at Work’ as part of the Penguin Business Expert series.
Here are the places you can pre-order from and an e-mail list to join if you want to come along to events, meet ups, book signings and receive some of the content that Penguin made me edit out.
Amazon https://amzn.to/3iCV6Zw
Bookshop.org https://bit.ly/37zBm2C
Foyles https://bit.ly/3lS7jeS
Waterstones https://bit.ly/37v50WH
Mental Health at Work e-mail list https://jamesroutledge.co/blogs/news/mental-health-at-work
Pre-orders are the best way to support new books and new Authors, they boost the profile of the book in the bookselling charts and incentivise the publisher and retailers to further promote the new book.
If you decide to pre-order, thank you, thank you a lot, please let me know if you do as I’d like to say thank you.
Keep reading for the real newsletter on my writing process and my story throughout writing it ....
I didn’t know I needed to get my hands on this book.
I didn’t know how much it would mean to me and how emotional I would feel about it.
Writing a book for me was always a dream, although not a goal, it wasn’t something I wrote down on a list it was more of a distant fantasy and when I got offered the chance to write one, only then did it become obvious that it was always a dream for me.
Writing a book gave me a new sense of purpose and direction in my life. Deciding to step away from being a CEO was a tough decision that felt counter to what I “should do” so the opportunity with Penguin presented itself to me as a breadcrumb leading to a new path for me, albeit I still don’t fully know where that path will lead.
Writing a book gave me purpose in that void, when I felt unsure and it was the perfect task to undertake during 15 months of isolation and lockdown.
Writing a book also allowed me to feel good at something again. Whilst I could rationally see all the good I had created with Sanctus, I never ever really felt good running a company, I constantly felt like I wasn’t doing enough or I was letting people down. I think some of that’s in the nature of startups and some of that is in the nature of me. I never felt good as a leader, yet I feel good as a writer and having the recognition from an established name like Penguin was a confidence boost.
I underestimated how hard the writing would be though, I underestimated the sheer time, the sheer drudgery too of just having to get the words down. I never imagined how evocative the process might be, bringing up feelings of guilt, embarrassment and again, that old feeling of not feeling good enough.
My perceived lack of credibility and that I’m “not an expert’ resulted in procrastination for months and it was only Sarah’s encouragement that forced me to start getting words down along with some supervision from our Sanctus Supervisor, Kate.
Kate helped me see that my expertness is in not being an expert, in being an expert talker, writer and storyteller. That my truth, my story, my experience is unshakable as it is my own. From that place, I was able to write and tell my story, and the stories of others too.
Finishing the book felt like a marathon, bit by bit, getting words down on paper every day. One sentence after the next, like one foot in front of the other.
Then there was the, what felt like thankless, task of editing and proofreading. A brutal process of reading, re-reading and editing, cutting and questioning. I changed the book completely during this, completely restructured it and sat there questioning; “is this any good?”
I didn’t share it with loads of people, if I’m honest I was afraid to. I felt quite vulnerable with it, I shared with people close to me, George, George Bell and Sarah - I knew they’d be honest with me, but I was a bit scared to share with anyone fully outside my comfort zone.
Some of the feedback from Penguin felt earth shattering, I had some poems in there that didn’t make the cut, I loved those poems and when I saw the first edit of the cover I felt a rage I haven’t felt many times before, I hated it, it wasn’t the cover for my book. I breathed heavily and sent an overly emotional e-mail, thankfully Penguin took it well and I now adore the cover.
Then silence ensued, the book was off to the printers and I hit this period of nothingness again where I was left feeling a bit depleted and sad that the writing process was over and not feeling ready to market it and shout about it.
Yesterday I got my hands on the real thing. I held the book, I smelt it, I felt it, I ran my fingers over the embossed cover, I flicked through the pages, I read the introduction twice.
What I’d been working on for 12 months, is real. It exists in physical form. It is real and will stand on bookshelves until the paper rots away.
Receiving the books felt validating, like what I’d been doing wasn’t just a lockdown dream in this distorted world, it’s a real thing.
Finally, I began sharing the pre-order link with friends and family and with other people yesterday (and now today) and people have been buying it.
I can’t begin to describe that feeling. I’ve sold products to customers, we’ve had six figure annual contracts, but nothing beats the feeling of someone buying something you’ve written, or you’ve created by hand. It feels awesome.
Again, five years of work in mental health, five years on a path, a random path in a random field in mental health, in entrepreneurship - often feeling like a mixture of a freak, a failure or a genius and never knowing which one - for friends, for family to see some of the hard work and value some of the output of all of that. It really hit home.
If you’ve been here to read some of my story over the years and you’re here reading this. Thank you. I really mean it. 170 newsletters, a lot of linkedin statuses, slightly less public blog posts and now one book. This space has been my writing home and you’ve all made me feel welcome.
I’d love you to pre-order the book and see my first published piece of writing, because there’s no way I’d be published if it wasn’t for this newsletter.
A big, warm, heartfelt thank you to everyone on this newsletter.
There are more stories to come, I just haven’t written them yet.
Cheers,
James x
My book
You can get early access and updates on my book; 'Mental Health at Work' published by Penguin by signing up here.
You can pre-order my book from Amazon, Bookshop.org, Foyles and Waterstones.
What I'm up to
I'm reading Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell
I read The Drivers Seat by Muriel Spark and That Was Then, This Is Now by S.E Hinton recently. I reviewed them on my Good Reads. The former was deeply disturbing in a good way I think.
l can't stop listening to Armchair Expert podcast on Spotify, the episodes with Matt Damon and Leon Bridges are exceptional
I just got back from Madeira for a week with Sarah, it was awesome, I'd recommend.
It's my beautiful Mum's birthday today, Happy Birthday Mum.
Thanks:
If my writing, or my work has impacted you and you'd like to say thank you or send me a tip to keep me writing, you can send me some ETH or BTC. I'm v interested in how crypto works in a creator economy.
ETH - (0x28554Bc197416bA913C32faf2b278B9f5f651119)
BTC (34e3P9bcjfVWtvWSba1ijAHxAHpRnjbrzs)
Personal Website with writing and other bits -
Sanctus OnlIne Gym with daily journaling classes - https://sanctus.community/welcome
Sanctus website with more about Coaching in the workplace -
Who am I?
I'm the Founder of a Mental Health mission called Sanctus and I'm the Author of a Book; "Mental Health at Work" that's published by Penguin and out in October.
I write this newsletter about mental health, startups and my life, my journey and 8,000 people like it enough to still be here. I try to respond to everyone who emails me, it just takes me a while.