I am so excited that my third book has gone live on Amazon. So far, the Kindle version is ready to go, and as of right now, I have some formatting issues to get the paperback version edited for printing. When I started this book, I was dealing with much emotion surrounding my idea of having my dad be a character with Liam. Daddy died two weeks before Liam was born, and I will never see him hold or even read to my son.
In my imagination, I tried to create an environment where Jimmy Mac and Lee-Lee have a special bond. I also struggled giving this book conflict. I felt like it needed a problem/solution of some kind, and this is a children’s book. Thus, the question remains: how to have a problem/solution in here at all? Of course, I created the layout on Canva, converting the presentation to a pdf. This pdf was then uploaded into Kindle Publisher. Once I had the file, then all I had to do is preview and publish.
My main issue with publishing the paperback is the formatting of the Canva pdf, which has margins (inside and outside) that are too large for the format of my book. So, I get to figure out how to shrink them down, and thankfully, Amazon does give suggestions on what the issues are, how to fix them, and how to try again.
I am so blessed that Amazon has given me platform to self publish, but it takes a lot of work on my end with formatting, layout, images, and text. It seems that I get carried away with document and design that I lose my focus on the story line itself. Pat (Dr. Miller) always told me in Journalism while in graduate school that she wished I could layout a dominant image and design a page as well as I could change modes of writing. I must confess–I still struggle with layout and design. But I was never a journalism major now was I? I was simply a Rhet/Comp grad student with a preference for literary nonfiction, which I NEVER get to write.
On a more positive note, I found out today—that 58 people have purchased my children’s books in the last two days. Also, my poetry book as been printed and shipped to six different people since Halloween. I cannot describe the joy I have just to see any spike in readers at all. Why do I work if not to be read? The reader is the most important collaborator. If books aren’t read, the collaboration has failed.
I hold onto hope for my writing, and I nurse it like a newborn child. I have spent so much of my life after college working, paying bills, and rearing children that my real talent got put on the back burner. I refuse to give up. I still have so much to say and so much work is coming out of me. It’s hard to focus when a million children’s stories are shuffling in my head with poems constantly fighting to get out onto the page each day. Now I have found a strong female led in a three chapter novel I am writing mostly at night when I should be sleeping.
It’s 1 am, and I must be quieting the soul and all the literary beasts trapped in the cue.
Benjamin Franklin always said he could sleep when he is dead.
“There will be sleeping enough in the grave.” Benjamin Franklin
Things yet to do…
- Edit all margins
- Upload modified text
- Get paperback to be LIVE
- Complete edition 2 of book 2
- Continue to add Grandma’s pictures to my poetry book
- Work on Query Letters for agents for Esmeralda
- GET an AGENT
The Aging English Major: Searching for Self throughout Motherhood 