Dating Thomas

As some of you may know, I just wrote a book! Yes, a real book! The story is inspired by my online and offline dating stories, nevertheless, it is fictional. Dating Thomas is about the story of a Millennial woman in her 30-s looking for love and meaningful relationships in the jungle of online dating sites. The title is a word game of the Biblical doubting Thomas as the different variants of the name Thomas are recurring in Zsofi’s life : she met two guys with the Hungarian variant, Tamas, the Austrian Thomas also the one giving the title of the book and a Polish person, Tomas, her neighbour in Brussels. The book goes over a year in Zsofi’s life, a Hungarian origin woman working as an expat in the EU bubble of Brussels until the moment when she makes the decision to leave Brussels for Barcelona after seven years in the capital of Europe. Zsofi meets Thomas Mueller, an Austrian guy working for the Permanent Representation of Austria via Tinder in October 2022. The two are looking for very different things: Zsofi is looking for the love of her life, her future partner for her travels and post yoga dinners, while Thomas is only searching for casual encounters after his past long-term relationship. It could be the start of a Hollywood movie, but in the end, they do not end up together, however the meeting pushes Zsofi to get out of her comfort zone, change her job and follow her aspirations to move to the Mediterranean just a year after she had met Thomas. During the story, we do not only get to know the present, but there are several glimpses of the past with other men who shaped the character and the decisions of Zsofi: her older boyfriend Daniel or her former colleague Tamas. We follow her in different countries and towns: the university town of Szeged and Budapest in Hungary, her Erasmus semester in Paris, her working years in Brussels and her travels to Athens, Barcelona or Lanzarote. Each chapter represents a Tinder (or any dating site) profile, with the name and the age of each man, such as Thomas - 35, Tamas -30, Luca - 42 , Boris- 33 or Tomas -32. The stories are fictional however they are loosely based on real life events of the author. The writing process was not easy especially besides a full time job and a regular workout schedule, but #datingthomas is ready to get published and read. However, publishing seems to be harder and far more expensive as I thought. Most bigger publishers require literary agents and self-publishing is also expensive and also quite risky. The first feedback is from Publish-U where they would charge a 595 GBP manuscript review fee which is deductable from the total publishing costs of 2495 GBP. These costs exclude the illustration costs ill and the creation of a website. The book is 132 pages long, contains 58547 words for the moment, so it falls under the "standard book" category in Publish U's classing. The format of publishing (paper vs hard copy), quality of paper etc. are still being discussed and depend upon the publishing house. Hence, the costs below may vary. Please note that being a tax resident in Spain, the UK added VAT does not apply in case of Publish U costs as it is out of VAT scope. For the services of Rebeka Rajnai (HU) and Cass Hebron (BE), the reverse charge principle would be applicable. I am aiming to collect 3000 EUR to help me financing the publishing costs. About me: I am Fruzsina Csepi, Fruzsi as most people know me. I was born and grew up in Hungary, having a Bachelor in French and English languages and a Master in International Relations. My educational background took me to Brussels, the European capital in 2015 where I started as Office Manager at the European Olympic Committees and worked for different consultancy companies until November 2023 when I moved to Barcelona, Spain. I visited nearly 40 countries, I love yoga, jogging by the sea or in the forest, reading a book on the beach, all cats, matcha latte, ice cream in the sun and I have an impressive collection of pretty dresses and earrings from my travels.