London Book Fair 2015

After the Tokyo Book Fair 2014 (which I still haven't blogged about) and the New Delhi Book Fair 2015, last week, between 14 to 16 of April 2015, I managed to attend the London Book Fair 2015. Unlike the Tokyo Book Fair 2014 and the New Delhi Book Fair 2015, I properly attend the three-day event as I was given the task by the owner of Fixi, Amir Muhammad, to help him to bring Malaysian publishers to the London Book Fair in 2016. We are determine to do it without government help as we think the London Book Fair can be a springboard to a lot of Malaysian publishers to break new territory.

It was one year, in 2014, after Fixi won the Bookseller International Adult Trade Publisher Award at the International Book Industry Excellence Awards. Here is the Star newspaper coverage about Fixi win last year. It was a proud moment for Fixi and I had just joined Fixi. I now can claim to be one of Fixi's stable of writers with 2 short stories being accepted in their anthologies (Lost in Putrajaya and MF2014) and 2 Malay novels : Pinjam and Pentas. Here's my Goodreads link.

At the London Book Fair, where the business of books were conducted by business people, there were so many writers abound looking for opportunity. As you have to pay to get a badge, at GBP35, you know all that attended the London Book Fair were serious people. Unlike the other book fairs I attended, I planned to do so as well. I attended nearly most of the interesting forum, book launches, author's talk, technology briefing and pavilion's launches. Singapore have a pavilion which Amir said was getting bigger and bigger. Indonesia on account of being the guest country in October 2015's Frankfurt Book Fair 2015 (the biggest book fair in the world) had quite a big pavilion too.

Mexico was the Market Focus country for London Book Fair 2015 and had a huge pavilion. I managed to catch Elena Poniatowska, a famous Mexican writer; Chris Evans before he opened up the Club room, a frank discussion among translators from various countries about the fees they are getting paid for doing translations, a discussion by those who are bringing the Susanna Clarke's book : Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell  to television, a talk by Conchita Wurst and a few other talks which I managed to hear bits and pieces of. Some of these writers I only heard of for the first time although they looked adored by a few people.

Outside of London Book Fair, I managed to get into Amir Muhammad's good grace to be brought to meet the people from the Big Bad Wolf, a few od Indonesian filmmakers and we even had dinner with writers Tash Aw, Zen Cho and Lina Tan (a television producer). From Malaysia there were Ling Lung and his wife from Lejen Press with Syafiq, the writer for Ajaib and Awan and Fixi had Ariff Adly, the writer for Kacau and Gelap.

Needless to say, the sight, the sound and the experience at the London Book Fair 2015 left me wanting more and I hope I will be back next year.

Oh, Amir Muhammad and I did went to the British Library a day after the London Book Fair where we managed to sight the original manuscripts of Hikayat Raja Babi (will be published by Fixi at the Pesta Buku Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur 2015) and the Magna Carta.

Media appearances past few months

It has been a few weeks of non-stop media appearances for me. Some are in articles in news portals, two radio guest appearance and author appearances at one book fair.

For posterity sake, here are those media appearances :

My two articles in The Malaysian Insider :

One is on the issue of Gated and Guarded Community in Malaysia published on 2nd April 2013 :

Whither neighbourliness?

Another is about Affordable Housing in Malaysia published on 19th May 2013 :

Affordable housing : Political Rhetoric or Serious Solution?

Then I answered a question in News Straits Times pullout Real Estate and Decor about discharge of a strata property :

Q & A on 5th April 2013

And my article was published by News Straits Times : Real Estate and Decor about Gated and Guarded Properties in Malaysia on 3rd May 2013 :

One day inside a gated and guarded development

In April and May, I had two radio interviews by BFM Radio both in The Property Show. Here are the podcasts from the show. Here is my interviewer, Azura Rahman, from the show :

First interview was about my new book :

40 More Questions You Should Ask Your Lawyer Before Buying A Residential Property in Malaysia

My second interview was about Malay Reserved lands in Malaysia :

Understanding Malay reserve land

Finally during the recent Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair at PWTC which happened between 26th April and 4th of May 2013, my new book was launched and I made two author appearances at my publisher's booth :

That was it. I just realised I had a busy April and May 2013. It was good to be busy.

You can still get my book here, at True Wealth Sdn Bhd's Book Planet website :

40 More Questions You Should Ask Your Lawyer Before Buying A Residential Property in Malaysia

Social media ROI : A personal experience

As a lawyer and an author, I use social media extensively to promote my service and my only book. As lawyers in Malaysia are not allowed to advertise their service conventionally through mass media like in the newspaper or the local television, social media is a blessing. 

I always read on so many publication, articles by social media practitioners and experts, about the return on investment (ROI) when you invest in social media. There are so many ways for you to invest in social media. You can do it yourself. You can have a staff within your company to update your social media pages. You can contract it out for a company which claims to know how social media work. You can even spend millions of Ringgit to try to get new clients through social media.

Yes, social media's ROI is about how much time you spend on a FREE platform in order for you to get some form of returns. Amazingly, people who use social media seems to always keep on protesting when any form of change happens to this free media. A few years back, you can only get to be well-known if you work hard and pay. Social media still requires you to work hard but rarely do they ask you to pay, except for the data usage bills either through your handphone network or fixed line connection.

Here are my social media connection. As a person, I am on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Google+. My book and my legal firm have pages in Facebook and Google+. I also have two blogs. One is where I write about legal issues and property, which I use nowadays as a place to draft writings which I then submit to magazine, newspaper and even will form part of my next book. The other is my personal story about life, marriage, holidays, travel and such. 

If you ask me, I believe there is no boundary between the either blogs as I never believe what you did at work or in business will not affect your personal life or vice versa. So, type my names   : Khairul Anuar Shaharudin or my internet name : kruel74, in Google or whatever your favourite search engine, you can find me in either one of the listed social media (or maybe a website or two). Oh, I utterly believe in social media that all my businesses (I have a few) do not have websites.

Now that you know where you can find me on social media, let me tell you how much I gain from social media. In a nutshell, I gain more than 50% increase in 2011 in comparison to 2010, from the investment I made through social media. I got businesses from people who know me as a blogger, I got business from people who know me by chatting with me on Twitter, people ask me through Facebook about property issues and then ask me to take care of their legal matters and the blogs contribute by getting editors and producers to feature me either by asking me to write or being guest in radio show.

Last year alone, I was writing for the local daily, the Sun newspaper as I was 'found' in a Facebook group which consist mainly of young people who invest in property, Property Talk and Lifestyle, by a member who is a sub-editor; and that entry resulted in me being on BFM Radio talking about the article which was first an entry in this very blog, after the producer of the 'Property Show' found me through a connection in LinkedIn, Niki Cheong, who is a columnist in the Star, another local daily, who is now in England pursuing his study. Can you see how social media plays as an investment which in turn may (or may not) resulted in you getting rare opportunity.

However, as much as you invest in social media, if you only writes and sit behind the screen and hope to be discovered, you are wasting your time. All the social media cannot help you achieve any returns if you don't meet people, talk to them and let them know who you are and what you can do.

How did I published my first book?

The books I wrote

I saw a tweet yesterday by @self_publish : Instead of "I Published a Book," Tell "the Story Behind the Story". Interesting tweet right? And it made me realised the one common question by anyone who got to know me through social media as an author. I actually never think of myself as a great author and there is a valid reason for this. I always do badly in my grammar. I will always need a good editor. After I published my first book, I realised the point of having editors and how infuriating is an editor's job.

So, how did I published my first book?

I did write about it long ago but it was more of an announcement with a bit of the stories of how the book got published. The blogposts are; I wrote a book and now someone wants to publish it : the story of how proud I was that someone like Azizi Ali, a property investment writer wanted to publish my book; Before you buy that house ask your lawyer this : which was a draft of what the book is finally was and Writing workshop : the second blogpost ever for this blog which was the story of the writing workshop by Azizi Ali which led to him publishing my book. As they say, to have a blog is to keep a diary. If the journey is writing, I consider this blog as the map which charts it. It is where I drafted, mapped out and it is also where I sharpen my writing skill.

If you read any of the blogposts I listed above, it would show how I started my writing journey by going to the workshop offered by Azizi Ali. And if you go further back, you will get to know how I decided to go to that workshop as I thought I was already at a plateau which was a comfort zone in terms of work. I was thinking as I have read Azizi Ali's book since early 2000, I might as well learn something new on how to write a book by attending his workshop. I went to attend his workshop and then I went one step further. I pitched an idea for a book to him. A book which I know how to write and is about the lifeblood of my business : the conveyance of property in Malaysia, specifically on the function of lawyers.

With Azizi Ali, the man who decided to publish my book

After I went to the workshop on how to write books, I started writing. It was thwarted by my discovery of blogging. I became an avid blogger and I learned how to better my writing. I write on various issues about law and even wrote a few fictions spurred by events in my own life. I would post a blogpost every day. It took its toll on my book. I set to write my book in 2008 but by August 2009, I was still writing. When I got to know about a book by another lawyer writing within the same vein being published by Azizi Ali's publishing company, True Wealth Sdn Bhd in September 2009, I finally took the initiative by locking myself in my house for nearly a week, finalised the draft for the book and sent it to my publisher. That was the start of the editing process which saw the English version of the book to be published on 31st January 2010. The Bahasa Malaysia version took a much shorter time to write as I translated it myself and it was finally out by 1st May 2010. 

I guess what finally motivated me to finish writing is the need to beat another person from writing what I had in mind first. I never realised that True Wealth may talk to other writers out there who can write a similar title like mine. When it was published, I found out it was on Number 6 in a well-known local bookstore chain : MPH Bookstore. It is still being sold and can be bought online through that store or through my publisher, True Wealth online store : Book Planet. 

The lesson I learned is this from blogging and writing : Although I was engrossed in self-publishing myself on the internet, it didn't give me any returns unlike the two versions of my book which have been a form of marketing for my legal firm.

That, in itself, as they say, is another story....

Nikon Malaysia 10th Anniversary Celebration

I am actually wondering how can a brand so old only arrived in Malaysia 10 years ago? Maybe it is  the 10 years anniversary of Nikon (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. Maybe before that Malaysians has to import Nikon camera to enjoy it.

I am also wondering why this guys actually thought I have Nikon DSLR camera or any DSLR camera for that matter. I love photography and I think if I do have a hobby, photography might be it. However, all my pictures are taken using my smartphone, which, as of now is a Blackberry. And the pictures below are taken using it.

I do appreciate the invitation though so let me do a blogpost to promote the 4-days event.

It was the media event which I was invited and I had fun playing around with the Nikon cameras on display and looking the skills of those professional photographers who love using Nikon cameras. Some pictures from the event on 30th March 2011 :

What happened during the event was the GM of Nikon Malaysia, David Ng, officiated the opening of the celebration of Nikon Malaysia 10th Year Anniversary and the Nikon Club for public users of Nikon cameras.

If you go here between 31st March and 3rd April, you can expert photography talks by mizzStudio, Stefan Chow of Singapore, Ahmad Zamroni of Indonesia, photoshooting contest and as evidence on the pictures above, all type of Nikon cameras on show either DSLR, Coolpix, binoculars and accessories.

For the love of cameras and beautiful cameras, even if you are not using a Nikon, you should make a stop and go to Midvalley Exhibition Center. To check out more, go to Nikon 10th Years anniversary page and join Nikon Club Malaysia, and you can follow them on Twitter here and join them on the Facebook page here.