This seven-part series will cover the 2 ½-year time span between the day I set out to become an author and the day I became one.

Becoming an Author – Part Seven
Spring 2008

This final segment of Becoming an Author describes the past few months, when when our gears shifted toward marketing. We’d seen the cover design, and now the designer was finishing the back cover as well. I asked my editor to send the manuscript to a few like-minded authors I’d met and they offered strong testimonial blurbs for promotion.

I’d already learned so much during this process – about publishing and youth empowerment both. But my education would just begin regarding marketing piece. My confusion about when the book would be available for sale caused me to finally contact my editor, who referred me to a new team of professionals in marketing, public relations, web design and trade publication. Apparently the book would be available in July, even though the IPG release date wouldn’t happen until September. The IPG date is our in-house terminology for when the book becomes available to all the trade markets.

I went to Search Institute Press for a brainstorming meeting and was awed by the beautiful architecture in the historic Banks Building which houses Search. I was also completely impressed by the team that would be marketing my book. A do-it-yourself-er my whole life, you can imagine the relief I felt in knowing that other talented professionals would manage the press releases, trade shows, advertising and promotional contacts. I left this meeting even more buzzed about the book than I was when I entered the building.

And this brings us to today — 2 1/2 years after I decided to pursue a writing career, and more than two years since proposing the concept which turned into Empowering Youth: How to Encourage Young Leaders to Do Great Things. During this journey, few people close to me understood the process involved to making this particular life-list item happen. Few friends or family members comprehended what I was doing during those long months at the keyboard. If you’ve read this series, you now know how it happened for me.

I now anxiously await this book so I can hold it in my hands. I hope you’ll join me.

Becoming an Author series:
Part One — Winter 2006
Part Two — Spring 2006
Part Three — Summer 2006
Part Four — Fall 2006
Part Five — Winter-Spring 2007
Part Six — July 2007-February 2008
Part Seven — Spring 2008
Photos of Search Institute Press

My book, Empowering Youth: How to Encourage Young Leaders to Do Great Things, will soon be available from Search Institute Press.