Cleo Papadopoulos

Things I Wish I Knew: Essays on Being a Student Abroad

WEEK 3

Things I Wish I Knew: Essays on Being a Student Abroad is a book written by Phoebe Noble – a recent graduate who spent three years studying abroad. This book is mainly for people who are currently studying abroad or are going to be studying abroad in the near future. She hopes this collection of essays can help others who are going through what she went through as a student living, studying, and working in a foreign country. Each of the 15 essays in this book discusses different emotions, anxieties, experiences, etc. that the author had and the things she wishes she knew about how to cope with it all.

This work is different to other wellbeing books on the market since it is written from the perspective of someone with fresh experiences with regards to the subject matter. From research, I can see that a lot of wellbeing books on the market are written by mental health professionals, such as psychiatrists or psychologists. This book’s author, however, is just a normal person who experienced leaving all of her friends, family, and familiar cultural practices behind so that she could study abroad for a few years. She just wishes to impart any wisdom she may have acquired from her years as an international student in a foreign country.

This book’s contents include: how to temper your anxiety about being in a new place, how to make new friends and not psych yourself out, how to have a balanced diet and sleeping schedule, how to get accustomed to a new city, and more (TBD in further detail).

Publishing House: Hay House.

WEEK 4

Book Formatting: PB, 300 pages, B-Format (198mm x 129mm); the book is separated into essays from the author that have life experiences and learned morals embedded into each essay

Primary Market: primary audience for this book is people who are currently studying abroad or are going to be studying abroad in the near future; they are people who are trying to come to grips with leaving everything and everyone they know behind to start a new life as an international student; for them, this will be stressful, and they may have fear, anxieties, misconceptions that they will want to sort… this book is a guide to those emotions.

Secondary Markets: may include parents of students studying abroad or university professionals (professors, health services, psychologists, etc.) trying to gain a better understanding of what international students are going through while abroad.

Fit with the publisher: the mission statement of Hay House claims that “Hay House is a mission-driven company dedicated to supporting positive change in the world by helping all people to grow in mind, body, and spirit. With a diverse roster of customers, authors, and points of view, Hay House offers products and resources that empower, educate, and inspire.” This publishing house is rather successful with the fields of study/interest that they study, which I believe makes them a good fit to publish the book I am proposing.

Competitors/Complementary Titles: I don’t think there are exactly many direct competitors since, according to my knowledge and research, this topic has not been broached from this angle. However, there are some complementary titles. First the self-help/wellbeing titles: Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr. Julie Smith (“Filled with secrets from a therapist’s toolkit, this is a must-have handbook for optimising your mental health”), The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson (“In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be “positive” all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people”), and Calm the F**k Down Journal: Practical ways to stop worrying and take control of your life – A No F*cks Given Journal by Sarah Knight (“From the white noise of what-ifs to the white-hot terror of a full-blown crisis, ‘Anti-guru’ Sarah Knight is on hand to help you help yourself to manage any situation, however stressful”). Other complementary titles fall under study-abroad student guidebooks: The Essential Guide to Studying Abroad: From Success in the Classroom to a Fulfilling Career by Thomas R. Klassen and Christine Menges (“This book is an indispensable how-to guide on flourishing when studying abroad, and how to use an international education to begin a fulfilling career after graduation”) and In a Strange Land: A Student’s Guide to Studying Abroad by the Study Abroad Institute (seems to be an essential guide for students).

Ongoing Research: I want to put more research in the following areas: (1) the formatting of the book and how successful it would be if it was set up as a collection of essays from the author, (2) other possible markets, (3) I really want to keep digging and see if this approach has ever been taken for the topic because right now, I can’t find any evidence to suggest there has been, (4) I want to research how successful complementary books have done in the market so I can further gauge the range of success for this publication.