Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Again I am being forced to look at the calendar and realize that the final days of summer are swiftly passing by a lot quicker than I would like!  I also realize that tomorrow is the last day that I will be spending telling you about the library's new friend, Dorothy Stacy and the day that we will draw for her book.  I hope that you have enjoyed reading about Mrs. Stacy and have taken the opportunity to visit her own website to learn more about her business ventures and writing.  I sincerely hope that you have also made a beeline for Frank J. Basloe Library and have checked out one or all of the Erie Canal Cousins Series.

Look for the last word of advice from Mrs. Stacy to all you would be authors later on Wednesday, as well as the announcement of the winner of the first book in the series, signed by Mrs. Stacy.

Until then, remember . . .

"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."  C.S. Lewis (www.goodreads.com).

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

   

The path to becoming published

     Several months ago, at the start of this blog, I wrote to you about Jason Foster's journey into self publishing and why that was the right choice for him.  A couple of months ago, Cano Davy and Marcus Z. told us the route that they took by co-authoring a book with someone who was an experienced self-publisher. Mrs. Dorothy Stacy chose yet another path for her when she decided to write and publish her Erie Canal Cousins series.

 Mrs. Stacy didn't just self-publish . . . she opened her very own publishing company! This is her story . . .


         "When I wrote the first book in this series, I submitted the first chapter to a local publishing 

          house that published that type of book. I received a response to send in the rest of the book
          for a reading. I did so and waited for a response. I received a letter saying that they loved the 
          book and would probably publish it. They were just waiting for a final okay. I waited about 6
          months and still no response so I e-mailed them about it and they gave me the same story. 
          After another year passed with some more e-mails between us, finally my husband decided
          he would check this out himself by going there. To make a long story short, they sent the 
          manuscript back a few days later and said they were not going to publish it. Of course, I was
          devastated but in the meantime I had been looking into some printing companies that other 
          writers had used and I decided I COULD do this myself. But I would do it the right way. I
          opened my own publishing company, Blackberry Hill Press, learned all there was to know 
          about publishing, performed all the necessary tasks, printed it out and sent it to Morris 
          Publishing (the printing company I went with.) With my instructions and pictures they put the 
          front and back cover together the way I wanted it to go and were very helpful to a first time 
          publishing author."


For more information, go to Mrs. Stacy's webpage at http://dorothystacy.com/?page_id=20 about Blackberry Hill Press.





Until next time, I will leave you with this quote from Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 



"No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books (www.quotegarden.com)."