Book Publication, GUTS, Vine Leaves Press, Writing

GUTS: The Path to Publication

Now that the kids are settled in at school, I can turn my attention to the child I’ve neglected over the summer: my memoir. My publication date for GUTS is February 13, 2018, a date that will no doubt come up quickly. The next few months will feature the tasks that many authors dread: marketing our work. Most writers prefer the hermit life of putting words on the page in the privacy of their writing spaces to the more public tasks of self-promoting, readings, conference presentations.

I do like the solitude of writing, but I’m also excited to get out from behind my writing desk and talk to readers about my book and the writing life. Self-promotion is difficult for me, but I’m trying to get over it. Just today at the dog park, I sent an email to a friendly woman I’d just met so she could have my contact information. “I’ll come to your reading!” she said as we parted a few minutes later. An almost complete stranger is planning to come to my reading – hooray!

Now all I need to do is schedule it.

Setting up readings, it turns out, is slow going, though yesterday I had my first success. The week my book comes out, I’m going to be on vacation with my family (parents, siblings & their families, Matt and the kids, Matt’s brother) in Steamboat Springs, CO. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to read with my whole family present, so I contacted the librarian at the beautifully renovated Bud Werner Memorial Library and I’ll be giving a talk and a reading there on February 19, 2018. Wow! Though it may seem strange to kick off my book tour so far from home, Steamboat was my off-and-on home for 2 years post-college, and there are even a few paragraphs of GUTS that take place in Steamboat.

It’s great to be able to have such an attractively designed website — courtesy of Sharon Mentyka — to help me with that self-marketing. And now I’m thrilled to have a beautiful cover to share with everyone. We Vine Leaves Press authors are fortunate to have a publisher who is also a book designer, Jessica Bell. I love the way that Jessica listened to my ideas and created a cover that conveys the theme of bravery.

So here it is…the cover!!

GUTS_cov

And yes, it’s very cool and totally surreal to see my name in print on a book cover. And have a page on Vine Leaves’ website dedicated to GUTS, and even have it show up with a 5-star review (thanks Jessica!) on Goodreads!

I’m planning to blog more regularly in the lead-up to February 13th, and keep the site updated as I schedule events. I hope my friends and family will follow my blog so you can all keep tabs on GUTS as it makes its way into the world.

11 thoughts on “GUTS: The Path to Publication

  1. Janet,  Your book cover is absolutely gorgeous, especially your name spanning the cover. I am thrilled for you! Your book’s birth into the world gives me hope for my own.  I hope you’ll schedule a reading at Octavia Books in New Orleans with a reading here in Acadiana.  Cheers!Sandy

    Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

  2. Katie Buttenwieser

    Janet, If “Guts” is your child, then it is my grandchild. Its cover is beautiful, & I know that it’s
    beautiful on the inside too. With love & congratulations from your proud mother

  3. Sylvia Watkins-Castillo

    The cover I saw in draft form looks fantastic – and sure to intrigue people to pick it up. So looking forward to reading the final story. And Steamboat seems a very good place for a reading. Get Michael to let his friends know in advance and get the word out. Love and congratulations.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s