Hey Denise

Joel Friedlander’s tips on self-publishing on his blog, TheBookDesigner, are spurring me on. In his free booklet, “10 Things You Need to Know About Self-Publishing,” he clarified for me the next steps on the road to seeing my memoir of my family’s WWII experience, Bowing to the Emperor: We Were Prisoners of the Japanese, morph into a book.

Joel reminded me that if I want my book to look like professionals produced it, I need to hire professionals—unless, of course, I have those skills myself. He is referring to editorial, design, typography, and cover creation skills.

He goes on to say that four people are necessary in the whole process to make the book all it can be: the editor, the cover designer, the book layout artist, and the marketing consultant.

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Hey Denise,

The fog is lifting. The ducks are lining up, albeit in a somewhat ragged row. Yes, I’m beginning to get the hang of how to shift the gears on that self-publishing bus of mine.

After Googling and reading umpteen more reviews of self-publishing companies, including those in which users relate their experience withthe company they had chosen (I shuddered at some of the horror stories), and peeking at the online snippets provided by Mark Levine from his book, “The Fine Print of Self-Publishing” (you have to buy the book for the full story), I narrowed the search down to two: CreateSpace and Lulu.

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I arrive early at Nona’s Homemade for our meeting. When Tom strides in—tall, confident, two copies of his self-published book in hand—I ready my questions. “Tell me your self-publishing story,” I say.

Tom Donahue, a correction officer, co-owner with his wife of the ice cream shop Nona’s Homemade, and father of four, has somehow had time to write and publish Fraternal Bonds. And he did it without any special “in” or prior knowledge about, or experience with, the publishing process.

Listening to someone’s experience live is different from reading about it. As the minutes fly by, Tom talks book and Kindle sales, brick-and-mortar bookstore visits, reviews, book signings, Facebook, and other marketing avenues he is pursuing. He is revved up. His enthusiasm is contagious.

I am especially intrigued by his use of Facebook to pinpoint his audience. Who knew you could use this social media tool to search for groups and organization—in his case, correction facilities nationwide that might be interested in his crime novel?

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Checking “self-publishing” online is a little like starting a research paper by reading about your topic in an encyclopedia. You get a lot of compressed generic information. Different companies, bloggers, and experts pull you in ten different directions until you don’t know whom to believe or what to focus on. Clicking through links sends you wandering down strange paths until you end up on Confusion Lane.

What I wish for as I stroll online through the thicket of information is a magic detector. In my fantasy, sweeping this detector with its attached magnet over the document would cause it to beep rapidly when in the presence of useful information. The magnet would then extract the prized nugget and deposit it in my saved self-publishing info folder, neatly filed in some step-by-step order.

Until such a wonderful instrument is invented, I guess I’ll have to slog along and read andsave as many documents as I think might be helpful. With technology changing every minute and self-publishing models and companies popping up like mushrooms after a soaking summer rain, I’ve decided to focus on information provided in 2011 or 2012. What was cutting edge earlier—say, in 2008 or 2009—may well be outdated by now.

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Last night I drove a bus. OK it was in my dream, but the anxiety I felt was one hundred percent real. Sitting up there in the driver’s seat, my left foot barely able to reach and depress the clutch, the loose four-on-the-floor gearshift dancing around as I tried to downshift, I felt wildly out of control.

I failed to make the right turn cleanly at the intersection and ran over the grass strip. I sweated at the thought of stalling it at the next stop sign. And all the while my sister was making unhelpful critical comments behind me. I didn’t see her volunteering to take over. Oh how I wanted to be anywhere but there. Please, I prayed, let me be a passenger and not the driver, not the one in charge.

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