A Place to Call Home

For the past two years I’ve been on a new journey—a journey to indie publish one of the books I have written. A Place to Call Home won the Golden Heart for Best Inspirational Manuscript in 2003.

The following year a different book, The Heart’s Homecoming, became my first sale to Steeple Hill Books, which is now Harlequin Love Inspired. In subsequent years I wrote and sold ten more books to the Love Inspired line. During that time Love Inspired lowered the word count for their books, and I realized that A Place to Call Home with its longer word count would no longer be a fit for Love Inspired. I always wanted to find a home for my Golden Heart book. So not only was the hero of the book looking for a place to call home but so was my book.

Enter indie publishing. I was inspired by author friends, Debra Holland, Nora Wilson, Delle Jacobs, Theresa Ragen and Lisa Mondello, who all have had great success with indie publishing. But my journey was slow and cautious. I started by hiring Kim Van Meter to design my cover. Then over the next few months I joined several online groups associated with indie publishing and absorbed as much information as I could.

I worked to revise the manuscript, but as any wise writer knows, you need an editor. I began inquiring about freelance editors and contacted several before going with a recommendation from Meg Moseley. The revision letter from Jessica Barnes pointed out a number of places that needed work. So I started on the revisions, but that process was slower than slow because my husband and I were dealing with his mother who had multiple health issues. But whenever I had a chance, I would work on the book.

Finally, the manuscript went back to the editor for a line edit. I also had a number of readers who looked at the manuscript for typos and inconsistencies. During this process, I decided that I wasn’t going to tackle formatting the manuscript. I have a hard enough time writing this blog. :-D Judi Fennell with formatting4U.com formatted the book. Opening accounts with the different vendors was technical enough for me.