BIRTHING THE BOOK
BIRTHING THE BOOK
Guiding my book Parsing the Dragon: A Memoir, to publication honestly felt like revisiting the births of my three children. Coaxing, pushing, pulling, leading something BIG slowly into life.
The process began last December at Christmas dinner when I moaned about not being able to find a publisher. My daughters took me aside in a guest bedroom and we talked. I explained I’d sent the book out about six times and had attended conferences to meet publishers and agents. One editor had kept the book for months but hadn’t looked at it. My 72nd birthday passed. Time ticked on.
My older daughter encouraged me to contact her recent publisher in Missoula, Montana. We held a four-way conversation between ourselves and the two editors at SPS, Publishing. Suddenly, contracts were being signed, the manuscript was sent, and progress ensued.
We aimed for a July publication date to make the Pacific Northwest Association’s annual meeting in Seattle in July and then found out they were moving the Conference to September! (We thought we could make that deadline).
My life last spring and summer became engulfed in lengthy edits (three), continual fact checking and tracking down places for copyright verification, finding photos to use in the book. When I’d wake at 3 a.m., my mind fraught with to-do lists, I’d wrap myself in a warm robe, take a candle onto our upper deck above the water, and meditate for about twenty minutes. I’d often hear the seals bark below. I’d select the two most important things to accomplish the following day, then return to bed.
By August, we were close. So far, things had gone smoothly. We loaded the book onto CreateSpace and KDP. Soon the book appeared as an ebook on amazon.com. That went smoothly! Then the baby book bucked! The paperback appeared more slowly and when it did, it was being sold with color photos at $40 a copy! Dead on Arrival, I said.
Then we learned that CreateSpace, the company that uploaded and formatted my book was folding. Manuscripts were being transferred to KDP but that brought new glitches. Books I’d ordered on CreateSpace would not arrive for weeks. No one knew if they would be in color or black and white. My editor Clare Wood worked frantically to iron out these problems as August became September. I signed up for an Autograph party at the PNWA Conference in mid-September but would my books arrive in time?
I barely had twelve hours to glance at the last proof but my editor assured me I’d get another proof in book format and would have plenty of time to review that but I received the proof a week before the Conference. I made time during the Conference to review the proof and make corrections.
The multi-author Autograph party was scheduled for Friday. Rich planned to join me that afternoon (and if you don’t know who Rich is, read the book!) My website designer, Michelle Pugh of Joonbug Graphic Design, had created postcard/bookmarks and I’d had those printed locally so I would have something to hand out.
My books had not arrived when I left for the Conference on Thursday morning, Sept. 13. I ordered in every possible way—through CreateSpace, and directly from amazon.com—even some of the $40 copies in color (I really liked those!) When Rich arrived about 4 p.m. Friday, HE BROUGHT BOOKS! They’d arrived Friday morning! HOORAY!
I also met Clare, my SPS editor for the first time at the Conference.
Parsing the Dragon took about fifteen years to complete. I finished it once but then found my parents’ letters. I knew they needed to be included in the book. I still touch the book and am surprised it became real. More coming in the next blog about mistakes, things that got left out and reader comments.