I’ve been keeping a secret.
With the release of Am I Like My Daddy?, my children’s grief picture book, I had the support of a publisher to handle the editing, book’s design, and the many variables that go into publication. To have been traditionally published was a gold star moment for me. I needed someone else to tell me I was good enough to warrant a contract, that what I had to say and the way I chose to say it was worth someone else paying their own money to put my book together. When Bronze Man Books made that dream come true last year I felt on top of the world. Now, with the book continually selling out at Amazon and grief centers across the country reaching out to purchase books to use with their grieving families, I am overwhelmed and blessed.
But I am not done. I have more to say. With my written words. If you recall, I received 99 rejections (with many positive comments peppered amongst the generic form letters) before I received that golden ticket to publication, even better than that golden ticket to Hollywood. I was tenacious. I wrote. I rewrote. I experimented with point-of-view. I changed story structure. But I believed in my story about the little girl who couldn’t remember her daddy and just wanted to know if she was anything like him. I am still that little girl in a 40 year-old woman’s body at times, too, wondering what my parents would be like now, wondering how they would support my latest endeavor.
But I can’t wait 4 more years, the time it takes to accumulate dozens and dozens of potential rejections. I have been researching the changing landscape of publishing. In a survey of my fifth grade students nearly every child in the classroom has access to a Kindle, Kindle Fire, Nook, iPad, iPod touch, laptop, smartphone, or desktop computer at home. Books aren’t sold only in paper form anymore. I have studied the industry a lot! And I am taking control of the next step in my publishing career. I am taking advantage of the new technology and not waiting for someone else to believe in my work. I believe in my work. I believe enough that I am opening myself up to comments from friends and strangers alike to love my creation, to tolerate it, or to hate it. But I am taking control.
Country singer Martina McBride sings in the song Anyway:
You can pour your soul out singing
A song you believe in
That tomorrow they’ll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway
Yea – sing it anyway
Change out “sing” for “write” and “song” for “book.”
You can pour your soul out writing
A book you believe in
That tomorrow they’ll forget you ever wrote
Write it anyway
Yes- write it anyway
After working with two editors who offered great advice and support, Betty Ivers and Jennifer Bomar, and a cover artist, Amy Kuhl Cox, who I worked with in Am I Like My Daddy?, I am proud to announce that my next book will be for sale through Amazon Direct Kindle Publishing as an e-book within a matter of weeks. Check out the book blurb for my upcoming middle grade novel:
Confessions of a Corn Kid
By: Marcy Blesy
Twelve-year-old year old Bernie Taylor wants to be an actress but not your typical country-music lovin’, beef-eatin’ actress you’d expect from Cornville, Illinois. No way. She wants to go to Chicago to be a real actress, just like her mom did before she died of breast cancer. Bernie keeps a journal that her Mom gave her and writes down all her confessions, the deepest feelings of her heart, ‘cause she doesn’t want any of those regrets Mom talked about. Regrets sound too much like those bubbly blisters she keeps getting on her feet from trying to fit into last year’s designer knock-off heels. But it’s not easy to pursue your dreams when you have a dad who doesn’t understand the desire to embrace a life where people don’t look at you like a weirdo for wearing runway fashions to school.
Then, during the announcement of the sixth grade play, Bernie’s teacher reveals that there will be one scholarship to a prestigious performing arts camp in Chicago. Bernie knows it’s her one big chance to achieve her dream. She spends too much time dreaming of the lead role in the play (which includes kissing Cameron Edmunds) and not enough time practicing her audition lines. She bumbles her lines, blows her audition, and battles her bully, Dixie Moxley, reigning Jr. Miss Corn Harvest Queen. She digs in the heels of her hand-me-down knee-high boots, determined to win that scholarship-somehow. If she doesn’t, she’ll be stuck in Cornville forever, far away from the spotlight she craves.
Welcome to my next turn in the roller coaster world of publishing. I thank you for following my journey. More information will follow when the book is actually for sale. I will also discuss more how you can read the book if you don’t actually own a Kindle and why I am choosing to only use the Kindle platform at this time.
And in the wise words of Jennifer Green, a friend who listened to my fears about potentionally failing so publicly with my next book. “If you flop, you will flop gracefully, and I will be waiting with a glass of wine.” Let’s hope we can use that wine in celebration! :-)
