Arthur Collins on Kindle: Keeping my book alive!
My book, Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes, a mystery adventure for young readers, is now for sale on Amazon’s Kindle.
Every morning since the Kindle publication, I’ve closed my eyes and wished for people to read Arthur to their children and grandchildren. But wishing is not enough. There is a journey this book must take and there is more work ahead.
The intensive work needed to bring a book into being and then make it a success is an adventure, but it isn’t always rewarding. Many writers don’t blink at the effort this journey takes. I admire their perseverance. They have faith, maturity, and more patience than I do. Sometimes I rebel. “What? More drudgery?”
But I realize the work and the steps are required for the journey.
Raising your book-baby
It is a little like having a baby. Anxiety, changes, and lots of work go into the preparation for a baby’s arrival, and then comes the birth.
Parents would appreciate time off to celebrate — a day or two to relax, take a nap, or at least time for a deep breath before they go to work. But few get time to celebrate or recuperate; they take on new responsibilities immediately.
There is little rest from the work of raising a child or from successfully launching a book. Parents and writers learn that creation is the first step in a lifetime of responsibility. Like new parents, an author undertakes a score of tasks on the journey toward making his or her book take on a life of its own.
Arthur Collins and the never-ending backstory
In fiction, the conflict the hero endures creates the story. As writers of fiction scrabble towards their own heroic moments, they also live a story. The backstories of books are seldom told, and when they are, they are squeezed into a paragraph on the book’s website.
Accounts about what it took to bring the work of fiction into being, the author’s journey, would make for intense biographies. A book about bringing the book to life might be as much of a page-turner as the work of fiction the author produced.
If the backstory for Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes was published, it could be called “The Never-Ending Backstory,” because the ongoing challenge of bringing this book to life seems endless.
Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes was conceived and written in the midst of a personal disaster in 2001/2002. After much travail, the book was published in 2008, during the greatest financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression. America and the world have been in turmoil ever since. The dramatic backstory for my book continues. The e-book edition of Arthur was published on Kindle in July of 2011.
Last weekend, the United States made history when for the first time ever, it received a downgrade in its credit rating. Only a few days later, the U.S. stock market plunged by 500 points, accompanied by dark predictions of further economic upheaval in my country — and the world.
Despite the challenges the United States faces, life must go on. A journey, like a book, must have an ending.
Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes, my book about courage, has shown courage and endurance. It continues on, through every disaster, on its journey towards success.