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Thursday, November 24, 2016

Publishing Your Own Book - The Reveal

Thanksgiving Day.  I'm writing this from my sister's house in Richmond, VA.  My home.

About two months ago I received the first copies of my book.  Ten of them.  Excitement was in the air.  I was (and am) a published author!  Cool.  I meant to keep a copy for myself, but wound up giving them all away.  A few weeks ago I bought three more copies, and gave two of them away.  (The other was sold.  I needed the cash.)  Once again I have no copies.  But the pdf text is still with me. 

A Facebook announcement was in order, but first I tried the links to make sure they were good.  My friends responded well to the announcement and I created an "author" page for the book, but I haven't  really done anything to promote the page except change the title picture.  I don't want to be pushy.  Self-promotion has never been my forte.

The first ten copies went to family and friends, many of whom were my 'readers'.  All had presented good reviews for the book, and a couple were exceptional.  My sister's husband is not a guy who reads a lot, but his evaluation was excellent.  Another, my aunt Faye, who is a retired university professor gave the story high marks.  She loved it, said there were no grammatical errors, and I had an excellent command of the English language.  Cute.  (It was actually her evaluation  that prompted me to try and publish.)  Everyone else liked the story too, so I was happy that Page Publishing picked it up.  I put a special note inside each cover and sent the books away. 

A few weeks later I checked my author's page and found out the book was in the 'promotional stage'.  Page's people  had put together a press release about my book.  A copy was sent to me for my own perusal, and it was good.  I commented on one thing.  The same word was used twice in the same sentence.  They changed the word and I approved it forthwith. 

Thanks to my editor Courtney, who supervised all this. My experience with Page Publishing is still overwhelmingly good.   

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