Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Watch What You Say Around Me...

When my son Noah was seven, he was admiring the loose skin on his grandmother’s neck and said: “Grandma, I like your wibble. Mom, why does Grandma have a wibble?” And that was the beginning of a dream come true for me. As my children have quickly learned, if you say something cute or profound around me, I’m usually grabbing a pen or my laptop to scribble out an idea for a potential book. And that’s what happened with Noah’s comment. Within a matter of weeks, I was searching for a publisher and going through the labor-intensive search for kids’ quotes to fill the pages of my book. My preference was to land a contract through a traditional publishing house, but they are known for moving at glacial speed. I figured if I waited on a contract from a large house, these children would be graduated and might even be grandparents if I didn’t move the process along a little faster. So, I chose a self-publisher, and now have a few more experiences under my belt. While going this route is not something that I might consider again, just because of the enormous out-of-pocket expense that is laid out even before you have a book in hand, it certainly has given me an understanding of the self-publishing business. AND, it did allow me to see my own book in print in a much shorter time frame. “Why Does Grandma Have a Wibble?” has finally been released, and I now have 1,488 copies of the fruits of my labor in my garage.

No comments: