You are here: Home / Archives for Book

How To Self-Publish Your Book

by Leave a Comment

Not everyone can do like Truman Capote. There’s no publisher who will pay you to write. I believe there are few publishers in Cambodia who would buy and publish your book. Otherwise, you need to pay your own money to self-publish your book.

Today we can self-publish a book without costing any money. That’s what I want to discuss more in this post.

I managed to self-publish my book “Cambodia In My Dream” with zero expense. The book contains the best of my writing since the last 10 years. In this process, I didn’t spend time to write or edit the stories. I know I could do it better if I review and edit all the stories and ask people to proof-reading etc but I will do these things later.

All I wanted to prove is that I, myself, can publish a book with no cost!

Today I would say the process of self-publishing the book is completed. The book is available in Kindle edition and Paperback.

All these could happen thank to the amazing platform of Amazon called Kindle Direct Publishing.

For those who interested to know in details how I self-publish my book, you can follow my steps as below:

Building Your Book

There’s a free eBook “Building Your Book for Kindle” that will teach you in details how to build your book using Microsoft word. It won’t be difficult but there are a few things that you need to respect so that as the result you can convert your book into pdf, kindle and other eBook formats.

I didn’t go through this. Since I am a WordPress user since so many years, I found PressBooks is more familiar to me. That’s the platform where I built “Cambodia In My Dream“.

Publish The Book

I just signed up an account at Kindle Direct Publishing, then submit my book. If I remember well, a few hours later, my book was already available to purchase.

There’s also a free kindle book on how to Publish on Amazon Kindle with Kindle Direct Publishing that will guide you all the details through the process.

Again, let me confirm that you don’t have to pay anything.

I then use the pdf file to submit my book to CreateSpace, where I can get my book publish in Paperback with no cost.

Then I can link both editions in one single product page as you can find it here: Cambodia In My Dream.

The linking process took a few days to complete. But as you can see I managed to publish my book by myself. There’s one thing that I didn’t mention. It’s the cover of the book. I designed it myself. But if you can’t do the cover by yourself, you need to pay a little bit of money for the designer to do it for you.

That’s the only cost that you need to spend.

I wish to see more people publish their books through this helpful and easy to use platform from Amazon. Let’s the world find more book from Cambodia!

If you have any question related to the self-publishing, feel free to drop the comment below. I will be happy to answer your questions.

PS: You can get a pdf version of the book for free, by just signing up below!

Special Promotion For Cambodia In My Dream

by 3 Comments

Cambodia In My Dream

Starting from now until 14 July 2013 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time, you can get my book Cambodia In My Dream for free.

It’s a special promotion that I want to offer so that more people, even people from Cambodia can read the book. It’s a Kindle version. So that you can read it via any device.

All you need to do is to install Kindle Application on your device.

I hope you enjoy the book and if you like it, please help to rate the book and give some review on Amazon store. You will help more people to discover the first book from Cambodia that doesn’t talk about Khmer Rouge or Genocide.

The main purpose of writing those poems and short stories is that because I am ashamed when I searched all the world’s libraries I could find only books on Cambodia about genocide, stories of blood and survival.

I wanted the world to find a book about Cambodia.

And here it comes with free to download for 4 days. Hurry up before the promotion period expires.

Click here to get the book!

Cambodia In My Dream Made Its Way To Amazon Kindle Store

by Leave a Comment

That’s the power of now.

I mean the internet and social media.

You can write a book and sell it to million of people on your own.

There’s no need to pass through book publisher or any agency.

You can manage everything on your own. But make sure it’s a good book! Otherwise nobody is going to buy it.

Cambodia In My Dream

My book “Cambodia In My Dream” is now available to download at Amazon Kindle Store.

It was a dream to me to see my name as an author on Amazon. Yes it’s really an exciting moment to me. I could not believe that I can manage everything on my own.

This is the first process. The book didn’t make any sale yet. I need to find more review from the well-known source, get the book some good rating, then the sale will come!

If you already read the book during the period I set it to free download, I hope you could help to give 5 starts reviews to the book. I mean if you really like to book. If you don’t, that’s OK, just give us as the book deserves.

But the rating and review would help to make the book more visible and people could easily find it when they look for good books related to Cambodia.

If you are a writer and want to know this process, contact me and I would tell you everything. You can publish your book for free.

I used two free services:

  • PressBooks - To edit and publish your book for free. You can export it to different formats such as: pdf, .modi and .epub. The interface is similar to WordPress. If you are familiar with WordPress, you will find it very easy to edit and publish your book.
  • Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing - To submit your book in .mobi format into Amazon Kindle Store. You can customize the book cover, title and the most important thing is to set the price for your book.

The only concern right now is how to get the money from the sales? For now Amazon didn’t support bank transfer in Cambodia. They provide only payment by cheque for Cambodia.

That should be fine. It will work exactly as Google Adsense cheque. I will need to wait until the cheque arrives, take it to the bank. Pay for the fee of clearance. You have to pay before you get the payment. That’s pretty amazing but it need to work that way.

Then you need to wait until the cash go into your bank account. It usually takes two to 3 months to get the cash on your hand.

But what excites me the most is that now I have my own product to sell. I can make money from my writing. Now I am on my way to write my first full length novel.

It is also an amazing journey to me. To make it more amazing, please go and rate for my book, give it a short review if you really like the book.

To rate, just go to the book page and click on something like: “Be the first to review this item”, or scroll down a bit to the middle of the page and click on “Write a Customer review”.

Again, here is the link to the book page on Amazon:

Click here to rate!

Tep Livina: How To Become An Outstanding College Student

by 1 Comment

How To Become An Outstanding College Student

I met Livina at BarCamp Phnom Penh two years ago.

I didn’t know much about him until I watched Loy9 Bright Spot Tep Livina here. He also spoke about Inspiring Youth through Inspiring Education at TEDxPhnomPenh here.

He was a gangster. Until he got shot one night.

Lucky enough he was not killed. The bullet just passed through his leg. He didn’t have other choice than to stay at home for one month.

That was an important month for Livina’s life. A month that could change a person’s life. A month that Livina could see what he could not see before.

What I admire the most in him is that he is honest and opened. He’s the most committed person I’ve never met. He’s the man who sets goal in his life and know how to commit to archive it.

He finally archived his goal to be an outstanding student.

His book “How To Become An Outstanding College Student” is a manifesto of a personal journey that proves we can change our life.

After telling honestly about his personal story, Livina told exactly how he did to change his life from a gangster to an outstanding student.

There are 3 important parts in his book: Self-development, Study Smart and Study skills for outstanding students.

I think it’s important for every student to find out what we love and choose the right major in college.

As I mentioned in one of my previous post here: many of young Cambodians finish by going to multiple schools, decided by others.

It’s our life. You need to know what make you happy. Don’t ask others! You should ask yourself what you want to be and set your life plan.

I recommend this book to every student, especially those who want to make a change in life. It’s never too late. Grab the book and make a change, one at a time like Livina said!

I asked few questions to Livina, hope you enjoy reading them:

Santel: Have you ever thought if there was no shooting accident, what will you become today?

Livina: I guess I would be like most of my friends with whom I spent my time. They are now doing nothing big with their life or still living in the down side of life.

Santel: A month of staying home gave you an opportunity to look back at yourself from A to Z. That one month has completely changed your life. We will not have that one month to think or look at ourselves. Should we take a vocation or going somewhere else to create a life’s plan?

Livina: Making self-reflection is definitely one of the most important things a person needs to do regularly. He/she does not necessarily have to take a vacation or anything because self-reflection can be done before one goes to bed every night.

Santel: You are the co-founder of EdNiCHE Center, can you tell us a bit more on how students can get from the center?

Livina: EdNiCHE Center offers quality English language training. It is probably the first center in Cambodia to guarantee the quality of its training and students. Taking our 12-level general English program called Efficient English Language Learning (EELL) Program, students are guaranteed an IELTS score of 6 after their graduation or they can come back to study forever.

Santel: By founding your own company, what do you see about entrepreneurship in Cambodia? What are the difficulties you experiences that you can share to people who want also create their own company?

Livina: Entrepreneurship is obviously not a new thing in Cambodia even though many so-called entrepreneurship trainers say it is new. It is great for youths to stop thinking of having a job after graduating from schools and start creating jobs for other people through business. There are many challenges in starting a business. First, the founders need to have a clear vision of their business. Second, they must be skillful or else they will have to spend a lot of money on human resources, at least at the start-up period. Third, they have to be well capitalized. With a lot of money, they can do business with more confidence and make decision more easily.

Santel: Thank you for writing the book. It’s a strange bravery from a Cambodian. Your personal story will continue to inspire Cambodian students. You say the book is just the beginning between you and the readers. Are you going to write more books?

Livina: In fact, I am in the process of publishing another Personal Development book titled “I’m the Master: Changing from the inside out”. This book will benefit a lot of people who want to be guided on the path to success.

To buy How To Become An Outstanding College Student, please call to 016455548 to order.

Visit teplivina.com for more self-development tips.

Phnom Penh Noir - Book Review

by 2 Comments

I missed my haircut schedule this weekend.

That’s a routine that I usually follow-up very carefully. Because if I miss it, I need to wait until next weekend.

“MAO HAIRCUT”, the only coiffure shop I love in Phnom Penh. It have been more than 10 years now that I go the same coiffure shop. He closes his shop before 6 PM. I leave office at 6 PM and it would take me around 1 hour to arrive in the city. There’s no way for me to have my haircut during the working day.

Now I need to wait until next weekend!

So 5 days of long curly hair :-) Hope I could deal with it.

Vitou, my son, pretends to read Phnom Penh Noir

Vitou, my son, pretends to read Phnom Penh Noir

I didn’t go to the coiffure shop because I was reading Phnom Penh Noir.

I would enjoy more reading the book if my English is better than what I know now.

It’s a big regret to me.

Somehow I finished the book without consulting the dictionary.

What I love the most from Phnom Penh Noir is the mystery hidden in each story. There is one of them that fascinated me a lot. I will tell which story I like the most in the next few minutes.

I get used to scan the contents as any other media consumers in this 21st century. I need to know within a few lines or less than 1 minute what’s in it for me before I decide the read the whole thing.

If you apply this methodology to read Phnom Penh Noir (or probably to any great novel), you would hesitate to turn the next page. And you would miss a great chance to discover great stories from the book.

It did happen to me when I first start reading the book. I could not attach myself to the stories. It might cause also from my little English and I am very new to the western writing style.

But then one day, I decided to let myself go along with the book without any purpose.

From there, I found it more and more interesting.

And this weekend, I read almost of everything. It’s a very nice discovery.

There are 15 short stories inside the book. There are 3 Cambodian writers, two of them I know well. One is Suong Mak. I published an article about his novel few years ago: Boyfriend, First Gay Novel In Khmer Language.

Another one is Kosal Khiev. I know him from TEDx Phnom Penh 2011.

I started by reading stories from Cambodian writers first because it is easy for me to understand.

Then there is one story I like the most. It’s a serial killer story set in Siem Reap, written by Bob Bergin. The title of the story called: A Coven of Snakes.

Bob created a very solid detective story that integrated very well into Cambodian history and its culture. I don’t want to tell much about the story. Be prepare yourself for a very beautiful Cambodian classical dance that you never heard of. After you read the story, I think you would never forget that dance.

I am not sure if you want to see it on your own eyes but it’s a very powerful erotic dance and a dangerous one!

Here after some of my favorite stories: Reunion by Christopher G. Moore, Orders by Christopher West, Khmer Riche by Andrew Nette and Hell in the City by Suong Mak.

You might find your favorite stories different from mine. These are the 5 stories I like the most from the book.

Phnom Penh Noir is now available via Amazon: Paperback and Kindle Edition.