Maya's Book: A Family Effort

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!