My second book, A Beginner’s Guide to Taoism, is now available!
How do you measure a year?
After a year of work, my first book about Taoism is available in two formats, paperback and ebook, at several retail and online locations, including Amazon, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, and more! Depending on your location, the ebook costs $5, and the paperback is $10, although your price may vary based on your region and currency conversions.
It’s a short and easy read since I designed the book for someone who has never heard of Taoism and wants to learn how the basic principles can apply to a modern lifestyle.
*Note that there is a distribution issue with Amazon for the paperback. Please don’t purchase the paperback from Amazon, as it will be delayed. Instead, use Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or any other book retailer.
If you’d rather not buy from a big retailer, you can always purchase an epub or PDF copy from my Gumroad store below! You can pick your price ($3 minimum)!
In 2005, a group of friends and I heard of a musical film titled RENT. I knew of the Broadway play that took the theater world by storm nearly a decade prior, but since I was a teenager and lived in Texas, I never saw it. So, given that most of the original cast had returned for the film and I was a theater kid, I took the chance and hurried to my local cinema.
I could wax poetic about the musical creator, Jonathan Larson, and his tragic early death or how the play opened the country’s collective consciousness to the ongoing AIDS pandemic, but one song stood out for me- Seasons of Love, the opening number of the film.
In the song, the cast sings how many minutes are in a year, 525,600. Besides the catchy lyrics and the cast’s incredible singing voices, the song's message stuck with me. How do I measure my life? Years began to take on more meaning. I’m not afraid or worried about growing old, but rather, the song caused me to rethink my goals. Before the film, I didn’t care about New Year’s Eve resolutions and never made one either. I thought resolutions were for people losing weight or who wanted to give up soft drinks, but not for me. So, each subsequent year afterward, I made resolutions every January 1st.
Fast forward to January 1, 2023. I aimed to write and publish my first book about Taoism, tentatively titled Wayfinders. However, my writing career took a back seat to running The Taoist Online publication. To grow the organization and keep pace with other writers, I needed to write articles on Medium and not focus on my book. But toward November, with the organization starting to slow down and an entire year’s worth of writing material to pull from, I realized I did write a book!
Medium has a feature called Lists, which simply allows you to save articles under a title and then share that list with others. During 2023, I saved nearly 15 articles in a series I wrote called A Beginner’s Guide to Taoism. Intended to be basic, I wrote for new learners and those unfamiliar with Taoist philosophy or texts by using examples from my personal life and family. Writing with beginners in mind resonated with readers, and several of my articles were well-received on Medium and my colleagues.
So, I gathered 15 stories and asked a dear friend
to edit. After several weeks of drafts, formatting, and changes, we finished the manuscript and submitted it to an online distributor named Draft2Digital, which places your book inside stores, retailers, libraries, and other shops for free! They are paid by taking a portion of your book sales or a small-time author like myself; that’s a dream come true! I did, however, need to handle Amazon myself due to some hurdles with acceptance.And now, it’s available to all of you wonderful readers who have joined me throughout the year! I hope you all enjoy it!
If you’d like to support me and my writing but would rather not purchase the book, please feel free to donate or become a paid subscriber to my newsletter.