Working With Eden Gruger By Dawn Pierce

My writing journey started whilst on my first ever yoga retreat through journaling about my healing journey. I started to put my words into poems, and before I knew it, I’d written twenty seven of them!

I knew Eden and casually showed them to her and she was impressed. Suggesting that I should do something with them and maybe even consider publishing them in a book.

At that point that was something I had never really thought of doing, so I just popped them in a file and there they stayed for almost a year…

The following year I shared those poems with my yoga teacher, who she also really enjoyed reading them, and suggested that I should publish a book. After looking through them again, I decided to try and find a publisher.

It was after I was approached by a publisher and was offered a deal, that I remembered Eden and thought I would ask her opinion.

My mind had been racing round in circles of whether to sign the contract with the publisher, was I doing the right thing? something just didn’t feel right, like they were offering a service that wasn’t personal to me, and I wanted Eden’s advice.

She explained that the company although genuine, were a hybrid publisher, not a traditional publisher as I had thought (typical new writer mistake apparently?) and made their money from the services they were charging me for, and not from selling my book.

And although I had never thought about having a writing mentor before, I chose not to accept the contract and to work with Eden. She would give me one to one support, and make my publishing journey a much more personal one.

I went from thinking my book was finished, to being taught and encouraged to develop my writing style, and add more to my book - much more, than I could have ever achieved without Eden’s help.

She brought out the best of me, which I’m truly grateful for.

It has been a real journey of learning about the book, the publishing industry, and how to market to readers, were things I knew nothing about. Eden’s knowledge and experience was and is invaluable.

The most challenging part of the process for me was publishing day, loading my book onto the platforms. Technology got in the way many times, and even with Eden’s help my lack of knowledge made me very frustrated.

Now, I have gone from being an unknown first time self published author, to a one that within three months of publishing has already helped so many people, received thirty wonderful five star reader reviews, and have been top of my Amazon category. It is mind blowing!

This couldn’t have happened without Eden’s encouragement, patience and knowledge. Thank you, Eden, for making my dream a reality!

My advice to anyone who wants to write a book is to just start writing, and don't worry too much about perfection. Get that first draft down, then refine it. There’s so much more to writing a book, the whole process is hard work and time consuming. Be prepared for the highs and lows throughout your writing/publishing journey.

And I highly recommend using a writing mentor like Eden who can guide you, hold your hand throughout the entire process and help you develop a book that your proud of!