How I Became Enthusiastic About Publishing my First Book

 

Ever since my Watermelon Letter, I wrote lots of letters about issues I considered important.  I also wrote short stories about my life for my children and grand-children. I earned a degree in English and became a teacher, but I had never seriously considered writing and publishing a book.

 

After I retired from teaching in public schools, I volunteered at the Senior Center as a computer tutor. Even though I now had time, I still didn’t think I’d ever enter the publishing world.

 

Then two incidents inspired me to think about publishing a book.

 

One day eighty-year old Ruth approached me at the senior center about helping her write a book. She wanted to write about her family memories and produce a physical book as a present for all the folks who would be attending the family reunion the following year. She had a vague idea of the contents—stories and pictures—and needed help in putting it all into a coherent whole. I gave her a few tips on the spot and told her to contact me when she was ready to let me proof-read and edit her manuscript. For six months I didn’t hear from her, so I thought she had given up on her project. Then one day, she called me. She was ready to put the book together. Her stories had been written and the vintage black and whites had been sorted.

 

For a couple of months we worked on editing the text and scanning and placing the pictures for final printing at a local printshop. We were both pleased with the result, and her family reunion was a great success with the addition of Ruth’s “Strolling Down Memory Lane.”

 

Then there was Alice, also eighty. We met frequently at the Elks Lodge where our husbands were members. She occasionally mentioned the manuscript she had written and submitted to a publisher years ago. Because she had received a rejection from the publisher, she just let it languish in her files. One day, I asked her why she didn’t just publish it herself with one of the Internet vanity publishers. At least it would be a physical book that could be given to her children and grandchildren. Alice thought that was a pretty good idea.

 

A couple of weeks later, she called me to tell me that she’d signed a contract with one of those publishers but that she’d need some help with formatting the manuscript and uploading it. I gladly agreed to help. Within a few weeks we celebrated her beautiful book, a young adult fantasy, called “White Hole in Space.”

 

After I helped these two elderly ladies publish their books, I thought, “If I can help others publish a book, I should be able to help myself publish one.” I gathered all the stories I’d written for my children and started sorting them chronologically. I filled in missing chapters and added my correspondence regarding nursing homes and contracted with a vanity publisher.

 

My memoir, “The Little Girl That Could” was published in 2009 at considerable expense. In 2010, I spent more money publishing “Mindpieces,” a collection of unrelated shorter pieces that range from whimsical poetry to serious political letters and fictionalized family lore. 

 

These two expensive books were followed by two self-published books, “Banking, Bowling and Beethoven” and “Maria Lives!” I chose CreateSpace.com, an Amazon company, for the printing and distribution of these books. Over the past two years, I’ve also written and illustrated three children’s books based on my childhood in post-WWII Germany.