I’ve wondered if it would be hard to be self-promote(y) before my memoir is published.
It turns out– and this may be a sad fact for you to hear– it’s astonishingly easy! Because lately, my book is all I think about. I fall asleep thinking of details, and I wake up making lists of those same ones. And there are lots of details to mind.
I’ll list just a few.
The title. My book had to be renamed since two recent books were published with nearly the same title. How hard can that be? What’s in a name?
Pretty much everything, I’ve learned. I looked up How to Pick a Title for your Book on Indiebooklauncher. The title’s length can determine how the book cover looks. It’s title can promote Google-ability. It can enhance or kill sales. And since I’m not working alone, I need to convince the editor, publisher, and team who frankly know much more than I do. I couldn’t do it. In the end, I chose from a list the editor provided after we went back and forth, and finally, it’s titled.
Drumroll, please!
Pieces of Me. There will be a subtitle, of course, but Pieces of Me sounds just right. My book is about finding my kidnapped daughters. Finding my missing family. Finding me along the way. I think it works. I’m thinking of this picture to be on the cover, just after the girls and I were reunited in Greece in May of 1996.
What do you think?
Then there’s the stuff to include inside the book. The Thank you to this person and to that. Not easy, because there is limited room and the thank you’s are meant mostly for those who’ve helped directly with the book, but I want to thank people who helped me find my daughters, and people who stayed in their lives while we continued to move forward, post-1996.
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et’s not forget the author photo. This picture also can enhance sales or detract. Any article on the topic will confirm it. I know. I read many before I felt comfortable proceeding. My favorite was by Tucker Max in Book Publishing. So I hired a photographer I adore. I picked good colors. I even read a helpful blog post online about the importance of taking selfies in advance to find your good side, your best colors, etc. And I tried to get my curls unwound so the picture would look good. But nothing worked.
I went for a look of friendly and approachable. A team of three photographers helped me with lighting, positioning, and calming my unruly hair. “Stop slouching! Shoulders back! Stick your neck out and look up and then over! Relax!”
I ended up looking like a linebacker. A friendly and approachable linebacker. It was my choice of clothes. Too big and boxy. It’ll have to do, and I think the pictures are starting to grow on me.
Next on the list is obtaining licensing rights to reprint newspaper snippets and such, finding the right venue for a book launch, and getting blurbs from authors I admire.
Sometimes it feels like this is an impossible feat. I know my book is a developing fetus, but my initial manuscript is nearly of drinking age. Still, it’s finally happening. My book within nine months of it’s birth!
Thanks for joining me during the process.