I'm Published! :-)

Wow, I am sorry to have just dropped off the face of the Earth for a couple of weeks.  You can rest assured that quite in blog land usually = way to busy in my real world.  But it was a wonderful kind of busy.

Writing is something I've always enjoyed.  Mostly, just for me.  Until I had children... then it was for them.  Which leads me to today's post.

I published a book!

Okay, Okay, so its just self published.  Anyone could do it.  After a couple of emails, meetings and discussion with my very dear friend, Heather, I learned of lulu.com  I have to say in the past I have uttered the phrase that I would never self publish a book.  If it was good enough surely one of the literary agents I've been sending writing to for the past five years would pick it up, right?  

Now, I'm not sure if I'll ever get that call...  Also, with this last round of query letters I realized several of the literary agents on my list were either out of the business or no longer accepting clients.  These were the big name agents, too.  Heather helped me realize how the publishing industry is changing due to electronic formats...  thinking of  what is happening in the music industry this made sense to me.   But most importantly, Heather helped me realize my motivation.

Why did I really want this work published?  Was it worth the wait for 'someday'?

After soul searching and conversations/encouragement from my family and friends I decided...

"No, it's not worth waiting."  I can make now my someday.

These are stories I can use now...   not on someone else's time frame.

So, I published on lulu.com    The only thing I had holding me back was the illustrations.  I found a photo editor program that I liked and learned to convert digital photos to cartoons.

Problem solved.

I'll post more details soon (maybe later today, the baby is needing his mommy right now) about the book(s).

I'm proud that I've done this because it was such a fun process and I learned a lot.  With that said, for some reason I'm still embarrassed to share this with others?

Why in the world is that?  I think it is because I still think it was not 'really' published.

I'm finding that the more I share it on Facebook (and maybe on here) or in person with my friends, the more confident I feel.   (More of this story when I talk about Elijah's book.)

Anyway, thanks for reading my self publishing rambles.  Stay tuned, I'll be posting more details soon.