Remembering All the Hidden Gems in Older Books that We Published

If the title and subtitle of this story sounds vain and like I'm doing a bit of bragging, that's probably because I am. Lately, I've been revisiting some of my older ebooks that I published nearly 10 years ago. Not only am I surprised at how relevant and just as timely the material still is, but I honestly forgot just how informative, inspirational, and extremely motivating I can be at times.

The two books that I spent the better part of the day fixing the front matter and back matter for, needed very little updating to the content, so after tweaking the meta data a little bit, to help make them more searchable on Amazon, I merely changed the book covers and republished both books again.

Since one of the titles also has an audio version, I also updated the cover art on that one. In fact, most of my motivation to revisit both books, stemmed from me giving a listen to the "retail sample" that consists of the first section in the book, presented by a talented ACX narrator I worked with at the time.

As I listened to the practical wisdom and useful tips I provided for readers, via my Audible book sample, I felt proud to know recall just how positive and up building the information is, especially for the current times we're living in.

The titles and new book covers for these much needed self help books are shown here, along with the audio sample below them.

Having fresh looking book covers that look a lot more appealing than the first ones I created, has given me a new sense of determination regarding the need to focus more attention on making my books visible to the online community, not to mention my goal to share this audio sample as a free promotional activity.

I invite readers to click and listen to some of the common sense advice that we often tend to overlook, mainly because we're usually too stuck on our own feelings and how "we feel", for us to stop and consider things from someone else's point of view.

This is a flaw that's common to human nature, and being able to recognize it in ourselves, is half the battle of learning how to cope and overcome certain obstacles in our lives, as they pertain to relationships and the people we interact with on a daily basis.

Don't forget the Hidden Gems that are Buried in Your Older Content

The two books mentioned above, were initially written in 2017, nearly ten years ago, and since then I've published several other titles that I feel especially close to and more fonder of.

That's what happens when we begin to forget about all the hidden gems we once were so proud of. The more content we modern day writers create and publish, the more forgetful we are about the projects that once mattered so much.

How could I forget the sheer value of the wisdom I was able to share with readers, when I provided the following observations:

Recognizing Toxic Behavior

Recognizing toxic behavior is not always easy to do right away. Toxic friends appear as wolves in sheep's clothing at the start of a friendship. Negative traits may be obvious, but we sometimes still miss the signs.

• Do you know someone who is only your friend when you agree to do what they want?
• Who decides which fast food joint or restaurant to eat at after shopping or a sporting event?
• Who always chooses the dvd or latest movie release you go to check out on a Friday evening?
• Is the choice of club, bar or other Saturday night activity always left up to them?
• If this sounds like one of your friends, you may want to start gauging the level of toxicity in your friendship.

Those points were taken from When to Give Up on a Toxic Friendship.

True - the information might have been provided nearly a decade ago, but that doesn't make it any less true or valuable.

The same applies to the following insights about personal growth:

Recognizing Your Own Growth

Recognizing your own growth requires taking a good long look at yourself and seeing yourself for who you really are. If you like what you see, then proclaim it happily and be proud of the obstacles you have overcome. If you don’t like what you see, then ask yourself why not and determine what to do so you can change it.

Just remember that true growth is something that takes time so be honest in your self-evaluation. Don’t beat yourself up for not changing quick enough but don’t give yourself credit where it is not due. Instead, just be objective; admit your faults and strengths. By doing so, you’ll recognize where you have grown.

Who can deny the genuine value the above paragraphs contain, when you allow yourself the grace of accepting who you are - faults and all, but you also do the same for others?

I feel confident in knowing that these two books are actually worthy of the time I've spent revisiting them, and trying to breath new life into the look and feel of the book covers.

Final Thoughts

Now that I've done the work of making these publications look a little more appealing in the Amazon marketplace, I plan to take things even a step further.

Instead of leaving it entirely up to Amazon to promote my titles and help provide them some visibility, I'm going to be a lot more proactive in promoting these titles and singing my own praises.

I've already added the books to my Benable profile page, where I can showcase them right alongside other product listings I create on the platform.

If all goes well, this should turn out to be a really strategic placement for my book titles, especially since the recommendation list where I posted them is actually my MOST POPULAR LIST on Benable, out of all 36 of the other existing list categories.

The list is called: Medium Writers Who Really Show Up, and it consists of several writers I put on display from the Medium community, because I wanted to help them and their stories get a little more visibility on both platforms.

For whatever reason, my Benable audience that visits from all over the world, really seem to love viewing that page, and I hope they'll enjoy the newest titles I just added to the rest of my book catalog on display over there.

As writers, we owe it to ourselves to do all we can to make sure that the small nuggets of gold we may have forgotten in our portfolios do not stay buried and hidden on the bookstore shelves.

Do you have any long forgotten gems that you need to go and revisit? If so, there's no better time than now to try and remember just how good a writer you really are.

Thanks for reading.