Book Release: Beyond the Breakup

After far longer than I ever expected it to take, my first book, Beyond the Breakup, is finally out. You can buy it in print format on the CreateSpace eStore, Amazon.com or any of the European Amazon sites. It is also available in electronic format on the Kindle Store (HTML format) or Google Play (PDF format).

As I've said previously (and I'm sure you can probably tell from the title and subtitle) the book is about understanding and handling breakups - specifically, the ones you didn't want to happen. For more detail about the content, I encourage you to take a look at the chapter list at the bottom of this post and read the book description just below the next paragraph.

As I've also pointed out previously, this book was originally intended to be a compilation of blog posts that I'd written about breakups and rejection; so if you are a frequent reader you'll definitely come across some familiar content. However, in the process of compiling the posts, I realized that a lot more needed to be said, and the book grew considerably. I'd estimate that the blog material counts for only 20% of the total content, so even readers who have read every post on this blog will find lots of new material - most of which I consider my best work to date.

Here is the description from the back of the cover:

"It might seem a bit backwards to write a relationship advice book that deals exclusively with breakups and rejection. It would be a lot more obvious to write a book that explains how to attract a man – or at least how to keep the one you already have. Better to give advice about how to start or maintain a relationship than how to deal with the end of one. 

"However, it has been my experience that, for most girls, a painful breakup or rejection actually is the beginning, not the end. It isn't the beginning of a relationship, obviously, but it is the beginning in the sense that it causes them to question for the first time their approach to dating, relationships, and the opposite sex in general. It is the beginning of their efforts to make a change. 

"This book is not written for women with a weak spirit. It isn't going to tell you how to mitigate the pain you feel in the wake of a breakup, and it isn't going to tell you that everything is going to be fine. And while it will tell you how to maximize your chances of getting your ex back, it isn't going to pretend that there are any 'tricks' to make that outcome likely. However, it will do something much more important: it will give you a strong insight into your ex's state of mind and male psychology in general. This will give you the foundation you need to navigate the breakup and – more importantly – propel yourself into honest and successful relationships with the men in your future." 

 – Andrew Aitken

Here are some of the book's stats:

Word Count: 56,000
Pages: 200
Print Format: Paperback
Print Size: 5.25 x 8 inches (13.3 x 20.3 cm)

Anyway, enjoy, and please let me know what you think, either in the comments here, the comments on Amazon, or by e-mail. As always, you can contact me at therulesrevisited@gmail.com.

Chapter List

Introduction

PART I – UNDERSTANDING WHAT HAPPENED

Men Don’t Fall in Love the Same Way Women Do
The Analogy between Sex and Commitment
Why This Always Happens to You
Changing Your Perspective
Why You Didn't See It Coming
Men Don’t Have “Commitment Problems”
The Difference between Liking You and Liking You Enough
Why Men “Fade Out”
You Weren't Dating Him in the First Place
The Small Things Didn't Matter Anyway
Why Your Ex (Who Dumped You) Is Still Contacting You
Your Ex and Guilt
Your Ex and Pride
Your Ex and Decisiveness
Interpreting His Emotions
What’s Going through His Mind 

PART II – HOW TO HANDLE THE BREAKUP 

The Importance of Silence after a Breakup
No, You Can't Be “Just Friends”
How to Know If You Should Cut Him Off
Why It's Never Too Late
Why You Should Tell Him That You Are Cutting Him Off
What to Say
Managing Your Expectations
When You Should Fight to Save Your Relationship
Exceptions to the Rule
How to Know If You Should Dump Him First
When He Cheats
The Anatomy of Missing Him 

PART III – FOLLOWING THROUGH WITH THE BREAKUP 

Making Him Jealous Doesn't Work
Seeing Him at Work
Keeping in Touch With His Friends and Family
Being Connected with Your Ex on Social Media
Returning His Things and Getting Yours Back
What to Do When He Contacts You
When He Says He Wants Another Chance
Reason and Distraction
Stop Sleeping with Your Ex to Prove He Likes You 

PART IV – MOVING ON AND REBUILDING

You Are Responsible for Your Own Romantic Happiness
Stop Letting Him Waste Your Time
Know Why You Want Him Back
Why Getting Him Back Won't Help
Why Getting Dumped Is a Good Thing
The Importance of Emotional Honesty
Dating Again
Putting the Breakup in Perspective
When You Can Contact Him Again
Reframing the Future 

A Final Word

Related Posts

1. Book Announcement

2. Book Update

3. CLEO Magazine Interview

Book Update

In July I posted an announcement that I’d finished working on a manuscript for a book about breakups. While I never committed to an exact release date, I mentioned that I expected to have it out within a few months. I certainly expected to have it edited and published before the end of the year. Clearly that hasn't happened, and I know from the emails and comments I receive that many of you are eager to read it, so I want to give you an update.

Let me start by saying that the book is definitely still coming out. Content editing took longer than I anticipated, but is now complete. At the moment, the manuscript is undergoing copy editing, which I expect to have finished in a few weeks. In parallel I am working on the cover design, but I already have a few solid concepts, so this should be finished before the editing, so hopefully this won’t hold things up.

Once all that stuff is done, I’ll need to order a proof copy, make adjustments as needed, and proof again. How long that process will take is a little unclear, but I expect it won’t be more than a couple weeks. All said and done, I suspect the book will be out in a couple of months.

To hold you over, below is a chapter list, which makes the content pretty transparent. The chapters are almost all very short, like a typical blog post, so don’t be intimidated by the chapter quantity. The full book will be about 200 pages.

It is probably also worth pointing out that although some of the chapters have the same titles as blog posts, and are based around those posts, most of them have been significantly expanded. A couple have been almost completely re-written, notably the first two.

More information is here in the original post about the book.

Chapter List

Introduction

Part 1: Understanding What Happened

Men Don’t Fall in Love the Same Way Women Do
The Analogy between Sex and Commitment
Why This Always Happens to You
Changing Your Perspective
Why You Didn’t See It Coming
Men Don’t Have “Commitment Problems”
The Difference between Liking You and Liking You Enough
Why Men “Fade Out”
You Weren’t Dating Him in the First Place
The Small Things Didn’t Matter Anyway
Why Your Ex (Who Dumped You) Is Still Contacting You
Your Ex and Guilt
Your Ex and Pride
Your Ex and Decisiveness
Interpreting His Emotions
What’s Going Through His Mind

Part 2: How to Handle the Breakup

The Importance of Silence after a Breakup
No, You Can’t Be “Just Friends”
How to Know If You Should Cut Him Off
Why It’s Never Too Late
Why You Should Tell Him That You Are Cutting Him Off
What to Say
Managing Your Expectations
When You Should Fight to Save Your Relationship
Exceptions to the Rule
How to Know If You Should Dump Him First
When He Cheats
The Anatomy of Missing Him

Part 3: Following Through with the Breakup

Making Him Jealous Doesn’t Work
Seeing Him at Work…
Keeping in Touch With His Friends and Family
Being Connected with Your Ex on Social Media
Returning His Things and Getting Yours Back
What to Do When He Contacts You
When He Says He Wants Another Chance…
Stop Sleeping with Your Ex to Prove He Likes You

Part 4: Moving on and Rebuilding

You Are Responsible for Your Own Romantic Happiness
Stop Letting Him Waste Your Time
Know Why You Want Him Back
Why Getting Him Back Won't Help
Why Getting Dumped Is a Good Thing
The Importance of Emotional Honesty
Dating Again
Putting the Breakup in Perspective
When You Can Contact Him Again
Reframing the Future

A Final Word

Book Announcement

I am sure everyone who reads this blog regularly has noticed the decline in post frequency in the last several months. What's probably not as evident is the reason, which is that I have been working on a book. In fact, since December, more than 100 % of the time that I typically devote to the blog has instead been focused on writing it. So while it might seem like my output has declined in recent months, the reality is that it has increased significantly - you just haven't seen the output yet.

I've mentioned the book a few times in the blog comments, and in replies to some readers' e-mails; but I've largely kept quiet about it - mostly because I didn't want to announce the book and then wait months or years for its release, but also because I didn't want to announce something before I was absolutely sure it would actually happen. But as of last week, the manuscript is finally finished, and it's mostly downhill (at least in terms of my commitment to the project) to the point of publishing; so this is a good time to make the announcement.

The book is about how to understand and handle breakups and rejections. It explains in detail why they happen, what the guy is thinking, how to maximize your chances of getting him back, and how to move on. I will rely on an excerpt from the introduction to explain my choice of topic:

"It might seem a little strange to write a relationship advice book that deals exclusively with break-ups and rejection. After all, if the break-up has already occurred, it is a little late for the kind of advice that could have made a difference...

"...[But] it has been my experience that, for most girls, a painful break-up or rejection is actually the beginning, not the end. It isn't the beginning of a relationship, obviously, but it is the turning point at which they start to question their approach to dating and relationships – the beginning of their efforts to make a change... 

"It is only after a painful or repeated loss that a woman begins to think twice about her approach to the opposite sex, and it is precisely then that she has the interest and motivation to learn why things didn't work... It also happens to be the time when she is most in need of advice about how to forget about him and move on – even if it isn't the advice she is most interested in receiving."

An additional consideration was that I get hundreds of e-mails every month asking for advice, and 95 % of them are questions about breakups. Although writing this book was a fairly big undertaking, it's a hell of a lot easier than re-writing the same 30 e-mails over and over again for the next ten or twenty years.

The topic is ostensibly narrow, but the reality is that you can't navigate a breakup properly without a pretty comprehensive understanding of male-female dynamics; so the book covers just about everything: what makes a man fall for a woman, the mindset with which men approach relationships, the model you should use for your expectations in relationships, what pulls relationships apart, the nature of your relationship with your boyfriends' family, the importance of emotional honesty, etc. - not to mention all the practical stuff like what to say, when to say it, how long to wait before contacting him again, and all the rest. I will post a full chapter list prior to publishing; but the point is that the book's topic is more of a framework for the discussion of much larger issues in dating and relationships than it is the theme of a purely practice guidebook. So the book will be extremely relevant to anyone who has been broken-up with or rejected, and probably even helpful to those who haven't. While I won't say that I'll never write another book, I don't have any plans to write a second one, so I didn't hold back any topics that might be more appropriate for future publications; I addressed everything here.

Originally, my plan was to simply publish a compilation of previous posts from the blog that were loosely related to the topic of breakups, with some additional wording weaving them all together. But the more I wrote, the more I realized was missing in order to cover the topic comprehensively; and the book soon grew into something far greater than just the existing material. I estimate that the re-used parts from the blog account for only 20 % of the book; and even those parts have been significantly expanded and improved. They also benefit from being placed in the wider context of the surrounding chapters. 

In total, the manuscript is just over 15,300 words, so it will probably be about 200 pages printed. Unless I receive an attractive book deal, the book will be self-published, in both paperback and electronic formats. It will also be available for purchase worldwide. I am not sure of the release date yet, but if I do go down the self-publishing route, it shouldn't take more than a few months to at least publish in electronic format, and the printed version will follow soon after. This might be a good point to mention that I am a complete rookie in self-publishing, and I know I have readers with experience of not expertise. So please e-mail me if you have any advice. I am very open to ideas, and I am also looking for one or two more (experienced) copy editors.

I want to end by pointing out that I am very proud of this book. Around the time that I started writing it, there were a few comments on the blog about the decline in post quality. That didn't surprise me, because - having started the book - my mind and energy was entirely dedicated to the topic of breakups and rejection, which meant that every new and insightful thought I had went into the book rather than the blog. Only the remnants ended up on the blog, which is why you only saw posts about jeans and sports for the last several months. But the book contains my best material to date, and I hope you will look forward to reading it as much as I am to publishing it.

Stay tuned for more...