Doing Too Much

Okay, so I’ve told you I’m trying to publish a book, set to come out in November. While I’m doing that, I’m also attempting to raise 3 boys, so that they’ll reach adulthood before they end up killing themselves. School’s starting soon and I’m trying to put together this website. My husband’s doing all the technical work, thank you, dear! But it’s my job to sound interesting and clever.

Let me tell you, it’s not easy.

I imagined myself sitting down and writing amusing anecdotes about my process. And while I am writing about my process, it’s not as amusing as I thought it would be. But I will keep trying. You know what they say about a thousand monkeys typing away…eventually they’ll come up with something intelligible. Or is that one monkey typing for a thousand years?

See how hard this is?

I recently participated in a Writer’s Festival at a mall (see Press for full coverage and a picture to prove I was really there!). Several writers joined the group and most of us attempted not to look too desperate as we sat there with our precious books (well, mine was just a book cover, so I probably looked more pathetic than the others), hoping people would at least notice we were sitting there.

In preparation for the big event, I made up about 30 color posters of my book cover and created a card with the book’s blurb, along with the release date. Then, after I printed out all those mini-posters, I realized there was a misspelled word on it. Agh! To calm myself, I ate some cookies. Then I changed my perspective. Years from now, when I’m famous, those posters will be worth at least twice what it cost me to make them, simply because there’s a mistake on them. Just like old coins and stamps somebody screwed up on! I felt better, then I ate some more cookies.

At any rate, I think I gave out about 4 book covers and a couple blurbs. Success? I’m not sure. My mother took 2 of the posters. I did get my picture in the paper, along with a quote that made me sound more intelligent than I think I really did. The reporter started asking me questions and I started babbling inane, nonsensical answers. He must be a pro, since he was able to find something logical in what I said.

It was nice to get out, though, and do something productive for my book. I’ve heard so many writers say that writing is the easy part, what comes next is the difficult hurdle. I think they’re both hard. I’ve reached a point where writing has gotten easier, but it’s still a lot of work.

I wrote in my first blog that I was going through a small publishing company (Breakneckbooks.com). I don’ t have an agent–not a one wanted to represent me and my book. Sniff, sniff. And believe me, I sent my book out to a lot of them. I’d like to think that it’s because the children/young adult fantasy genre is a bit saturated right now, not that my book stinks.

So it was encouraging and heartening to have Breakneckbooks like what I’d done and want to publish my work. They’re small, but they get a lot of submissions. However, the company doesn’t have a big marketing budget, nor do they get into bookstores (bookstores won’t buy POD - publish on demand books - because they can’t send them back to the publishing company and get their money back). Maybe someday that will all change, but for now, we’re just going to have to work our behinds off to make a difference for the little guy, or gal!