Day: June 5, 2008

My name is on the cover of a book. It is right there under “written by.” The book is real. It arrived today via Fed Ex. In fact 10 identical books arrived. They are my advance copies of Hold on to Your Horses. The first one out of the package was given to Gleek. She is the reason that the book exists at all. The next two copies were shipped off to Angela Call whose name can be found under “Illustrated by.” This leaves seven copies remaining. These are my promotional copies. Each of these will go to carefully selected homes in the hopes that they will find many friends who will come and pre-order one of the other 2000 copies of the book which will arrive in my driveway Mid-July.

The seven books in a row currently sit in my office. I can see all the spines lined up with the title and my name and Angela’s name reiterated all down the row. All the stress and tears and despair have come to this. I wrote a story and now it is a book.

I’m scared.

It is strange to feel scared at this point. The work is all done. The book is beautiful. All the stress we put into making sure the colors would print correctly, worked. The colors are beautiful. The book is beautiful. …but I can’t tell if I think it is beautiful because it is mine or if there is true goodness and beauty in it. I don’t know if more than 700 people will be willing to put down money to buy my book.

I imagine my feelings today are similar to those of a skydiver who has already jumped out of the plane, but has yet to pull on the parachute cord. In theory when I open ordering on the book, people will show up with money in hand, but I can’t know for sure until I pull the cord. I have just a few more pieces to put into place, then the ordering can begin. Soon…