Hello World

This is my first post. My reasons for blogging are many but I have decided to focus on the process of getting my book published. I am writing an inspirational autobiography. I have been fortunate to have had a very full life even though I walk with crutches and have Type 1 diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease. I was brought up to never view my handicap as a disability so I’ve never imagined that I couldn’t accomplish any goal. That’s not to say that I haven’t experienced difficult challenges. Every day is filled with challenges and as I get older it doesn’t get any easier. I make it look easy and I’m not one to complain so most people have no idea what it’s like to get through life with crutches under my arms, an insulin pump clipped to my belt, arthritis in my limbs, and the reality of heart disease.

This blog will be a chronicle of my efforts to get my book published but I will also write about what I’m dealing with on a daily basis. I must admit that I’m a little nervous because I’ve looked at other blogs where the blogger posted day after day without any comments and then there would be a few days missed followed by a few days of posts again without comment. Finally, weeks and months would pass without a post. I have a lot to learn about blogging, the first of which will be about finding an audience. Well, enough about what I’m going to do. It’s time to start doing it.

The process of getting a nonfiction book published when you’re as obscure as I am is to find a literary agent who is willing to sell your idea to a publisher. In the case of nonfiction, as I understand it, it’s not important to have written the book. What’s important is to have a very clear idea of what the book will be about and sell your idea to a literary agent. The agent gets a cut of my part of the book profits. That’s how they generate an income. The vehicle used to sell my idea is a query letter. The query letter is for the most part a one to one and a half page description of the book. It’s also a good idea to include who would be interested in reading the book. If a literary agent thinks I’m right, they will contact me and we’re off and running looking for a publisher who agrees with me and the agent. Today I will finish my first draft of the query letter. We have company coming tonight and I want to show them the query letter to get their opinion; more about the query letter later.