When readers open a book by a first time writer, they
generally thumb quickly past those initial paragraphs that include all of the
thank you’s to people whose names mean little or nothing to them. I know that I do. But recently when Maya had her first novel
published, the list of all of those people involved in helping to get a book
published became much more real and meaningful to me.
It was almost three years ago now that Maya began working on
her novel. It was accomplished in a
burst of energy over a period of a few months.
Because she is a true writer and writes to express herself rather than
for any monetary rewards it brings, when she finished the manuscript, Maya had
no intention of trying to get it published or even showing it around. She had accomplished her goal, which was to
write a novel. The result was that it
sat on her shelf for well over a year.
As the editor of Wordgathering,
I’m constantly being sent not only writing submissions but books to
review. One day last fall, I pulled my
copy of Maya’s manuscript from my book shelf and began re-reading it. Two things immediately struck me. The first was what a damned good writer my
daughter is. The second is that her book
was more interesting and well-written than many of the published works that I
have sent to me. I urged her to consider having her book published.
Anyone who writes knows the excitement of being able to hold
in their hands the book that they have created.
There is a palpable reality to a book whose pages you can physically
turn with fingers that doesn’t exist in text that remains wedded to a computer
screen. Since the goal was to have
Maya’s book in our hands, we opted to cut to the chase and go with
self-publishing, as the best route. It
was at this point that many of the family and those who are thanked in the
book’s acknowledgements got involved.
Because of her constant involvement with reading and
reviewing legal writing, Lora has an excellent eye for ferreting out errors in
writing mechanics such as spelling and punctuation. She, Maya and I each separately re-read the
manuscript and combined our efforts into making corrections or needed
changes. While this was going on, we
were also thinking of cover design and there was only one person ever really considered
for that – Eli. Maya knew that as an
architect, photographer and graphic designer, he’d come up with something.
One of the important elements for the back cover design was
the inclusion of endorsements (aka blurbs) for the back of the book. We were able to enlist the help of two
published authors, Anne Kaier and Jessica Powers, but here again, family came
to our assistance. Maura’s mother-in-law
Erika is the author of two novels, one a mystery, and that fit well into the
literary genre that potential readers of Maya’s book were attracted to. Lora’s sister Paula also created a blurb for
us, which the limitations of how much we could include on the back cover forced
us to cut in the final version.
Looking even further into the future, we asked Judi’s
daughter Amber to write a review of the book that could be published in the
June issue of Wordgathering when we
anticipated that the book might come out.
Not only a family member and someone involved in writing through her own
professional work, Amber was a natural choice because she is closer in age to
readers that the novel is likely to attract and her take on the story was
important. She definitely came through
as this short excerpt from the review shows:
Johanna's Secret is a multi-layered novel—one with twists and turns that will keep the reader intrigued the entire way through. As human beings, we naturally love stories. We connect with stories. We remember stories. We have a strong desire to "escape" the worries, trouble and woes of our everyday life through stories. While there are numerous characters to keep up with, this novel does a beautiful job of intertwining each character into the overarching unsolved mystery. (To read Amber’s entire review, click: review.)
At this point, everyone’s efforts are coming to
fruition. The book’s release date is
July 16, but it is already up for pre-order both as an e-book and a paperback.
(Just click here to order.) Maya has
also had the excitement of seeing the first box of books arrive. It has
definitely been a family effort. All of
those thank you’s in the
acknowledgements at the back of the book have definitely become much more real!
