NancyKay Sullivan Wessman is the author of Katrina, Mississippi: Voices from Ground Zero. This week, she tells of her [REALITY CHECK], which is basically, what do you do after you have written your book?

Like Karl Malden used to ask: "What'll you do? What WILL you do?"

Well, if you're like NancyKay, you may panic--but only briefly--and then you'll get down to business.

Read on and find out what she discovered about the two sides of publishing and moving ahead.

Two Steps Forward & A Huge Hurdle Ahead
by NancyKay Sullivan Wessman
©2015

If you want to become a published author, there are two steps and a hurdle you must face before you can move ahead.

Step One

Deciding to write.

Step Two

Becoming an author.

Author: action-oriented originator of words into articles, books, and other written work. Usually implies creative enterprise. Generally connotes expertise. Almost always demands discipline. Sometimes results in celebrity. Reflects hours or years of research and planning, writing and editing, revising and polishing toward publication.

I never dreamed of being a writer, never aspired or aimed. I just did what came to me, and words have been easy for me: the spelling, the stringing together, the scribing. Now that I’ve published a book of creative nonfiction, friends and teachers from decades back affirm that they knew long before I knew that I was a writer. From delivering school news to the weekly newspaper in my hometown, to journalism assignments in college and then working as a reporter, editor, and public relations practitioner—I wrote news, features, obituaries, editorials, education materials.

Mid-career took me to graduate school and a master’s degree—more writing. Nearly three decades in the workforce. Early retirement. Consulting. And two book deals—not in the traditional sense, but in that two public health physicians recognized my writing abilities and entrusted me with their stories. Research, haggling over the point of view, what to include or exclude, how to advance, how to publish and distribute.

Two books in ten years; one self-published and the other hybrid published. The latter, Katrina, Mississippi: Voices from Ground Zero, is a new book commemorating champions of this country’s most catastrophic natural disaster, telling for the first time their stories of personal and professional fear and triumph, their alliances and actions, their concerns and issues, their truths and consequences. All that from one-on-one interviews, reading old newspapers, scouring news reports and videos on the Internet, and recalling my own personal experiences—all cobbled into about 300 pages that comprise a soft-cover book.

I chose a small press, a hybrid publisher, to assure timely publication and distribution to meet my launch goal. We advanced the manuscript through editing, revisions, and typography to a galley proof. We wrestled with and agreed on a cover design, securing rights for the desired, identified-five-years-earlier-photo. We solicited promotional blurbs from other authors. And then my publishing partner reminded me that mine is just one of 485,000+ books that will be published this year. The publisher saw a book that might sell well in a tri-county portion of my state; I had envisioned a book with national appeal, particularly for first responders and public health advocates.

Completing these two steps simply prepares the way for promoting and selling, yet these two steps—and the “huge hurdle ahead”—combined comprise one mega process that can challenge and fulfill, exhaust and energize, stimulate and soothe. Becoming and being an author brings along some powerful baggage, some awfully good and some dreadfully bad. That’s the reality.

That’s my reality.

A Huge Hurdle

Going back to the bargaining table three weeks before launch and recognizing the huge challenges to promoting and selling a book with little-to-no marketing budget—well, that was a jolt. Did the publisher really think I did all that work for a three-county outreach? That I would be satisfied with selling the proverbial total of 250 books that most writers never achieve? That I invested time, skill, heart, and cold cash with no greater expectation of return on investment?

A hurdle, yes; a heart-breaker, but not a blockade. With platform well established, certain knowledge, and multiple assurances that the writing is excellent and the stories superior—going forward is my only option. The self-funded book tour to independent booksellers and a couple national chains plus select audiences at libraries and particular places in-state added to an engaged social media presence put my book at number one and then among the top ten on my state’s best seller list for many weeks. Readers from Japan to Sweden and especially in the Southeast, claim the book’s a page-turner, riveting, historic, and a must-read. My book club devoted an unprecedented two-and-a-half-hour discussion to the stories, the characters, the production process.

More, I look forward to participating as an Official Book Club Selection Author with Kathy L. Murphy (formerly Patrick), at her January 14-17, 2016, Girlfriend Weekend. Kathy founded “the largest ‘meeting and discussing’ book club in the world” with more than 600 chapters throughout the United States and in 15 foreign countries and authored The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara-Wearing Book-Sharing Guide To Life. The woman who created Beauty And The Book, a combo book store and hair salon, proudly proclaims her “sole mission and purpose is to promote authors, books, literacy, reading and help undiscovered authors get discovered in a big way!”

Selected by The Pulpwood Queen. . . with excellent reception, great reviews, and considerable praise in the media and from individual readers, why do I have post-publication depression and see the future for me and my book as a huge hurdle ahead?

Ahead

Self-promotion’s not my strength nor my desire. For every step toward marketing myself as author extraordinaire and my book as a must-be-read, I hear the dominant voice of Mother among all those inside my head: “Self-brag’s half scandal,”  “Pride goeth before the fall,” “Do you think you’re Mrs. Astor?”

Deep breath. Reality check.

• This is the long haul. Process involves more steps: research and planning, development, execution, evaluation. Execution of a publication includes marketing. I have a marketing plan; therefore, I must execute the marketing plan. Only then, with assurance that I have followed that plan to its full realization, can I evaluate. These goals and strategies as designed take me through December 31, and I have events booked well into 2016.
• This phase, too, deserves my best effort.
• This work has only just begun. Good grief, God created the Earth and all that is the world as we know it in a week. The Earth continues to whirl. My book took longer to develop, seven years instead of seven days; so, surely its life of four months will continue beyond the publication date and my distress in the promotion.
• This is what I must do for the Champions who entrusted their stories with me. I can do for others what I cannot do for myself. I can accept that promoting and marketing Katrina, Mississippi: Voices from Ground Zero is for them; developed to commemorate the work of emergency managers and first responders to a catastrophic event that rocked, but did not flatten, Mississippi; developed to remain a part of this state’s story for the future; developed to instruct that disasters will always be local, will always involve public health, and will always demand attention and assistance from outsiders.
• This is my work.

NancyKay Sullivan Wessman is a veteran journalist who writes, edits, reads, and tells stories. She’s written everything from annual reports to websites, from newspaper articles to books. And she’s a public health expert through work and education. She values truth. Wessman has worked as a public relations consultant and speaker. Sometimes she cooks, gardens, and entertains. NancyKay gets stuff done.

https://www.facebook.com/nancykaywessmanauthor
www.NancyKayWessman.com

©2015. Zetta Brown. All Rights Reserved. Zetta is an editor and the author of several published short stories and the erotic romance novel Messalina: Devourer of Men. She provides services through JimandZetta.com.

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