300 Advanced Reading Copies of Paraworld Zero!

Originally posted HERE

UPS delivered 300 copies of Paraworld Zero on Thursday. The official publication date is January, but I needed a bunch of books for pre-orders, bookstores, and reviewers. My publisher would handle the reviewers, but they're out of town and I just couldn't wait. Pre-pub reviewers want books 3 months in advance, so I'm already late in sending them my book. Plus, I know that I would be able to spend more time catering each press release for each reviewer... which I did. Heck, I wrote the press release myself. It's pretty good, if I do say so myself. I ran it by John Kremer (book marketing guru) and he gave it the thumbs up. I spent all day yesterday sending out about 40 books. I still have more to send, but those were the important ones.

Anyway, it was euphoric to see my book in print after all these years. I literally spent an hour staring at the cover and 30 illustrations. I'm so pleased with how the cover turned out (I did the artwork for my book, but every printer prints differently). I started writing this in 1990 (I wrote 6 chapters and then my computer died on me). I started writing it again in 2002. I finished the first draft 2003 and spent all of 2004 trying to get an agent. No luck. Then in 2005, I tried getting a publisher. The summer of 2006 (one year and one week later), Windstorm Creative called me up and said they wanted to publish my book (they were actually the first publisher I sent my book to and the last one to respond). Well, it's been a year and a half since I signed the contract and I finally have some copies in my hand. Whew! 3 more months and the world will have it as well.