How to Grow Roses
(and Self-Publish Books and become an Expat)
Some years ago, I developed an interest in growing roses. Not the roses we see around us everywhere - climbers on fences, rose trees in the street medians, and bushes in city parks and neighborhoods. I mean the exquisite, perfect roses known professionally as hybrid teas. These are the roses you see in those closeup photographs of a single flower.
As I was saying, I developed an interest in hybrid tea roses and began learning all I could about them. I even joined a club of rose enthusiasts (who were all decades older than me, with years of experience). I read books and magazine articles on the optimum way to grow these beauties who required lots of tender loving care. I started with three of the hybrid teas and began the very rewarding experience of producing my own exquisite roses. Very satisfying.
So, what does an article about growing roses - admittedly a tiny special interest niche - have to do with self-publishing? Furthermore, how does this relate to the expat lifestyle since this is nominally an expat-themed forum? Good questions.
The answers come from my discoveries about growing roses. You see, when one rose expert extolled the virtues of a specific type of soil combined with measured and scheduled treatments with a specific fertilizer blend, detailed pruning instructions, insecticide treatments, sun/shade balance, and watering guidelines, another enthusiast with comparable credentials and equal success at growing these somewhat temperamental beauties to flower show quality would step up to promote his own particular protocol for producing the best roses. However, his instructions might be very different from the first authority. Then yet another aficionado would vociferously defend a third methodology. And on and on. It seemed that each expert was using different routes but they were all achieving success. I came to the conclusion that there are many different ways to grow these wonderful roses.
How does this relate to self-publishing? Much later, I realized the same principles apply to many other areas of life. Let’s look at a classic example from the past. In the Twentieth Century, Ernest Hemingway was a successful author beginning with his breakout novel in 1925. But the marketing options available in his day were quite limited. Also, the population of the entire world in 1930 was only about two billion people… as compared with the eight billion one hundred years later. There are vastly more potential readers today… if you can reach them. If Hemingway was publishing in our time, there would be many, many new possibilities for promoting his books that had not even been invented in his lifetime.
The marketing and promotional opportunities today are dizzy-making. Would Papa choose to promote through a mail list? What about a reader magnet? Facebook, Google, Amazon, and other platforms offer paid advertisements to increase your book’s visibility among potential readers in the currently five billion (and growing) online netizens. What about other social media platforms? Want to make your own promotional videos to post on several popular platforms? Want to pay to have them professionally produced - or done by AI? You might go on a podcast or blog virtual tour, create your own website, podcast, or YouTube channel, do joint promotions with other authors, or sell direct from your personal online store. What about paying a professional to organize a campaign? You could consider book review sites and blogs. Maybe you could do a giveaway or contest to generate interest in your book. What about audiobooks? What about AI translated books into different languages? What about print-on-demand so you don’t have to order a minimum of 500 or 1,000 books that will have to be stored in your spare bedroom? These are only a few ways Papa could have generated visibility and interest in his books. They all have the ultimate goal of creating sales. This short list is certainly not all the possible avenues for promoting your books today - and, with the rapidly changing technology of today, wait until you see next year’s models. Better and better.
Are you getting the picture? Just like growing roses, there are multiple ways to sell your self-published books today. Like the roses, each method has its adherents and each has been successful for some people. As a self-published author, you can experiment with different techniques, different venues, and different presentations to find what is best for you. Hint: Don’t try to do them all. That is a recipe for burn-out.
Likewise, there are multiple ways to achieve a perfectly satisfying expat life. Just as in growing roses or publishing your own book, different forms of expatdom work for different people. You have to experiment and explore to see what fits you best - your personality, your resources, your type of soil/genre/location.
There are many ways to carve out a fulfilling and quite pleasant lifestyle as an expat. Despite the trouble spots and disturbing trends in today’s world, this remains a golden age for individuals to develop their potential. More wealth than ever before - not evenly distributed, obviously - but plenty of social mobility for more people to share in that wealth. Self-education, relocation, and quality of life opportunities are all around us. Can you say Reinvention?
Travel and intercultural awareness are widely available. Compared to our grandparents’ world, travel - even between continents - is cheaper, faster, more comfortable, and safer today. If you don’t like what you see outside your window, why don’t you try a new view from a new window? The fun part is in the trying. Are you ready for something different?
That’s the moral of the story. I learned there are many ways to grow beautiful hybrid tea roses. There is no one-size-fits-all; not for growing roses, not for self-publishing, and not for finding an expat lifestyle that is rewarding and sustainable. Remember, the person holding you back from growing those exquisite roses, writing those books, or changing your address to a new time zone… is you and only you. We do what is our highest priority. Yes, we may have commitments and promises. Yes, we may fear the unknown we will encounter if we venture away from our comfort zone. And, yes, there are no guarantees you will be any happier or more fulfilled. But in the end, when you look out your window and see those lovely roses or read your self-published books or wake up in that new time zone, you will have the immense satisfaction of knowing that you took the chance and tried something new. Just acknowledge this irrefutable Truth: If something is important to us; we make time for it; if it’s not, we make excuses.
And, while you are considering a venture into strange new waters of any type, how about considering a small financial venture to support your favorite consciousness-raising expat?