THE DELICATE SUBJECT OF BOOK DEDICATIONS
Did you ever dedicate a book to someone who didn’t care? I once dedicated a book to a man I cared about and he never even bothered to read the book or even to thank me. His mother was so embarrassed by the mention of his name in the dedication she didn’t even want the autographed copy of the book I tried to give to her when it was released. She was afraid the dirty scenes were about him. HA! I only wanted to include him in the dedication because I thought it was a nice gesture and I thought he was deserving of this acknowledgement.
For me, dedicating a book to someone is an extremely personal gesture. A dedication in one of my books means that you have influenced my life in a positive way. It’s very special to me and I hope the people in my dedications feel the same way, at least the majority of them.
My dedications have always included my editor at the time, because I feel that if not for them, the book would not even be getting published. If they liked my writing enough to get a publishing contract for me that is definitely worth a mention in my dedication. My immediate family members are always included in my dedications, because they are the ones who suffer through all my craziness while I’m writing a book, so they deserve a mention. Others that I feel should be included in my dedications are my wonderful friends that have offered me words of encouragement or have spent their precious time reading rough drafts and giving me honest critiques. I value their opinions, so I feel they deserve a place in my dedication, too. If my latest book ever finds a publisher, the dedication list will be very long because it’s taken a lot of encouragement to get me through the agony of trying to switch genres.
This is not really a dedication, but the one thing I am most grateful for doing, even though I read recently that it wasn’t always a professional thing to do, is to have a picture taken with my dog for the back cover on two of my previous books. My beautiful furry best friend, whom I lost to cancer two years ago, is forever at my side in that photo. So, in some very small way her legacy will always live on with mine on the inside cover of those two novels and that is my dedication to her for being such a loving and loyal friend.
Whether you dedicate a book to one person, to thirty people, or no one, it’s a very deliberate decision. Anyone an author includes in this special tribute should know that they are someone special, too.
