From Idea to Reality: My Journey Writing Baby Walks to Santiago

Turning our Camino experience into a book was a journey of its own. Here’s how Baby Walks to Santiago came to life

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The numbers

• 4 months from first word on paper to published book

• 40,753 words

• 408€ total costs (366€ - editing, 42€ - various covers)

• Formats - epub, pdf, docx (paperback)

Preparing

As soon as inspiration struck, I started writing. In a cosmic coincidence, I have read the book Published by Chandler Bolt just a few months before going on the Camino. In this book, Chandler lays out a plan to get from zero to selling a published book. He suggests methods to get an idea to write about, how to start writing, then how to edit, create a cover, market and publish the book. As with most advice, I couldn’t apply everything directly, but I used it as a foundation and adapted it to my own process.

Outline

If you read my post Behind the Scenes: What Inspired Baby Walks to Santiago, you know that both Lucy and I have been journaling daily throughout the Camino in our own different ways. I took my journal and Lucy's informative Instagram posts and I wrote down a summary. The summary made it clear which days should be grouped together, which topics are talked about in which order, and how our focus shifts from one thing to another as the Camino develops.

First - Reading our notes made me relive the Camino. Beyond the excitement of revisiting our amazing journey, it confirmed that this was the best way to preserve those memories.

Second - The summary naturally divided the book into chapters. While I later rearranged some sections, most of the final chapters emerged from this process.

With a clear chapter outline and a solid plan, it was time to start writing.

Writing the book

So how does a regular person write a book? I wish I could give you the answer to that. I got lucky: I was writing about a recent trip, with fresh notes and clear memories. Hearing all about writers block and some authors that would try to write 500-1,000 words every day unsuccessfully, I thought that I'm in for a hard time. The combination of those things made the words just pour out of my head into the pages. I was shocked! I was writing 3,000-1,0000 words each time I sat down to write, and I did not write every day (being a working father and all). It just felt natural, the story in my head already. In fewer than 10 writing sessions, spread over a month and a half, I had my first draft.

Making time for writing

As you can see, the writing was not the hardest part. There was a harder part - to find the time to write. Aiming for 1,000 words per day was unrealistic with a newborn at home controlling my schedule. I was mainly writing in short intervals late at night after everyone goes to sleep, and some big pushes on days that the grandparents were babysitting. The hardest part with this setup was to stop writing and pick up the same thought on the next session. Somehow, the process felt both slower and faster than I expected. I had one rule for writing: Do not look back. Whatever was written last session stays. I just read the last 2 sentences to place me where I was last time and kept on going. Soon enough, I had a complete 40,000 first draft on my hands.

Book cover

This is where it gets interesting. By the advise from Published, I went to Fiverr to find an affordable cover. I had no real idea, I was browsing different cover designers to get inspired until I got a few concepts in my head. Then I found a few designers that I liked and sent them different concepts to try. I quickly realized this was just the beginning. The fact that I had no idea what I want was showing, and I did not like any of the designs I was getting. The good thing, is that with each new design I knew more and more what I want and how to describe it. After seeing more than 50 concepts of my ideas, and paying for 9 designs, I got 3 designs that I really liked. I turned to my friends on social media to choose their favorite out of the 3 and you can see the result on the book.

Don't forget to make sure your cover is:

• RGB color coded

• JPEG for ebooks and PDF for paperback

• You paperback cover does not need to leave a blank rectangle for the barcode

Self editing

After I finished my draft, I sat down to read my manuscript for the first time. I was surprised, I expected many more mistakes and many more things to change. Is it possible that I did it so well from the first time? Of course not. I did a second self edit a few days later, and I found the same amount of mistakes I found the first time, but I did not notice them before. This is where Lucy offered her help and it became a self-and-Lucy editing process. Each of my self-edits took about 6 hours, while Lucy spent nearly twice that on hers. I gave the manuscript to Lucy feeling good. I remember telling her that the book is amazing. She brought a fresh set of eyes to it, that not only cared about the correctness and readability, but also about the facts of the story. I spent my third round of self editing changing about 25% of the book. The remarks were anything between "this sentence is too long" and "you sound like an asshole" with a few "this is not what happened" along the way.

It's hard to see your passion project in someone else's hands. But trusting Lucy’s fresh perspective made the book stronger than I ever could have alone. This was also the longest phase: I insisted to do every edit in one go and it took me a lot of time to clear 6 hours straight. There was a break of a whole month between the second and third self reviews.

Professional editing

After completing my self-edits, I turned to Fiverr once more to find a professional editor. There are 2 types of editing that I needed:

Content editing - Focuses on the big-picture aspects of a book, such as structure, flow, plot, character development, and overall coherence.

Copy editing - Deals with the finer details, ensuring correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, consistency, and style without altering the book’s core content.

I hired one person to handle both (though some reviewers still felt the book did not go through content editing). I limited myself to 3 rounds of editing, to save my money and not getting stuck on details. After each round I did another self edit.

The manuscript is ready, what now?

Publishing

Once editing was done, it was time to publish. There are plenty of possibilities to self publish your book. I went for the simplest version for me - KDP. Amazon made it very easy to just upload your book in different formats and start selling. After choosing the size of my book, formatting it, and getting the ISBN, the whole uploading phase did not take more than a few minutes. 72 Hours later my book was approved and available worldwide.

Things that helped me with my writing

Reading - I was reading almost every day, even on days that I did not have time to write. Reading other books helped me shape my vision for mine, and the fact that I was reading books made me think that my book would also be read by someone.

Writing - Journaling, writing blog posts, writing your thoughts on paper, any kid of writing basically. Writing is a muscle and as long as you keep it active your actual writing flow more easily.

Approval from Lucy - As I mentioned before, writing time as a working person and a new father is scarce. Lucy was completely on board with the book and helped me a lot. Not only with editing but also with finding the time to write and making sure that I have enough time to enjoy my son.

Look mom, I'm an author now!

This process is not bulletproof. I am very well aware that there are still grammar mistakes, I was told that it looks like there was no content editing done, and I was told that the story lacks drama. I accept all the critique with love, and I may revisit these aspects in the future, but for now, I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. For now, I am taking pride in the fact that I got a book from my head into the real world, and I wrote it in a way that it sounds like I'm telling you the story.

Final thoughts

I am proud to see this passion project of mine coming to life. The writing process of Baby Walks to Santiago was exciting. If you ask the people around me, the days around the publishing of the book were the days I was the most excited in a long time. Holding my book in my hands for the first time felt surreal, and I wish everyone could feel this feeling for themselves.

Have you ever completed a passion project of yours? How did it make you feel? Let me know!

Want to read my passion project? Get your copy of Baby Walks to Santiago here.