I Haven’t Been Myself Lately

Some days I’ve struggled to get out of bed. Somehow, I’ve also finished another book, got my books into a bookshop, started a GoFundMe and decided emailing millionaires was a perfectly sensible idea.

I’ve been struggling a bit lately.

Actually, that’s probably underselling it.

There are reasons for it. Some of it is connected to what’s happened with work recently. There’s a much bigger story there, and I suspect I’ll write about it properly when the time is right.

And I will.

Just not today.

Today isn’t really about what happened.

It’s about what happened afterwards.

Because for all the stuff I’ve been posting, writing, designing and building recently, the reality behind the screen has looked quite different at times.

There have been days when getting out of bed has felt like a job in itself.

At one point I realised I hadn’t left the house for five days.

Five days.

Not because I’d made some conscious decision to lock myself away. I just hadn’t gone anywhere.

Eventually I had to create a reason to leave the house. It almost didn’t matter what it was. I needed somewhere I had to go because waiting until I actually felt like going out clearly wasn’t working.

So I forced myself out.

And that’s roughly where my head has been.

Apparently, I’m not as good at hiding it as I thought

Something else has happened over the last few weeks.

A number of people I’ve met up with, spoken to or even just messaged have contacted me afterwards to check that I’m alright.

Not because I’ve told them anything particularly dramatic.

They’ve just noticed.

“You don’t seem yourself.”

And they’ve been right.

I suppose I’d convinced myself I was doing a reasonable job of carrying on as normal. Posting things. Taking the piss. Talking about books and football. Doing all the usual stuff.

Clearly I wasn’t fooling everyone.

And actually, I’m grateful for that.

I’m grateful to the people who’ve noticed something was different and taken thirty seconds to send a message.

To the people who’ve checked in again when I’ve probably replied with some version of “yeah, I’m alright.”

And to the people who’ve simply made it clear they’re there.

Sometimes you don’t need somebody to fix anything.

You just need to know somebody noticed.

I’m incredibly thankful that I’ve got people around me who do.

And if you’ve been one of those people recently, you’ll know who you are.

Thank you.

Social media doesn’t necessarily show you that

That’s the strange thing about all of this.

If you only knew me through social media, you could probably look at what I’ve posted recently and come away with a completely different impression.

I’ve been making videos.

Talking about football.

Taking the piss.

Talking about things happening in the world.

Promoting the books.

Sharing opinions and inevitably discovering that somebody on the internet thinks I’m a knobhead.

Standard Tuesday.

Some of the posts have generated some brilliant conversations. Some have been serious. Some have been ridiculous. Some have probably resulted in me putting my phone down and wondering why I voluntarily invite complete strangers into my life to tell me what they think.

But I enjoy it.

Most of the time.

And there’s something I’ve noticed particularly since I’ve started talking more openly about trying to make the author side of my life work.

The moment you publicly say:

“I’m an independent author trying to reach more people.”

They appear.

The internet marketing cavalry

Marketing experts.

Book promoters.

Reviewers.

People with enormous audiences I’ve somehow never heard of.

People who apparently possess the secret to selling thousands of books — and, incredibly, they’re willing to reveal it to me for the bargain price of whatever they’ve decided to charge that day.

What are the chances?

I’ve had messages telling me my books are brilliant but I’m simply not reaching the right audience.

Messages telling me my campaign is powerful but I need their help to get it in front of the correct people.

Offers of guaranteed exposure.

Followers.

Readers.

Donors.

Reviews.

Probably the Holy Grail if I send another twenty quid.

And I want to be fair here.

Marketing is a legitimate business.

People who are genuinely good at helping authors, businesses and creators reach an audience absolutely deserve to be paid for their work.

But there’s something uncomfortable about how quickly people descend when somebody publicly says:

I’m trying to make this work.

Particularly when that person has just explained that money is one of the things preventing them from doing more.

Which brings me neatly to...

I started a GoFundMe

Even writing that still feels a bit weird.

Asking people for help doesn’t come particularly naturally to me.

I’d much rather find some ridiculous way of doing something myself than admit I could do with a hand.

But there’s a practical reality to being an independent author.

It costs money.

If I want physical stock to approach independent bookshops, I have to buy those books.

If I want promotional materials, bookmarks and postcards, they have to be produced.

If I want to get the books in front of more people, that takes investment too.

And one of the biggest things I want to do is create more audiobooks.

That matters to me.

Not everybody accesses stories in the same way.

Some people struggle with reading. Some people are visually impaired. Some neurodivergent people find listening more accessible. Some people simply love audiobooks.

If I’ve created stories that people might connect with, I don’t want the format to be the thing that stops somebody experiencing them.

So I set up the GoFundMe.

It isn’t:

“Give me money so I can sit at home and call myself an author.”

The writing is happening regardless.

It’s about helping me take what I’ve already built and push it further — more stock, more bookshops, more accessibility and hopefully a more sustainable way of doing this.

Whether it works?

No idea.

But then I had another idea.

What if I emailed some millionaires?

This is the sort of thought that should probably be followed by:

“No, Adam. Go and make a cup of tea.”

Unfortunately, nobody was around to say that.

So I started what I’ve been calling my Millionaires Challenge.

The logic was surprisingly simple.

There are people and organisations out there for whom an amount of money that could make a huge difference to an independent author is relatively insignificant.

So why not ask them?

And that's what I started doing.

Contacting wealthy people, businesses, organisations and anyone else I thought might connect with some part of what I’m trying to build.

Liverpool.

Books.

Mental health.

Neurodiversity.

Social care.

Accessibility.

Independent creativity.

I’m not pretending I’m something I’m not.

I’m not promising somebody they’re about to discover the next Stephen King sitting in Bootle.

I’m basically saying:

This is me. These are the books. This is what I’m trying to build. Fancy helping?

Most probably won’t reply.

Plenty probably won’t even open the email.

And that’s alright.

Because nobody has ever said yes to an email I was too frightened to send.

Although I may have taken that philosophy slightly too far.

At one point my outbox showed 23,000 emails waiting to send.

Even I looked at that and thought:

Adam, mate. Perhaps we’ve overdone this.

Then something actually happened

Amongst everything else going on, there’s been something I probably haven’t allowed myself to appreciate properly.

My books are going into Write Blend in Waterloo.

A proper independent bookshop.

That means something to me.

There’s something about a physical bookshop that Amazon can never quite replicate.

Somebody can walk through the door.

Have a browse.

See one of my covers.

Pick it up.

Turn it over.

Read the back.

See Adam Hardaker written on it and decide whether they want to take that story home.

My books.

On an actual bookshelf.

In Merseyside.

That’s mad.

And because my brain is permanently looking for the next thing that needs doing, I’m terrible at stopping and appreciating things like that.

I probably should.

I wrote some stories.

I put them out into the world.

And now an independent bookshop is willing to put them on its shelves.

Whatever happens next, that’s something I’m proud of.

Hopefully Write Blend is only the beginning.

Oh, and I finished another book

Because apparently my brain currently has two settings:

I can’t get out of bed.

and

I should probably write another novel.

There doesn’t appear to be much in between.

But yep.

The Seat That Changed the Game is finished.

Completely.

It’s the next book in the Blue Seat Chronicles, following The Seat Left Empty and The Seats We Once Filled.

The writing is done.

At the moment, it’s with a few friends who are reading it and giving me their feedback before I make any final tweaks and get it ready to release.

Which, incidentally, is horrible.

You can sit there and write an entire novel without worrying too much.

Then you send it to somebody you actually know and immediately start thinking:

What if this is absolute shite?

So now I wait.

And resist the temptation to message them every seventeen minutes asking:

“Well?”

But I’m excited about it.

It’s finished.

It exists.

And once I’ve had the feedback and made sure everything is where I want it:

The Seat That Changed the Game is coming soon.

Two things can be true

I suppose that’s what I’ve realised while writing all of this.

I’ve had a shit few weeks.

And some really good things have happened.

Both are true.

Getting my books into Write Blend doesn’t magically fix how I’ve been feeling.

Finishing another novel doesn’t mean there haven’t been mornings when getting out of bed has felt impossible.

Making people laugh on social media doesn’t mean I’ve necessarily been laughing when I’ve put the phone down.

Having plans for the future doesn’t mean every day feels hopeful.

And being productive doesn’t necessarily mean you’re okay.

I think social media sometimes makes us forget that.

We see the finished thing.

The video.

The photograph.

The announcement.

The new book.

The website.

We don't see the five days somebody didn't leave the house.

But the opposite is worth remembering too.

Feeling low doesn't mean nothing good is happening.

Sometimes I’ve had to actually look back at what I’ve been doing to remind myself of that.

I’ve finished another book.

I’ve rebuilt my website.

I've built a shop where people can buy signed books directly from me.

I've designed bookmarks and postcards.

I've got books going into an independent bookshop.

I've started approaching others.

I've launched a GoFundMe to try to make the next stage possible.

I've contacted a frankly stupid number of people trying to get somebody to take notice.

And now I've apparently got a blog.

I’m still here.

I'm still writing.

I'm still trying.

Some days that’s been easy.

Some days it really hasn’t.

So why start Ramblings with this?

Because I don't want this part of the website to become another place where everything gets polished until it bears absolutely no resemblance to real life.

There'll be books here.

There'll definitely be Everton.

There'll be Liverpool.

There'll be social care, neurodiversity, mental health, writing, things happening in the world and whatever else happens to be rattling around in my head.

There'll probably be plenty of shite jokes as well.

But occasionally there'll be this.

What's actually going on behind all of it.

There are things that have happened recently that I haven't talked about yet.

At some point, I will.

When I'm ready.

For now, I'm trying to concentrate on what's immediately in front of me.

A new book that's almost ready to meet the world.

My books heading onto the shelves at Write Blend.

A website I'm genuinely proud of.

An independent author business I'm trying to build from scratch.

People around me who've noticed when I haven't been myself and cared enough to ask if I'm alright.

And approximately several thousand people wondering why there's an email from some Scouser they've never heard of sitting in their inbox.

Could be worse.

Tomorrow I'll get out of bed and see what happens.

And if tomorrow happens to be one of the days where that's harder than it sounds?

I'll try again the day after.

Adam