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Published: January 14th 2018
2018 is well in its course. And we face the new realities – extreme climates all over the world and the US withdraws from the Paris Accord; we are afraid of a nuclear holocaust while two mad men ready to press the red buttons; the US President uttering racial slurs to the African and other nations! Still we say “Happy New Year” to each other; because, some of us continue to believe in the nicety of human civilization and look forward to a better tomorrow. And definitely our travel blog community is one of them; because, we share our experience, our love and friendship with one another, we are eager to support others when there is a need. That makes a difference. So even I am late, it is never too late to say “Happy New Year” to my brothers and sisters!
I agree it’s been a while. It’s not that I was not traveling. I been to South America in June, I was in South East and South Asia in December and I am heading to Africa next week. I have no shortage of materials for writing blogs. Then why am I not writing any? Well, I have been
up to my eye balls while trying to publish travel books. One is in my native Bengali language and another in English. No, they are not Lonely Planet type guides, that’s not my style; mine are the travelogues. If some of you have published books, you would know the task! Work with the editors back and forth, the interior designers, preparing blurbs, setting pictures, formatting, cover design – the whole nine yards. It has been difficult to keep work-life balance for the last eight months. Why did I start writing books? Well, it’s all your fault the
“Travelblog.org”!! It’s not that I haven’t written short stories or articles before,- I did so in the Newspaper columns and in our family magazine. But the motivation to write and sharing with others grew more and more when I started writing the blogs. Here I got my complete freedom. Initially, I was nervous; I was checking my grammar in every sentence. But when I started receiving comments, I realized how close a community we are. My fear-factor disappeared and I started to enjoy it thoroughly. Yeeeyy, I thought. My friends started calling me blog-master. Who cares! Then I started thinking why not publish
a book? Turning the blogs to a book was challenging indeed, then I had to think about how to share my book with others. ”Why do you think one will pick up your book when there are hundreds others?”, the editor asked me every time. I learned a lot from them and I am ready to share my learning with the others. If you are interested, drop me an email at
agango54@gmail.com . I will be happy to share. Believe me, if I can do it, - you can too. My book on Vietnam is now listed in amazon and in other channels covering a wide range of global market - North America, Asia, Europe and so on… for example, check it out at
http://amzn.to/2muChdd &
http://amzn.to/2EAF7nP &
http://bit.ly/2qZfESS. In addition, there come the e-books in all the channels. The audience and the habit of reading books have changed all over the world in the last ten years and the publishers are trying to keep pace with them.
So, do I stop writing blogs from now on? Hell, No! You are my roots, you ‘raised me up’ and you taught me how to spread my wings. I will be
with you forever! Once I settle down a bit, I will be back again! This blog is not ‘au revoir’…this is to tell you ’sẽ trở lại’ in Vietnamese, ‘I will come back again’.
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Mohan Malhotra
non-member comment
Well said!
Congratulations on the book release. We need more incredible photos and travel tales! Looking forward to the next travelogue about your next trip to Africa. Happy New year!