A publishing contract - oh, my!

I now have a contract with Lucky Press, LLC to publish my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On. Our plan is to have it on the shelves by Mother’s Day 2011.

Before I get into all the details on how Lucky Press and I connected, I want to tell you a bit about my wonderful publisher, Janice Phelps Williams and her publishing company.

From the LP website: “Lucky Press, LLC is a traditional, independent publishing company located in the beautiful Appalachian foothills of Athens, Ohio…. its original aim to publish books about ‘characters, real or imagined, who overcome adversity or experience adventure,’ ”

So, I feel that Lucky Press is a perfect match for my book.

From the minute she read my query letter Janice understood exactly why I wanted to tell the story of my oldest son’s bipolar disease, his suicide, and how I and my husband, Bob, and son, Ben, survived. My goal is to tell people that it is possible to survive the loss of a child and how I did it. And Janice got it immediately. She said in her first response to me, “ …it is important that other people going through these experiences can read about similar stories, can find a way through sorrow that seems impossible to endure….”

Janice gave me some great notes after her first read through of my manuscript. Later my friend (and writer), Marlene read the book with Janice’s notes in mind and came up with some brilliant suggestions. My job right now is to take these notes and weave them into a revised manuscript ready for Janice by the first of January 2011. I have a lot of work to do between now and then.

I plan to write here about this process and how it’s progressing until the book is in print. I’ll also write about how we’re marketing it. Actually my assignment right now is to develop a pre-publication marketing plan that will complement the one Lucky Press is developing. There are so many avenues out there – especially through social networks – that  my book can’t help but be successful. Right?!?