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A Promise to Publish

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“I purchased this book at the recommendation of my Mom & sister who heard Mr. Shepherd speak & give his testimony, then read the book. I didn’t realize that once I started reading I wouldn’t be able to put the book down. This story is the ultimate witness of how God pursues us and puts special people in our midst to help guide us to His lovingly designed life path. A true testament of God’s love told from the perspective of an imperfect person like me showing everyone the perfect love of Jesus.” (C. Mann, Amazon Review)

I’ve shared about writing Jerry’s story in my last two posts. First about how I was inspired to write Jerry’s story of redemption and grace and then last Sunday about how Jerry’s letters he wrote home from prison made the writing possible. Those letters in Jerry’s own words brought the story to life.

But writing a story doesn’t always mean it will get out there where other people can read it. I believed Jerry’s story did need an audience and more than the audience of one that I was. Jerry wanted his story to be between the covers of a book so that his experiences might help others have hope in desperate times.

As I said in one of my other posts, my first inspirational novel had just been published when I approached Jerry about writing his story. I had the opportunity to write a couple more inspirational novels. I was on the way to resurrecting my lagging writing career. Writing a nonfiction book wasn’t exactly part of my recipe for success. But I dived into the story and wrote it anyway. But first I promised Jerry that one way or another I would see that the book was published if he let me write his story. Of course, I had hopes that a publishing company would pick up the book and make it widely available all across the country. But my fiction publishers weren’t interested. Memoirs are hard to sell unless it’s the story of some famous person. Jerry did not fit that billing. My agent at the time, sent it here and there with no bites. Actually not even a nibble.

Submitting for publication if you don’t have a contract in hand can be a slow and arduous process. Publishing house editors usually have a pile of manuscripts waiting for their perusal. Angels at the Crossroads was simply another story waiting to be read. Naturally enough, Jerry was eager for the book to be published, but the submission process dragged on. For a year. Now I know that many books make the rounds longer than that, are rejected time and again, and then land on the desk of the right editor and the rest can be history as the story becomes a bestseller. While I had hopes of finding a publisher, I really wasn’t expecting a bestseller. So I told my agent she could keep trying to sell my others stories, but I withdrew Jerry’s book and made the hard decision to publish it myself. That was a little before the rage of self-publishing stormed through the internet. Instead, I got brochures and information for several self-publishing companies. Some of them wanted more upfront money than I was willing to shell out. The book was too many words for some of the companies. I eventually settled on one of the companies because they promised a special typesetting process that would keep the book under a certain page count which would mean the book, although still overpriced in my eyes, would be more reasonably priced there than at some of the other companies.

So we made a deal. I gave them money and they started working on my manuscript to turn it into a book. I did a cover questionnaire and I thought I filled it out well. They did ask for some scenes and I did mention a climatic sunrise scene in the book. So I suppose I deserve some of the blame, but I was not expecting a pink background that as one person said made the book look like a daily devotional book. The company said I could design my own cover at additional expense but publication would have to be put on hold until I got that done. Jerry didn’t think the cover was as terrible as I did. The story inside was the important part, so we moved along the road to publication with the less than perfect cover pictured up top.

When the book finally came off the presses, Jerry was singing in the Patriot Quartet along with my husband. Jerry was the tenor. Darrell was the bass. Joe was lead and David was baritone. They had a great sound and traveled around all over to sing at churches and other events. Each concert Jerry would give a short five minute testimony. So it was great having his book on the Quartet’s product table. Without that outlet for his books, I might still be in the hole on those first publishing costs. But the book sold at those concerts and at other book events we held to get the book out to readers.

Some years later when e-books were becoming all the rage, I made another deal with the same self-publishing company to reissue the book so that it could be digital. But I wasn’t about to let it have that same cover. I contracted an independent cover artist who designed the new cover with a photo I found and purchased online. I could almost see Jerry as the man in the picture at those crossroads wondering which way to go next.

But I still thought the book was too expensive for readers. It was too expensive for me to even buy copies to sell. I let things slide for a few years since I was busy writing other books, but finally I pulled the book from the other company and once more re-issued it. This time with Amazon that meant it would have a reader friendly price. After another round of edits since I feel like I’m a better writer now than I was when I first wrote Angels at the Crossroads, we released it on Amazon in print and digital. I added Jerry’s name to the cover. If I remember correctly, the other company hadn’t wanted me to do that, but it has always been Jerry’s story. I just wrote it down. So now thirteen years after the book first came out, it’s out again, a bit slimmer but just as inspiring. The book has a few reviews on Amazon, but if you do read it, I hope you will consider adding a review there. I always appreciate those of you who do reviews. They are such a help to encourage other readers to give a story a try.

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“God’s grace shown forth in this story of love and protection. This is a great story and kept me wanting to see how God was going to be there next as his life changed.” (Amazon customer)

This is my last post about writing Jerry’s story and the last post for you to leave a comment and be entered in a drawing to have a chance to win a copy. The deadline for entering is midnight EST on February 2, 2019. You must be at least eighteen years old to enter. Print version open for United States or Canada. If an international winner, that person would get an e-book version. I’ll pick two winners by random drawing on Sunday.

So thanks so much for going with me through the journey of getting Jerry’s story in a book. And as always, thanks for reading.

Have you ever made a promise to someone that turned out to be harder to keep than you expected? 

What, if anything, about Angels at the Crossroads has grabbed your interest about Jerry’s story?


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