Book review: My Publishing Journey

My Publishing Journey: The guided journal for authors to record their publishing adventures is a lovely gift book for authors and authors-to-be disguised as a children’s book.

Or, at least, I thought it was a children’s book when I opened the envelope sent to me by one of the book’s editors. The first thing I saw was the illustrated rooster on the back cover, so I thought, “Why did someone send me a children’s book?”

Turning the book over to look at the cover (see image at the top of the post) only further reinforced my sense that this was a children’s book until I saw the title and remembered my correspondence with co-editor Tamara Dever.

As you can tell, my first reaction wasn’t, “I recognize this as a book for authors,” but so what. Thanks to a whimsical cover and colorful interior pages, all illustrated by Elizabeth Dotterer, this is an unusually attractive book for adult authors.

So what is My Publishing Journey?

My Publishing Journey is a 62-page hardcover book that allows new authors to document some of their experiences — and their reactions to them — while writing and publishing their books. Wrapped around pages where authors can write down their answers to the journal questions are short essays by authors on specific topics, such as “before writing” and “building your team.”

I expected the three women identified as authors to weigh in with their advice as the owners of a book design and production company, but they contribute only one page of text. Not surprisingly, it’s the page on how to select a design professional. For that reason, I see them as co-editors, not co-authors, but that’s a small point.

Each short essay by contributors — there are 10 of them — is followed by a few pages of questions about the chapter topic and space to write answers. For example, the marketing and publicity section lets authors record launch party details, detail how they used social media for promotion, and explain what book marketing tactics did and didn’t work for them.

Who will love it?

I absolutely love this book’s design, but I’m not the target audience for its contents. I think that professional writers and veteran authors like me are past the point of logging our reactions to how others responded when we told them about our current book project.

I think the questions and the design are a little too touchy-feely for most business book authors, too. For the same reason, I think it will appeal to women more than men.

So who will appreciate both its content and design? It’s mostly women who are:

• First-time authors
• Authors-to-be who are either self-publishing or have a traditional publishing contract
• Authors-to-be just starting the writing process
• Authors-to-be who have written their book and are about to find their way through the publishing process
• Recently  published authors

This seems to me like a gift book for someone who is excited about that first book or still starry-eyed about the connotations associated with saying you’re an “author.” And don’t think it has to be a gift for someone else. It can be the gift you buy yourself, too.

Obviously, My Publishing Journey is also an excellent business card for the book design business owned by the co-editors. And it’s an impressive one.

This book is designed around essays by contributors who include my friend Flora Brown. Have you contributed an essay to someone else’s book? How did you use it to support your writing career?