Press "Enter" to skip to content

I finally saw The Book yesterday!

It’s definitely been a bit weird having a book on Amazon for nearly a month without ever having seen it.

Of course I viewed the .pdf many times in many stages before co-author Kit Perez uploaded it. But that’s not the same. I don’t have a Kindle reader, I don’t like ebooks, and not holding a paper copy in my hands felt like something was missing. Because something was!

Author copies have been pending, but Amazon’s been in no rush with them. (And that’s okay because they sell us our author copies at cost, rather than at the 50% rate traditional publishers offer.)

But in the first few days after orders commenced, I had deep-night fears of the book turning out all scrambled or otherwise horribly defective. My fears were irrational, but there they were.

Yesterday I finally — and unexpectedly — held my first paperback copy.

—–

I visited friends to help them socialize a dog they’ve been fostering. Poor pup is one of those sad cases who was “loved” by her original family — but never trained, never introduced to outsiders, just neglected and left covered with fleas. Now, at two years, she’s beastly on leash, terrified of strangers, clingy with those she loves, and responds to encroachments with loud hostility.

They’ve been walking her around public places, using techniques against fear aggression, and doing other things to help her. She’s learning, but not quickly. Because she also looks pit bullish or boxerish she’s lost out on three hopeful adoptions. Her fears scared the would-be adopters.

My job was only to tempt her with food, to get her to come to me and accept treats or scritches or toys, then to walk her around their property on leash without them being present. (She was distressed when “Dad” walked off, but she let me lead her; so that was good.) Easy-peasy except for nearly being pulled face first down the steep hills of their land.

Anyhow …

At some point in the proceedings, I glanced down at a coffee table … and there it was.

I tend to have a funny relationship to my books. Once a manuscript has gone off to the publisher, it’s done. Not since my very first books have I been excited to see one in print. By that time, it always feels as if it belongs to someone else.

I got a thrill holding Basics of Resistance, though. Finally, it looked like a book. All our words, the words we struggled over and had doubts about, looked so right and so true. The layout worked. Passages I’d fretted over suddenly seemed authoritative. The book, though a mere 150 pages, had a pleasant heft to it. I loved Kit’s book cover, too. It’s matte instead of the usual glossy laminate, which means it’s going to smudge with handling. OTOH, the stark, flat black and red look so right for the subject matter.

Yep, that was cool.

That I also got a free Mexican dinner and great conversation out of it and might have painlessly helped a foster dog … well, that was a bonus.

7 Comments

  1. Mike
    Mike April 26, 2018 11:14 am

    I can understand the sense of dread, I remember the printing issue you wrote about when Hardyville Tales hit the presses.

    I got my copy the other day when it went on sale at amazon.ca. It was a little shorter than I expected, but the content was bang on the money. No rush, but I’m looking forward to the next installment. And in case you are wondering, I left a 5 star review at Amazon. 🙂

  2. Joel
    Joel April 26, 2018 11:18 am

    So happy you finally saw one! It really does look good, I got mine last weekend.

  3. joemedic
    joemedic April 26, 2018 11:19 am

    As a fellow author, I know the thrill of holding your book with your name on it as the result of your blood, sweat, tears, curses and having wanted to give up the process of being an author and take up something like knitting instead.

    Ten books into the process and it is just slightly less than the thrill of holding your grandchild for the first time. But not too much as I really didn’t have any input in birthing the grandchildren.

    Congratulations. And look for a review coming soon…(Outstanding work! I will be buying copies for all of my friends!)

    Now is the time to start on the next one…

    (Please drop me an email so I can let you know when the review is up.)

    joemedic

  4. Claire
    Claire April 26, 2018 2:56 pm

    joemedic — Email sent, thank you. And please feel free to link to your own books here!

  5. fred
    fred April 26, 2018 3:28 pm

    All good news,I havent read the hardcover yet,but let the Kindle read it to me and liked it VERY much!

  6. larryarnold
    larryarnold April 26, 2018 7:52 pm

    So, double thrill? Seeing the first real copy, and finding it in somebody else’s home?

    I remember both.

  7. fred
    fred April 27, 2018 6:04 am

    You know,you do need another dog…….

Leave a Reply