"MY ILLUMINATING JOURNEY INTO PUBLISHING"
I don’t know if every author requires a pivotal moment, event, or set of events to get them on the road to writing, but I did.
I’d never, not even once, entertained the idea of penning a piece of literature until my father began showing the inevitable signs that his life on this earth would be coming to an end. Until that time, I was convinced that my father was invincible – bulletproof – that he would live forever. I still believe he will live forever, just not on this flawed earth.
You see, my father was special, not just to me, but to many. To me he was so much more. He was hero, advisor and unconditional love-giver and because of some of my “issues,” as a young woman, I needed more saving, advising and loving than most.
I guess I was what you would call a “problem child.” I just seemed to be built that way. If I tried something and I liked it, I was destined to repeat the experience over and over again. Moderation was not a concept I was familiar with or seemed at times capable of, and to make matters more unmanageable, the depression that had shadowed me since my teenage years was made worse by every over-indulgence.
Right from the start my father recognized my problems, probably because along with his blue eyes and love of cake I’d inherited both the tendency to become addicted and the depression. My father had whipped his problems years before, only to have to relive them through the “apple of his eye.”
Don’t get me wrong, my problems were not constant companions. They were more like drop-in company; unexpected with a tendency to cause chaos.
It took me a long time to finally pack away my problems for the long haul, and through it all, not one time did my dad turn his back on me. He made me feel like I was the most important person in the world, and when I could manage to see myself through his eyes, it was a wonderful thing.
Then he got sick and my world changed forever. It took awhile to get a diagnosis, but I’d known right from the start of his problems that he was dying. Eventually we found out that Amyotrophic Lateral Schlerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, was the culprit – a particularly nasty disease that destroys the muscles of the body and leaves a person unable to speak, swallow or even move.
My father handled his last illness the way he always handled things: with dignity, a sense of humor and an unshakeable faith in his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I, on the other hand, did not fare as well. Wracked with guilt over the years of bad behavior, I simply could not get past the obsession – the dream – of going back in time and changing my actions.
Finally – thankfully – I picked up a legal pad and a pen and I began to write. At first, my book took the direction of a self-help manual. If I could save another person from the pain I was currently experiencing then I should do so – shouldn’t I? Maybe that was the way toward peace.
I didn’t make it through the first chapter. Somehow the idea of writing a self-help book just lost its sparkle. I think I realized that it is seldom the folks that need help that actually look for it.
Then it hit me. I had recently read Stephanie Meyers “Twilight” series and thanks to my love of Entertainment News I knew all about the world’s fascination with young adult novels like ‘Twilight,” “Harry Potter,” and “The Vampire Diaries.” Why couldn’t I write a supernatural/fantasy book like the ones so popular at the time, but slip in a good message? It would be a parable of a sort.
I decided that could work and I began writing in earnest, the story of a miserable old woman who, with the aid of an angel, is given the chance to go back in time and help the young girl she once was become the woman she should have been.
I had no plan for my writing – no outline of any kind. I honestly had no idea what the main character, Gracie, would do until she did it. And yet I never felt lost or unsure of where I was going. I absolutely believe that the Lord put the story on my heart.
At first I thought I was given the story to help me get through my father’s illness and death, and it did help me immensely. But, after I allowed a few close friends and family members to read “Illuminating Gracie,” I became convinced that it needed to be published and put out for the world to read. I just had no idea how to do that.
So, I did what most people would have done. I took to the "net." I searched and read everything I could get my hands on about publishing a book. And, believe me, there was a lot to read.
It did not take me very long at all to discard the notion of having “Illuminating Gracie” traditionally published. I was determined to get the book in print before my father died, and I knew that to get a book published through a reputable “Big 10” publisher was a lengthy and highly “iffy” proposition, at best.
Traditional, established publishers rarely - if ever - accept unsolicited manuscripts from authors. Therefore, an author must secure adequate representation through a literary agent. The agent will then approach publishers with the intention of “inking” a publishing deal for their client.
Sounds easy – right? Not so much. The search for a good literary agent is almost as daunting as the search for a publisher. It all begins with the query letter – a one page missive that includes a synopsis of your story, an explanation of how you plan to build an audience and a few sentences about yourself.
The idea of boiling down my book – my heart and soul – into a few sentences was terrifying. More than that, I just didn’t have a lot of faith in the whole “query” system. According to dozens of sources, many agents get hundreds of queries a month. Yet somehow I was supposed to believe that between meeting publishers and securing contracts for clients, these agents were poring over hundreds of letters all in an effort to pluck from this garden of prose, the rose among the thorns.
I wasn’t buying it. Or at least I felt like having my book chosen from out of the masses was something akin to winning the lottery – and I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky. My father was growing weaker by the day, and I knew if I wanted to put a book in his hands I was going to have to find another way. As much as I would love to see my book on the racks of my favorite book store, getting an agent and publisher, during my timeframe just didn't seem possible. Enter “indy” publishing.
I found it extremely interesting that according to almost all sources, a first-time author – even one who through some divine intervention or good connection managed to get a strong agent and publishing deal – would be required to build an audience all on his/her own. The hard work of building a website and promoting a book would not be magically removed from the writer's shoulders simply because they found an agent and publisher.
A publisher would have final say on your cover, control your edits and get you into the big stores, but if you didn’t want your book to sit idly by in the back of some sales bin, then you’d have to brush up on your computer and people skills and get to selling. Illuminating Gracie
Having made the decision to self-publish, the choice to do so through Amazon’s Createspace seemed easy to me. After all, if I was going to try to sell my own books, why not team up with the largest bookseller in the world? I was absolutely determined to put out a professional product and once I was satisfied that this could be done through Amazon, I never turned back.
Createspace – a subsidiary of Amazon – offers a writer as much or as little assistance as they desire. Everything from designing the book cover, to editing the manuscript, to putting the book on a thousand online sites to sell – Createspace is ready, willing and able to tackle any and all facets of producing your book. Of course, the more they do, the more it’s going to cost you.
I found that with a little elbow grease and a whole lot of studying, I could save myself a great deal of the expense. I was also fortunate to have two friends with topnotch copy-editing skills, and I felt comfortable doing the traditional edit myself.
Once I had the book exactly the way I wanted it, it was just a matter of setting a price and putting in an order. Createspace is a POD, or Print on Demand, bookseller, so I can order anywhere from one to a thousand (or more) books at my cost anytime I want them. I also decided to pay a small fee for expanded distribution, which allows Amazon to put “Illuminating Gracie” on hundreds of big and small sites all over the world. I’m not sure that I will renew this particular service, though, because I’ve found that Amazon is the place that most book lovers go to buy books online.
After I signed off on the book, indicating it was ready for sale, it went live on Amazon.com immediately. With a book count that is rumored to be anywhere from a million to a billion on the site, the true work began in figuring out how to make “Illuminating Gracie” stand out from the masses. Naturally, Amazon provides – for a price – everything from publicity packages to video book trailers to help market your words.
Possibly more important than having your “book in hand” is having an ebook available online. In order to sell your book electronically, it must first be converted to the proper format. Amazon will help you with this, too – as long as the ebook format you are looking for is Kindle. If you want to convert your book to be read on a Nook or Ipad, you’ll have to find a service elsewhere. That won’t be a problem though. Ebook converters are all over the web and you can learn how to do it yourself or for a minimal fee, or pay someone else to do it for you.
Sadly, my father never got to hold a copy of “Illuminating Gracie.” He died on January 8, 2013, and even with self-publishing I didn’t quite make it. He did get to see the cover of the book and read the page where I dedicated the book to him and my mom.
Still, I’ve never regretted the choice I made to self-publish. I’m having a ball and I’ve made back my investment many times over already. I’ve met some wonderful friends – some of whom are “Indy” authors as well. We work together to shine a light on the whole industry.
Every day brings a few more letters to my email inbox – occasionally from some obscure spot on the planet. The notes are from people who found my book on Amazon, read it, and loved it. They often want to know when I’ll be putting out a new one and I tell them the same thing every time: I’m writing as fast as I can!
I’d never, not even once, entertained the idea of penning a piece of literature until my father began showing the inevitable signs that his life on this earth would be coming to an end. Until that time, I was convinced that my father was invincible – bulletproof – that he would live forever. I still believe he will live forever, just not on this flawed earth.
You see, my father was special, not just to me, but to many. To me he was so much more. He was hero, advisor and unconditional love-giver and because of some of my “issues,” as a young woman, I needed more saving, advising and loving than most.
I guess I was what you would call a “problem child.” I just seemed to be built that way. If I tried something and I liked it, I was destined to repeat the experience over and over again. Moderation was not a concept I was familiar with or seemed at times capable of, and to make matters more unmanageable, the depression that had shadowed me since my teenage years was made worse by every over-indulgence.
Right from the start my father recognized my problems, probably because along with his blue eyes and love of cake I’d inherited both the tendency to become addicted and the depression. My father had whipped his problems years before, only to have to relive them through the “apple of his eye.”
Don’t get me wrong, my problems were not constant companions. They were more like drop-in company; unexpected with a tendency to cause chaos.
It took me a long time to finally pack away my problems for the long haul, and through it all, not one time did my dad turn his back on me. He made me feel like I was the most important person in the world, and when I could manage to see myself through his eyes, it was a wonderful thing.
Then he got sick and my world changed forever. It took awhile to get a diagnosis, but I’d known right from the start of his problems that he was dying. Eventually we found out that Amyotrophic Lateral Schlerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, was the culprit – a particularly nasty disease that destroys the muscles of the body and leaves a person unable to speak, swallow or even move.
My father handled his last illness the way he always handled things: with dignity, a sense of humor and an unshakeable faith in his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I, on the other hand, did not fare as well. Wracked with guilt over the years of bad behavior, I simply could not get past the obsession – the dream – of going back in time and changing my actions.
Finally – thankfully – I picked up a legal pad and a pen and I began to write. At first, my book took the direction of a self-help manual. If I could save another person from the pain I was currently experiencing then I should do so – shouldn’t I? Maybe that was the way toward peace.
I didn’t make it through the first chapter. Somehow the idea of writing a self-help book just lost its sparkle. I think I realized that it is seldom the folks that need help that actually look for it.
Then it hit me. I had recently read Stephanie Meyers “Twilight” series and thanks to my love of Entertainment News I knew all about the world’s fascination with young adult novels like ‘Twilight,” “Harry Potter,” and “The Vampire Diaries.” Why couldn’t I write a supernatural/fantasy book like the ones so popular at the time, but slip in a good message? It would be a parable of a sort.
I decided that could work and I began writing in earnest, the story of a miserable old woman who, with the aid of an angel, is given the chance to go back in time and help the young girl she once was become the woman she should have been.
I had no plan for my writing – no outline of any kind. I honestly had no idea what the main character, Gracie, would do until she did it. And yet I never felt lost or unsure of where I was going. I absolutely believe that the Lord put the story on my heart.
At first I thought I was given the story to help me get through my father’s illness and death, and it did help me immensely. But, after I allowed a few close friends and family members to read “Illuminating Gracie,” I became convinced that it needed to be published and put out for the world to read. I just had no idea how to do that.
So, I did what most people would have done. I took to the "net." I searched and read everything I could get my hands on about publishing a book. And, believe me, there was a lot to read.
It did not take me very long at all to discard the notion of having “Illuminating Gracie” traditionally published. I was determined to get the book in print before my father died, and I knew that to get a book published through a reputable “Big 10” publisher was a lengthy and highly “iffy” proposition, at best.
Traditional, established publishers rarely - if ever - accept unsolicited manuscripts from authors. Therefore, an author must secure adequate representation through a literary agent. The agent will then approach publishers with the intention of “inking” a publishing deal for their client.
Sounds easy – right? Not so much. The search for a good literary agent is almost as daunting as the search for a publisher. It all begins with the query letter – a one page missive that includes a synopsis of your story, an explanation of how you plan to build an audience and a few sentences about yourself.
The idea of boiling down my book – my heart and soul – into a few sentences was terrifying. More than that, I just didn’t have a lot of faith in the whole “query” system. According to dozens of sources, many agents get hundreds of queries a month. Yet somehow I was supposed to believe that between meeting publishers and securing contracts for clients, these agents were poring over hundreds of letters all in an effort to pluck from this garden of prose, the rose among the thorns.
I wasn’t buying it. Or at least I felt like having my book chosen from out of the masses was something akin to winning the lottery – and I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky. My father was growing weaker by the day, and I knew if I wanted to put a book in his hands I was going to have to find another way. As much as I would love to see my book on the racks of my favorite book store, getting an agent and publisher, during my timeframe just didn't seem possible. Enter “indy” publishing.
I found it extremely interesting that according to almost all sources, a first-time author – even one who through some divine intervention or good connection managed to get a strong agent and publishing deal – would be required to build an audience all on his/her own. The hard work of building a website and promoting a book would not be magically removed from the writer's shoulders simply because they found an agent and publisher.
A publisher would have final say on your cover, control your edits and get you into the big stores, but if you didn’t want your book to sit idly by in the back of some sales bin, then you’d have to brush up on your computer and people skills and get to selling. Illuminating Gracie
Having made the decision to self-publish, the choice to do so through Amazon’s Createspace seemed easy to me. After all, if I was going to try to sell my own books, why not team up with the largest bookseller in the world? I was absolutely determined to put out a professional product and once I was satisfied that this could be done through Amazon, I never turned back.
Createspace – a subsidiary of Amazon – offers a writer as much or as little assistance as they desire. Everything from designing the book cover, to editing the manuscript, to putting the book on a thousand online sites to sell – Createspace is ready, willing and able to tackle any and all facets of producing your book. Of course, the more they do, the more it’s going to cost you.
I found that with a little elbow grease and a whole lot of studying, I could save myself a great deal of the expense. I was also fortunate to have two friends with topnotch copy-editing skills, and I felt comfortable doing the traditional edit myself.
Once I had the book exactly the way I wanted it, it was just a matter of setting a price and putting in an order. Createspace is a POD, or Print on Demand, bookseller, so I can order anywhere from one to a thousand (or more) books at my cost anytime I want them. I also decided to pay a small fee for expanded distribution, which allows Amazon to put “Illuminating Gracie” on hundreds of big and small sites all over the world. I’m not sure that I will renew this particular service, though, because I’ve found that Amazon is the place that most book lovers go to buy books online.
After I signed off on the book, indicating it was ready for sale, it went live on Amazon.com immediately. With a book count that is rumored to be anywhere from a million to a billion on the site, the true work began in figuring out how to make “Illuminating Gracie” stand out from the masses. Naturally, Amazon provides – for a price – everything from publicity packages to video book trailers to help market your words.
Possibly more important than having your “book in hand” is having an ebook available online. In order to sell your book electronically, it must first be converted to the proper format. Amazon will help you with this, too – as long as the ebook format you are looking for is Kindle. If you want to convert your book to be read on a Nook or Ipad, you’ll have to find a service elsewhere. That won’t be a problem though. Ebook converters are all over the web and you can learn how to do it yourself or for a minimal fee, or pay someone else to do it for you.
Sadly, my father never got to hold a copy of “Illuminating Gracie.” He died on January 8, 2013, and even with self-publishing I didn’t quite make it. He did get to see the cover of the book and read the page where I dedicated the book to him and my mom.
Still, I’ve never regretted the choice I made to self-publish. I’m having a ball and I’ve made back my investment many times over already. I’ve met some wonderful friends – some of whom are “Indy” authors as well. We work together to shine a light on the whole industry.
Every day brings a few more letters to my email inbox – occasionally from some obscure spot on the planet. The notes are from people who found my book on Amazon, read it, and loved it. They often want to know when I’ll be putting out a new one and I tell them the same thing every time: I’m writing as fast as I can!
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