Most of us have a book somewhere inside us. A story we have been meaning to write, a family history that deserves to exist, an experience that others need to hear. And for most people, that book stays there, returning to mind every few years, put away again under the weight of daily life. Not this time, we think. Next year. When things settle down. When I have more time.

Start while you still can

The first thing I would tell anyone who wants to write a family story is this: go and sit with the oldest person in your family and record them talking. Do it this week. Do not wait until you feel ready, because the moment you feel ready they may no longer be there to ask.

The stories you need are not the dramatic ones people announce at dinner. They are the ones that begin with "oh, it was nothing really" – the details people assume are too ordinary to matter. Where they lived. What the kitchen smelled like. What they did on a specific day in a specific year. These are the details that make a book feel lived rather than researched.

My mother Valentina was the keeper of our family's memory. She knew things that existed nowhere in any archive – the name of the horse Aleksei kept, the colour of Sofia's one good dress, the particular silence that fell over the house whenever someone mentioned America. I asked her questions for years before I understood what I was collecting. When she died, I understood what I nearly lost.

How to begin

Start with a list of everything you already know, however fragmented. Then sit with your relatives and record them – phone propped against a glass is enough. Ask open questions: What do you remember about...? What did they say about...? What happened after...? Then listen. The book is already there. You are just finding it.

If you have a story you have been putting off for years and want to understand what it takes to finally start, the place to begin is the same place I began: with other people who have done it.

The role of personal development

I do not think it was coincidental that I started a personal development journey a few months before I finally sat down and began writing rather than just thinking about writing. Daily affirmations, visualisation, goal setting: these are not abstract exercises. They shift something in how you relate to what is possible. But what I did not expect was the community. A global network of like-minded people, all working toward their own goals, all bringing an energy to daily life that is genuinely difficult to describe unless you have been inside it. Optimistic, supportive, forward-looking in ways that become contagious. Surrounding yourself with people who believe things are possible, who celebrate progress rather than dwelling on obstacles, changes how you think about your own project. It changed how I thought about mine. The book I had carried for twenty years did not suddenly write itself. But I stopped finding reasons not to begin.

This is for you if:

• You want to invest in your own personal development: to shift your mindset, build confidence, and create lasting change in how you think about what is possible
• You value being part of a global community of like-minded people who share a commitment to growth, accountability, and supporting each other forward
• You are curious about building a flexible, fully remote business around personal development and leadership education, on your own terms and schedule
• You have some experience in communication, sales or leadership and want to channel it into something purpose-driven with uncapped earning potential
• You are self-motivated, can commit meaningful time each week, and are open to a performance-based model rather than a traditional salary
• You want the freedom to work from anywhere while doing work that creates genuine impact

When I found Aleksei's name on the SS Neckar passenger manifest, I sat at my computer and did not move for several minutes. There he was: Molcianow, Alexei. Age 21. Occupation: farm worker. Destination: his brother on Wooster Street, Pittsburgh. Fifteen dollars in his pocket. It confirmed things I knew and corrected things I thought I knew. The documents do both, and you need to be ready for that.

Where to start for Eastern European roots

For anyone with Eastern European roots who came to America before 1957, the starting point is Ancestry.com or the free equivalent FamilySearch.org. The US National Archives have digitised passenger lists, immigration cards, and naturalisation records that are searchable by name. MyHeritage has strong coverage for Eastern European records specifically.

Soviet-era and Eastern European records

For Soviet-era records, more is available online than most people realise. Memorial, the Russian human rights organisation, maintained searchable databases of Gulag prisoners before it was forcibly liquidated in 2021; archived versions still exist. Belarusian and Ukrainian state archives have been digitising records. Jewish genealogical organisations such as JRI-Poland have done exceptional work on Eastern European vital records.

What the documents will tell you

Expect the documents to surprise you. Expect them to contradict family memory. This is not a problem: it is material. The gap between what the family remembered and what the record shows is often where the most interesting writing lives.

The hardest question I faced was not what to include but how to shape it. A family history is a list of things that happened. A book is something different: it has a structure, a rhythm, a reason for each thing to follow the thing before it. Understanding the difference took me longer than I would like to admit.

Finding the through-line

The decision that unlocked everything was finding the through-line. For Blood and Silence, that through-line is Sofia. Not the whole family, not Belarusian history, not even Aleksei: Sofia. She is in the background of most of the book and at the centre of all of it. Every chapter, however far it travels, returns to the question of what she carried and how she survived. Once I understood that, the structure followed.

What to do with gaps

On the question of gaps: every family history has them. Years unaccounted for. Deaths with no record. Decisions that left no explanation. Do not let the gaps stop you. What you know about the world your characters inhabited, the history, the geography, the material conditions of their lives, allows you to write scenes that are honestly imagined rather than falsely remembered. Be transparent with your reader about what is documented and what is reconstructed. They will trust you more for it, not less.

Write the scenes that frighten you first. The ones where you are not sure you have the right to enter. Those are usually the ones the book most needs.

Using AI in the writing process

One more thing I would not have written about ten years ago, but which is now too important to leave out: AI.

I want to be clear about what this means, because honesty here matters. Blood and Silence was written by me. Every word, every scene, every decision about what to include and what to leave out, every sentence that carries the voice of this book: that is mine. AI did not write any part of it.

What AI did do was support the work around the writing. For historical research, it was genuinely extraordinary: finding sources, cross-referencing dates, tracking down archival details that would otherwise have taken weeks. This website, which I built entirely from scratch with no prior experience of web design or coding, would simply not exist without AI. Every element of it, the Library, the design, the structure, the six sections, was built through a conversation, with me directing and AI executing. That alone changed what was possible for a first-time author working alone.

And occasionally, when I was stuck and could not see a way forward, not in the writing, but in the thinking around it, I would ask a question. Not "write this for me," but "help me think about this." The response would point me in a direction I had not considered, and from there the work was mine again.

That is, I think, the honest and most useful relationship with AI for anyone writing a book. It does not replace your voice, your judgment, or your story. But used well, it removes obstacles that would otherwise cost you months.

Rewriting the story – inside and out

There is something fitting about a course called Rewrite Your Life appearing on a page about turning personal history into a book. Writing a memoir is not just an act of memory. It is an act of interpretation: choosing which version of events to tell, which meanings to assign, which silences to break. And that process is shaped, more than most writers realise, by the stories already running beneath the surface of how we see ourselves.

The AI Assisted Academy is the course delivery arm of Industry Rockstar, an organisation founded by Kane and Alessia Minkus that has impacted over three million business owners across 80 countries. The Academy delivers practical, live and recorded training across business, AI adoption, personal development, and leadership. Rewrite Your Life is one of many courses within the Academy, and the one I would point to first for anyone on this particular journey.

The sessions are led by Jeff, a personal transformation facilitator who has worked with entrepreneurs, leaders, and creators for over 20 years, drawing on cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and methods developed alongside neuroscientists and indigenous elders.

The science behind it is striking. Cognitive neuroscientist David Eagleman found that 95% of our decisions are made by the subconscious mind before we are consciously aware of them. Those subconscious patterns are formed by early experience, and most people never revisit or rewrite them. The result is that even when we believe we are making new choices, we are often repeating old stories with new characters.

What the session offers:

• A way to see your own subconscious story structures in real time, not as theory but as direct experience
• An understanding of how emotional triggers reveal the next stage of your personal growth
• Tools to rewrite your internal identity map and move toward a more grounded, purpose-driven version of yourself
• The confidence that this is not motivation, it is awareness, which is more durable

Harvard psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, who leads the longest study ever conducted on human happiness, found that people who live with self-awareness and purpose not only feel more fulfilled, they also live significantly longer.

Your life story is not fixed. Neither is the book you are trying to write. Both are waiting for you to pick up the pen again.

To watch Jeff's presentation of Rewrite Your Life, or to find out about other AI courses that could add real value to your work and your life, take one of the two steps below.

Before you write a single word, there is a question that shapes everything else: what is this book actually for? Is it a business book, a tool to establish your authority, attract clients, build a professional reputation? Or is it a book of the soul: a story that needs to exist because the world is poorer without it? The answer changes every decision that follows, from structure to cover design to how you position it when it launches.

This is the first thing the programme I took asked me to confront. And it was the right place to start.

The Programme by Raymond Aaron

The programme was created by Raymond Aaron, New York Times bestselling author, who has helped thousands of people write, publish, and launch their books over the past four decades. It is a structured approach that breaks the book-writing process into manageable stages, designed specifically for non-fiction authors who want to self-publish to a professional standard.

Raymond Aaron's philosophy is that anyone with genuine knowledge or experience has a book inside them. The method exists to get it out efficiently, without the years of drafting and redrafting that most first-time authors spend circling the same problems. He has personally guided more than 1,000 authors through the process, and the system he teaches is built from that accumulated experience.

Who it is for

The programme focuses on non-fiction, and for good reason: non-fiction self-publishing is where new authors have the most realistic path to reaching readers. Fiction is a different and considerably harder market. If you are writing a family memoir, a business book, a personal history, or any kind of non-fiction, this is designed for you.

What it covers

What the programme covers, practically and in sequence: how to begin, how to build a structure that holds, how to name your chapters so they do the work chapters are supposed to do, how to use bullet points and signposting to make a book readable rather than exhausting, how to choose a title that earns attention, how to create a cover that does not look self-published in the wrong sense of the word, how to complete your front matter correctly, and, crucially, how to begin turning your book into content that builds an audience before the launch date arrives.

What most first-time authors miss

That last part is what most first-time authors miss entirely. By the time the book is finished and they think about readers, the opportunity to build momentum has passed. This programme addresses that problem before it happens.

If you have a book in you and want to understand the full process before you begin, or if you are already writing and feel lost, this programme is worth exploring. It answered questions I did not know I needed to ask.

Join the programme by personal invitation.

Writing the book is one challenge. Publishing it is a different one entirely, with its own decisions, platforms, and traps. This is what I learned about the landscape.

Traditional publishing – and why most authors bypass it

The traditional route – submitting to literary agents, waiting for a publishing deal, signing with a major house – is the path most writers imagine first. It also takes, on average, two to five years from completed manuscript to published book, requires an agent who requires a platform, and offers the author limited control over cover design, price, and timing. For a family memoir with a specific community of readers in mind, and a story that is urgent rather than commercially calculated, self-publishing is not the compromise option. It is often the right one.

The main self-publishing platforms

Three platforms dominate the self-publishing space, each with a different strength.

IngramSpark is the industry's professional distribution network. A book published through IngramSpark can reach bookshops, libraries, and online retailers worldwide. It is the platform that publishing insiders use and recognise, and it carries a level of trade credibility that Amazon-only publishing does not. The setup process is more technical and the print quality requirements are strict, but for authors who want their book available in physical bookshops or taken seriously by institutional buyers, IngramSpark is the serious choice.

Lulu is simpler, more creator-friendly, and requires less technical preparation. It is well suited to niche projects, personal memoirs, and smaller print runs. Its trade distribution is less powerful than IngramSpark, which matters if bookshop placement is important to you, but for an author whose primary audience will find the book online or through direct recommendation, Lulu is a perfectly viable and much less daunting starting point.

Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) is where most first-time authors begin, and with good reason. The setup is the most straightforward of the three, the integration with Amazon's vast retail infrastructure is seamless, and the royalty structure is generous. If your readers are primarily buying on Amazon, which for most English-language readers they are, KDP is where you need to be.

A simple comparison

KDP: easiest setup, strongest Amazon integration, fastest path to publication, highest royalties on Amazon sales

IngramSpark: broader bookshop and library distribution, perceived as more industry standard, better for authors seeking trade credibility

Lulu: simpler and more creator-friendly for niche or personal projects, less powerful for trade distribution

Many authors use both KDP and IngramSpark simultaneously: KDP for Amazon sales, IngramSpark for everything else.

Kindle – the ebook question

KDP also handles Kindle ebooks, which is a separate decision from print. An ebook version significantly broadens your potential readership and costs nothing additional to produce once your manuscript is formatted. Kindle Unlimited, Amazon's subscription reading programme, is worth considering, though enrolling in it requires exclusivity to Amazon for ebooks, which may or may not suit your wider strategy.

Finding your team

Find an editor. This is not optional.

No matter how carefully you read your own manuscript, your brain will not see what is actually on the page. It sees what should be there, what you intended, what you remember writing. A professional editor reads what is there. Those are completely different things.

There are two types of editing worth understanding. A developmental editor looks at the big picture: structure, pacing, whether the narrative logic holds, whether chapters earn their place. A copy editor or proofreader works at the sentence level: grammar, consistency, punctuation, the errors that slip through every draft no matter how many times you read it. For a memoir spanning multiple generations and decades, both matter. The developmental work first, the line-level work last.

Finding a good editor takes research. The most reliable platforms for publishing-specific editors are:

Reedsy (reedsy.com) – the most professional option. All editors are vetted and most have backgrounds in traditional publishing. Higher cost, but you know what you are getting.

Upwork (upwork.com) – a large marketplace with many experienced editors. Requires careful vetting: check reviews, ask for samples, and look for editors who have worked on books in your genre.

Fiverr (fiverr.com) – wide range of price points and quality. Useful for proofreading and formatting, but needs thorough vetting for more substantial editing work. Read reviews carefully and always ask for a sample edit before committing.

PeoplePerHour (peopleperhour.com) – a strong UK-based alternative with a good range of publishing and writing professionals.

Editorial Freelancers Association (the-efa.org) – the professional body for editors in the United States, with a searchable directory of vetted members and published rate guidelines.

Find a formatter. Do not try to do this yourself the first time.

Formatting is a specific technical skill. The difference between a correctly formatted print book and one with invisible errors is the difference between a file that passes KDP's pre-flight check and one that comes back rejected, or prints with wrong fonts, incorrect margins, or section breaks in the wrong places. These errors are easy to miss because they only appear in the printed object.

A professional formatter knows exactly what KDP and IngramSpark require. They work quickly because they have done it hundreds of times. The cost is modest relative to the time it would take you to learn the process from scratch, and the result is a file you can upload with confidence. All of the platforms above have formatters. Search specifically for experience with KDP and IngramSpark, and always ask to see examples of previous work before you hire.

What I wish I had known about KDP specifically

The file matters more than you think. KDP is unforgiving about formatting. Section breaks must be the correct type. Fonts must be embedded. Headers and footers must be set up properly or they will print wrong on every single page. Invest time in getting the Word document right before you upload anything. A badly formatted file produces a badly printed book, and once readers see it, it cannot be unseen.

Always order a proof copy. KDP allows you to order a physical proof at cost price. Read it cover to cover in your hands. You will find things on paper that you missed on screen: wrong fonts, widowed lines, headers that say the wrong thing. I found six issues in my proof that I had not seen in three years of editing on screen.

Your cover is your first argument with a reader. In a thumbnail on Amazon, a cover has approximately two seconds to earn a click. If it does not look professionally designed, your book will not be taken seriously regardless of what is inside. This is worth spending money on.

Categories and keywords determine whether anyone finds you. Choose your KDP categories carefully: you are competing in those categories for visibility. Research which ones your book fits and which ones are less saturated. This is unglamorous work that has a direct effect on sales.

The mistake most first-time authors make is thinking about readers only after the book is finished. By then it is too late to build anything. The community, however small, needs to exist before launch, so that on the day the book goes live, there are people waiting for it.

The mailing list is the most important asset

The most important thing I did in the year before Blood and Silence was published was build a mailing list. Not a large one: a genuine one. People who had specifically asked to hear from me because they were interested in the story. A mailing list is different from social media followers in one crucial way: you own it. If Instagram disappears tomorrow, your followers disappear with it. If your email list is in a spreadsheet, it is yours forever.

How to build it before the book exists

The way to build a list before a book exists is to offer something in exchange for signing up: something of genuine value that relates to the book. For Blood and Silence, that became the Library: family archive documents, historical sources, photographs, passenger manifests. Things a reader interested in the story would genuinely want to see. People signed up not to be sold to but to access something they could not get elsewhere.

Turning your book into a viral content machine

One of the most valuable parts of the programme by Raymond Aaron is a section dedicated entirely to promotion: how to build momentum before the book is published, how to sustain it after launch, and how to use the book as the foundation for becoming a recognised authority in your field.

Most authors treat promotion as something that begins on publication day. Raymond Aaron's framework treats it as something that begins the moment you decide to write the book. The premise is that a book, properly positioned, is not just a product to sell. It is a platform that generates credibility, content, speaking opportunities, media attention, and inbound interest from exactly the people you want to reach.

The "Turn Your Book Into a Viral Content Machine" section covers: how to extract months of content from a single manuscript, how to position yourself as an authority before the book exists, how to use the writing process itself as a marketing story, and how to build the kind of visibility that means readers are waiting for your book rather than discovering it by accident after it is published.

For anyone building a business around their book, or wanting their book to open doors rather than simply sit on a shelf, this section alone makes the programme worth exploring.

Start small, stay consistent

Start small. A website with a signup form and one honest piece of content is enough to begin. Write to your list regularly, not to sell, but to share. The relationship you build before the book launches is the relationship that sells the book when it does.