Man, I had no idea the process involved in writing a book and having it published. It is literally a full time job and I already have a full time job.
At the end of September after submitting my book to a literary agent I received a congratulatory phone call letting me know that they "really liked" my book and wanted to publish it. I was so thrilled that I didn't see the handwriting on the wall. They liked it so much that they wanted me to pay $3,500 for them to print my book. WTF? So this is how it works. Brian and I started doing our research and found out all about the world of Vanity Publishing. Basically it's a group of unscrupulous leeches (most of them, but not all) that love to take writer's ideas, slap them together in a pretty unappealing book with hideous cover art and then take an additional cut on any sales leaving you with no possibility of ever recouping a dime of your initial investment.
Listen, I am not in this to make any money and if I never see a dime from my work, it's still going to be worth it. This is about a creative dream... my Tennessee dream, but I've got to tell you that I was gutted. I felt taken advantage of and I realized that I had no clue, really what I was doing.
Thanks to Brian's research and the help of a few friends that have actually published material, we narrowed our self-publishing choices down to a few top dogs. Now, it is still going to cost me money to self-publish my own work (about half of the first quote), but the self-publishers that we researched are all top of their game. Their finished products look amazing and they are being sold on Amazon and have made some weekend author's like myself a fare bit of moola!
The last fly in the ointment has to do with licensed content. Because my book is set in Tennessee (music city, baby), I wrote several chapters with song lyrics woven into the story line. Guys, this is a big no-no... I mean perhaps Carrie Underwood isn't going to be so thrilled that I stole an entire verse of one of her biggest hits and slapped it into my romance novel. Chances are, Carrie and the others would never know, but if somehow this little book makes it onto the New York Times bestseller list and Carrie picks up a copy in the Nashville airport to read while on tour, my ass would be toast.
Next up is asking for permission (more like paying for permission) and so far, all songwriting parties appear to be okay with my content usage. Until I get their written approval to take to the publisher, I can't move forward with the next exciting steps of this creative process, which is jacket art, book descriptions and a little info on yours truly.
The dream is still alive and because I know you are all dying to ready something... I am going to post Chapter One shortly. I'll just say again, up front that I am not a writer, but the feedback that I have received from three other people that have read the entire novel have been positive (thank you Sandra, Rosemary and Brian). It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I am okay with that.
Love,
Stacy
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