More madness! Okay, so the decision was wade to go the self publishing route once and for all time eternal. Now what?!
Time to figure it out. When I type in "self publishing" all kinds of places pop up. This begins months of searching, querying, sending samples, getting the same responses. 'We would love to work with you, have a look at our publishing packages and choose the right one for you."
I'm a little confused. When you write a book with an interesting story, if done right there should be no problem in return on investment. So why would they be charging up front? Where's the incentive to be clever and make sure the books have their best chance? it was nice to be so sought after, but it's for the wrong reasons. So far the best thing I have found is Amazon's publishing services. Oddly that was the first place I looked into.
Dread sets in at the feeling of getting nowhere. Everything has to be paid for, like editing, cover, interior, blurb (whatever that is). What do I do when I have no way to acquire those services? There's also a recurring theme in that the book should be as polished as possible before an editor gets it. With all the warnings about doing it yourself when you have no clue what to do I began to ask more questions in my "authorship university". Somewhere I hear about these places that do the self publishing but require no up front money from the author. Good luck finding them though! I found 3, only 3, and none of them do memoir/bio. Maybe I should call it a true life romance and go for that genre. For now I do the only thing I can, gather intel on editing and edit edit edit.
Now more bonus for you since you read this so graciously! Another excerpt from this thing I keep blabbing about.
So what though, Wendy knows them
and will be helpful, and it’s a lot faster for me to have her patient knowledge
immediately handy. It saves the wasted time of my incessant questions! What is your mobility-do you stand up or
need help-do I need to be careful of anything-blah-blah-blah. . I went off
doing whatever task came along from whatever source it was presented. Since it
was all the typical daily nursing tasks that I had done thousands of times
already they required little in the way of cognitive processing so my mind was
always on…you know who!
While running around the halls of station 1 getting the patients ready
for breakfast when lookie there!,
Sheilas light is on! And away I go! Knock-knock
on the door and announce myself so she knows who the
invader will be whom answers her beckon. Oh glory be! Sheila pushed the call
light AND she wants coffee AND she is really happy to see me be the
one that answered. When she said “HI ALEX!” I think my heart froze in place for
a moment, or maybe it was TIME that froze. There is that beautiful face. We’re
talking and I am part of the conversation, but I kept wanting to ask her if she
wants Mr. Right-only-
for-her-because-now-that-I’ve-seen-you-no-one-else-is-possible, but you know! Gotta be COO’ about shit fo’ now and
let us both learn some stuff about each other. So I go and get Sheila her
morning coffee. Again the same reaction, she loves it! The whole coffee thing
wasn’t just a fluke of the cosmos. When the breakfast trays came I once again
found Sheila’s and happily delivered it thinking how I would do this for her at
home if I could get her to my place. For now I’ll settle for simply being able
to do it at all.
The rest of the day went pretty well, but the
best part was smoke breaks when I got to sit with Sheila and yak about
whatever. It turns out we have a lot in common. We like the same in music,
movies, and fun. We watched many of the same classic TV shows growing up and
both even spent most of our lives in Sacramento .
During my lunch break I had no appetite because I was too excited, I
knew Sheila would be outside and we would have the entire break to sit and
talk. That conversation she told me about her getting her wheelchair via car
wreck in which she hit her back against the dashboard of her friends’ car
breaking her spine at T8 while severing her spinal cord. It was at this time of
year the wreck happened so she was always a little depressed when it rolled
around. Her sad anniversary was just over a month away on Nov.17, which will
close 7 years. Damn! I wanted to hug her before, imagine how much I wanted to
after hearing THAT. As I sit there talking with her I keep thinking ‘she’s so
freakin’ hot that even 7 years in a chair can’t touch it!’. That’s around about
when I asked slyly about her boyfriend, being really happy when she tells me
she has no romantic entanglements a’cuz I get to snatch her up!! All I gotta do
is get her to want it enough to open her heart. She gives me a little crack of
the door I’m gonna climb right the hell in there and claim that gorgeous pumper
for MINE, and take her places her spirit never imagined. I MEAN,C’MON, I have
been thinking about this all through my teen years, I got plans toward her.
Dang! My watch
is beeping! Lunch break is over, I have to go back to work. And things were
going so well! Man I wish I could kiss her! With those sexy lips I’ll bet they
feel really warm and soft. Hey! At least the lunch trays will be arriving soon,
hopefully I can grab hers again. Of course there’s always the luck of the call
light!