I received an email yesterday that just may change my life. It was from a publishing company that wants to publish my first memoir,
Operatic Divas and Naked Irishmen: An innkeeper's tale. It's taken me four years to finally submit to the right place. In that time, I've done a lot of editing and three or four re-writes. I decided to go with an Indie publisher who would give me more input into the project.
So far, they have been extremely transparent and helpful. I am beginning the project with a thorough copy edit, something I have not done before. I've had lots of readers and a little editing here and there, but have relied mostly on myself to do the editing.
One of the parts of this process is somewhat off-putting to me. That being, the publicity part. I am now 85 years old and do not have the energy to carry on a proper publicity campaign on my own. Nor, do I have the money to hire a professional publicist. I am willing to set up a book-signing event (there's a great bookstore nearby), construct an author's page, and update my blog. Also, I can get a list of potential buyers together. But anything more than that, may be a problem.
The publisher is willing to do some work on this but, generally speaking, they really want their authors to become involved. It's probably a good idea all the way around, but it will certainly be
hard for me.
I am in hopes that I can resurrect this site and bring back the loyal following I had, with the promise that they can experience along with me the excitement and fulfillment in my journey to authorship. This certainly a great way to start the new year!
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For the past few days I've been getting my manuscript ready to send to the publisher for copy editing. It looks fairly clean to me, but I'm sure there are some structural and content issues I will have to grapple with. It's not that long, just under 70,000 words. But I have 27 chapters.
