Writer who defied parents’ wish to study engineering

By AMOS BURKEYWO

NAIROBI, KENYA: Although many budding writers will tell of their futile attempts to get published and even earn a living from their work, Peter Muiruri has a different story. His writing journey reveals a determination to overcome obstacles and earn a living from writing as career.

“When I began writing my first book, I was not sure if I would make a coin out of it,” says Muiruri.

The confident and soft-spoken upcoming author and motivational speaker in his late 20s has two books under his name: Seven Anchors of Success and Do It Now.

What parents wanted

He defied his parents’ wish to study Engineering at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology and opted to pursue Bachelor of Arts at the University of Nairobi. He believed that being close to the city centre would give an opportunity to study and engage in part-time jobs to earn some cash.

Muiruri’s desire to write began while in high school. He would always pen down short stories, poems for writers’ club and plays to be acted.

Back then he had always desired to become an author. As he grew up, he indulged himself in reading motivational books. This stirred him later in life to become a motivational speaker. He cites Ben Carson books like Think Big as among those that inspired him.

Muiruri believes that the world is ordered in a way that there are always unlimited opportunities and scarcity is a mentality, a basis that informs his desire to write motivational books.

“I believe success depends on one’s mind; if you think you can succeed, you can and if you think you cannot succeed, you can’t,” says Muiruri. 

While in his Third Year of study, the desire to write raged within him.

He dropped Economics and majored in Language and Communication, and Sociology. He even enrolled for a freelance writing course to hone his skills.

While working as a public relations officer and marketer at Kenya Institute of Social Work, after graduating in 2008, he started to motivate students. It is then that the students urged him to put down his moving ideas after they felt that he was touching their lives.

He thus began working on his first manuscript, now a published book Seven Anchors of Success, and kick-started his career as a motivational speaker and an author.  Upcoming authors have always had an uphill task in publishing their first books. Muiruri is no exception. A publisher turned down his script after staying with it for over one year. He opted to self-publish the script but an enormous cost quoted by the publisher almost dampened his hope. The publisher could produce a minimum of 3000 copies at a cost of Sh300,000.

Made a DVD

A friend of his advised him to make a DVD of the manuscript. Upon approaching the producers, the quotation given was again beyond his reach. An idea struck him to approach partners to invest in his work. The seven people he approached appreciated the offer as a brilliant idea but their input never went beyond their sweet words.

He went back to the drawing board. This time he had three proposals to the willing: To share spoils with a willing investor, co-own the work with a willing individual and feature an advert in the DVD. The latter succeeded when he approached a college principal and asked her to do an advert in the DVD.

 She gave him the contract and that started him up to his destiny. The DVDs were well received in the market and people begun asking for his books. From the DVD proceeds he was able to publish his second book Do It Now. This was also well received in the market. Through proceeds from the DVD and the book, he established his own publishing firm and printed The Seven Anchors of Success.

As a publisher, Muiruri says he can now publish a book at a cost of Sh20,000. Even though most people talk about motivational books as having a false allure, Muiruri terms the notion as misleading since most people expect the books to work on their behalf when they are supposed to stir one to action. “Motivational books are supposed to fire you into action, otherwise no amount of such books can initiate an action for you,” avers Muiruri. Though cynics will tell you few Kenyans read, Muiruri appreciates that the few that read are the ones that read his works.

10 per cent buyers

“If the 10 per cent of 42 million Kenyans read, then I have a slice among the 4 million which is fairly a good market for me.”

For upcoming authors, Muiruri says they need to get started immediately no matter their status and the market fickleness.

“It is better for one to try and fail rather than not try at all because of the prevailing conditions.” He urges them to express their works in standard language so as to communicate otherwise no one would be willing to invest in shoddy work. Among his works in the pipeline is a series of five books on unlimited possibilities under the name Everlasting World Order.