The Foreign Service Journal, November 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2022 59 ing, and limited marketing with the author shouldering or, in my case, sharing the cost of these services. At first, my publisher said they weren’t interested in memoirs, and I might not hear back from them for months. I submitted the manuscript anyway, and within a week I received an email saying they wanted to publish it and immediately assigned me a liaison to work with editors, graphics people, and their art department. The editing process took almost eight months. I spent another month with the art department on the cover and back flap before I saw a galley of the final product. I was on a walk with my neighbor in early February of this year when I pulled up the Amazon website on my phone and saw the book for sale. Further searching revealed that it could be bought on almost any bookseller’s website. When a box of 10 copies arrived on my doorstep from the book distributor a few days later, I could barely control my excitement. The elation I felt holding the printed book in my hands is indescribable. But as I stared at the cover, I realized I had to figure out how to market the book to reach a broader audience. Keep in mind that vanity publishers do very limited marketing and promo- tion, which is mostly left up to the author. My publisher provided excellent guidance on how to get started on social media plat- forms, design a personal website, and leverage other marketing channels such as local press and media. I used all of these, including YouTube. I soon found that the official press release of my book reached companies that eagerly promised grand sales figures if I purchased their marketing services. Their sales packages often ran into the thousands of dollars with no actual guarantee of sales. I am still figuring out how to push the audience for my book beyond friends, colleagues, and family without getting enmeshed in such expensive schemes. One way is to partici- pate in bookfairs sponsored by a local independent bookstore. Another is to create an account with Publisher’s Weekly or Publishers Marketplace. Both sites provide advice on ways to promote your book. If I could offer a final bit of advice to anyone contemplating writing a memoir, it is this: It’s difficult, it takes far more time than one expects to do it right, and it’s important to be honest with both oneself and one’s reader. Anyone embarking on this venture should be prepared to encounter new discoveries along the way when mining old memories. Whether you decide, as I did, to publish for a broader audience or limit it to family is a deeply personal decision. If you feel compelled to tell your story, you should. n Above: A tea estate in Darjeeling, West Bengal, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Inset: The author (left) with classmates on an eight-hour pony trek to Yiga Chhiweli (also known as Yiga Choeling) monastery outside Darjeeling in 1969. FRANKYOUNG COURTESYOFFRANKYOUNG