What book do you have hidden inside of you?

Everyone has a book hidden inside their head. I truly believe this. The difficulty is that actually writing one feels like a monumental task.

Even for those who are super creative and literary-oriented, there are countless questions and challenges. It can seem like an absolutely herculean project, something reserved exclusively for "special" people: gifted writers, born authors, wordsmiths who dedicate years of their lives to such endeavors.

But I assure you, I'm not such a special person. Yet, I'm insanely proud of "Awrignawl Creativity." So here’s the unvarnished process of how I did it—without the inspirational hype. I'm laying the entire project out in excruciating detail, specifically for curious founders and emerging writers.

Intention: Why I Chose to Write

Having zero social media presence in 2016, I saw how challenging it was to promote PROTO beyond our Kickstarter campaign. Sure, our crowdfunding was successful, but rallying people and grabbing their attention was surprisingly difficult.

Furthermore, in 2017 my ideas on creativity were scattered across hundreds of workshops, countless coffee chats, and inspirational—but ephemeral—talks. They were useful but fragmented and difficult to reference. So ultimately, social media writing promised three critical benefits at once:

• Gravity – a central place to explore and store all my ideas clearly,
• Branding – as people saw our posts daily, it helped strengthened the Let’s Make Great! brand and kept us stop of mind,
• Mission – we genuinely wanted to see creativity flourish in China and having a steady drip of inspiration was yet another way we could really realize that mission

But if I was honest, there was something deeper, more personal: finishing such a long-form project would test my creativity and discipline. I loved that challenge: could I stay focused and disciplined long enough to ship a full manuscript? The process itself was the prize.

So it was... brand-building, inspiration, revenue seeds, creative exploration, business model expansion, personal challenge—one project, six clear motives. Clearly, I felt motivated, and I slowly started writing and posting... just little thoughts here and there... and soon that slow drip gave way to a flood of ideas... unleashing a surprisingly flow of creativity, one that I sincerely didn't know I had inside of me.

My Writing Process: Start Visually

Surprisingly, writing didn’t begin in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or even Notepad. No special software was involved: just Keynote (Mac’s version of PowerPoint). As a visual thinker, doodles and diagrams were most natural for me and created the scaffolding for my words to hold onto. For two full years, I kept one fixed ritual: as soon as I woke up, even before coffee, I opened Keynote, and instead of traditional consulting slides, designed typographic images and crafted simple shapes and lines.

After about 15 minutes of design work, I exported it into JPG file and jumped into Wechat to write the main copy. At the time, WeChat’s social media didn’t even allow edits, forcing me to post whatever I wrote… typos included… so I learned to accept all those flaws.

Because the goal was clear: write, write, and write more. No judgement. No matter if it was 20 words, 200 or 2000: I just wanted to fill that time each morning with words. And as the days and weeks passed, writing became easier, my style emerged, and whenever I got bored I’d break that style-paradigm. Because again, the point was to write. Some days it was rants, other days it was an how-to guide, and yet other days still, it was my weird attempt at poetry.

The Feedback: More Please!

Some mornings, my inspiration overflowed, and I’d created extra images, a library of hundreds of future potential posts. But always, each day’s caption was written on that day because the daily context mattered and it was my way of getting into the flow of the day. I never missed a morning; after 500 daily posts, I had more raw material than I knew what to do with. Thankfully, the requests from readers and followers became clear: “We want a book!”

Next Step: From Posts to Manuscript

In late 2018, I printed each one of those 500+ posts, image-caption pair and spread them across my office floor. It was a mess. But seeing the work physically helped me quickly spot themes. I loved talking about entrepreneurship, communication, personal leadership, design, and innovative culture. Creativity clearly emerged as the primary theme, and I stacked those posts, about 200 of them, into a working draft.

I spent weeks carefully reordering it all into a singular sequence and narrative. Weak captions were rewritten, off-doodles were redrawn, and duplicates were removed, gaps identified. Once the pile felt coherent, I went back to digital, organizing it into a single Microsoft Word file formatted in our brand typeface, Avenir Next, page-sized at 6 inches square, with 10-point type and 1.15 line spacing. Three additional editing passes followed: one for structure, one for language refinement, and one final proof.

The rough draft had given way to a polished manuscript.

Printing: Choosing the Publishing Platform

I evaluated IngramSpark and Amazon KDP, ultimately choosing KDP for its simpler setup and faster proof delivery. I skipped the paid ISBN and used Amazon’s free identifier because wide brick-and-mortar distribution wasn’t critical.However, uploading wasn't smooth at all:

Upload. Margin error.

Tweak template. Margin error.

Re-upload in a new blank Word doc, copy-paste everything. Margin error—again.

While KDP’s template was technically correct, I learned to add an extra 0.05-inch buffer anyway. Several images flagged as low-resolution, forcing me to replace them with the original 300 dpi exports. To better visualize the final product, I also printed several local copies in Shanghai, further adjusting micro-details each time. Each edit was incredibly frustrating and time-consuming.

Investment: Time and Money

The hard costs were modest: Amazon KDP proof copies at $8 each, €12 in shipping, plus maybe another €45 in local printing—roughly €68 total. The real cost was time: about one hour each morning for two years (easily 730+ hours), an additional 104 hours for editing, and roughly 20 hours learning and troubleshooting KDP. Altogether, the time invested amounted to 850+ hours.

Low Point: Lingering Doubts

As the final product started to take shape, I had so many doubts. How many people would actually buy a copy? Why would those who had read it online for free spend money on a physical copy? And isn’t print media dead anyway?

I could hypothesize and share my theories about why and how no one reads anymore, but let’s skip that and jump straight to the results.

The Results: What Happened After Launch

“HERE IT IS 🔥🔥🔥—My book is on Amazon!” Finally… after years of writing, months of editing, and weeks of refining, I shared the news on LinkedIn, Instagram, and WeChat on a Monday. The announcement did more than celebrate—it clarified the book's purpose:

Within 24 hours, eager fans of creativity who found our brand on social media ordered copies for themselves and bulk orders for their teams. Friends in Shanghai also sent WeChat payments for the local print run. A clear call to action transformed interest into measurable demand.

During the first month, the book sold hundreds of copies—mostly to former workshop participants and LinkedIn followers—and inbound inquiries increased by nearly twenty percent. Sales calls now started with “I’ve read your book,” dramatically shortening the trust-building phase.

Conclusion: The Sacred Act of Writing

Treat your daily writing slot as a non-negotiable meeting; use familiar, simple tools; archive everything systematically from day one; print your material before heavy editing; anticipate multiple KDP rejections and always download their error report rather than guessing; order physical proofs because on-screen previews hide margin and color issues; and remember that promotion starts immediately upon launch.

What Comes Next

With creativity documented, I’m sifting through the entrepreneurship stack for a second volume and scheduling podcast interviews to keep the current book visible. The habit that produced this manuscript continued every morning on Instagram for years. While that once torrid pace of writing has slowed now, that creative confidence endures.

I still get messages of appreciation from fans/strangers online, often with pictures of their doodles next to mine, how cool is that? And whenever I see my words, I can honestly say it feels fresh—even inspiring—to me. So perhaps this entire process was a strange gift to myself. Whatever it was, it’s worth it.

Last Thoughts:

You don’t need perfect software, flawless margins, or immunity from typos. You need a consistent ritual, a willingness to sift chaos later, and the stubborn faith that every rejection is just the universe asking, “Are you serious?”

Hit “publish” anyway.

Ship the draft.

Let the next margin error teach you where the real edge is.

See you on the other side of “post.”

B

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PS Keep it simple!

I used Keynote because it was much simpler than Adobe Photoshop and already very familiar after creating thousands of workshop slides over the years. I built a blank 1080 × 1080-pixel template, and after 15 minutes of design work, I exported the slide as a JPG, drafting directly in WeChat.

Later, I eliminated this step entirely, and traded Keynote for doodling directly in Instagram’s stories. Our brand’s philosophy of prioritizing speed, and eliminating excuses actually led to the hand-drawn style that our brand came to be known for. Proof that anyone can do this... you can do this :)

And if you're ever stuck creatively, reach out. Clearly, I've been there myself and I bet we can find our way out of it! At the very least, we'll have a few laughs about the process!