Listen To Your Footsteps, my collection of essays, reflections and (some) poetry was published four years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic. I wrote most of it during the hard lockdowns, dedicating an hour every morning to working on it. As a result, the launch happened online hosted by Exclusive Books and, even though I had an in-person signing, there were a few people there because it was a couple of days after the ‘third wave’ of COVID-19 was announced.
In the introduction, I wrote: “This may be the first book I have written, but it is the fifth book I have started to write.”
And now here I sit. Four years later. Debating about whether to write another book or not. When Listen To Your Footsteps was published, I said to the publisher that I already had an idea for another book. She told me to enjoy the extended moment of finally having a book published.
Once I started to see sales figures, I started to question whether it was worth writing another book. I didn’t have any real expectations in terms of sales but sales were lower than even that lack of expectation. I have learnt to console myself in that Listen To Your Footsteps was published during a global pandemic which probably had an impact on sales. No in-store book launch. No interest from book fairs and festivals. No pop-ups (except for one a few months after publishing). I did a couple of interviews, all online, but I suspect people had more important concerns at that time.
When I started seriously considering writing again, I thought perhaps I should try my hand at fiction and write short stories. I’ve never written fiction so it does scare me a bit. I wrote one short story – The Hermit published in Doek! the Namibian Literary Magazine, and haven’t tried since.
I have a draft poetry collection to be edited and I have the basic idea of another collection of essays. In the mean time, I was trawling the internet and found the video of my launch on Exclusive Books’ Facebook page hosted by friend and sister Melanie Bala. (Incidentally, she also hosted an episode of the Listen To Your Footsteps podcast in which I was the guest.)
I was so looking forward to being a published author. I was so enthusiastic about the books that were still to come.