Being an author/publisher can be daunting, and by that I mean daunting. You are yourself responsible for the writing and editing. You are responsible for the layout, design, artwork and illustration, printing, distribution, marketing, and late night staring at the ceiling wondering if it’s all worth it. Yes, you will probably have help in the form of people who know what they are doing in each of those steps that will take your idea and make it into a book, but the buck stops with you, mister.

As a small press publisher, you don’t get the attention that the big publishers get. The chain stores don’t want to talk to you. You don’t have the easy access to reviewers and media. The reason is because self published books can be really dreadful. Unless you work with awesome editors, no one is there to tell you that your book is not yet ready for prime time. Unfortunately, too many of those books try to get out anyway and the whole genre of “self published” books gets a bad name.

Yea for Midwest Book Review! This organization is very open to reviewing small press books. And God bless them! One of the first things I did when I got my copies of Where the Jewels Are is send them copy. Happy dance, happy dance. I not only got a review by them, I got a wonderful review. Not only is the review on their site, it is used by Wisconsin’s public school systems and community libraries and Book Review Index, which is published for academic, corporate and public libraries. This is wonderful for a little book with very little wind behind it.

I need to mention one caveat about the review. There are ten books in the series Tales from the Throne, but Where the Jewels Are is the only one in print yet. Please stand by for the remaining titles.

It’s a happy day for this small press publisher. Of course I’m interested to see the sales that come of this, but more than that, I’m happy that my book has been recognized as a “real” book and it was all my effort to make it so. Kudos also to Brianna Scott, the illustrator, who was recognized for her delightful artwork.

Ok, sleeves rolled up, now it’s time to get the next on out.