Publishing my book

by Mark Landsberg
(Laguna Woods, CA--USA)

Landsberg's Law: A Journey of Discovery

I get notions. When I get notions I like to follow where they lead. I never let sayers of "it can't be done" or "it is a waste of time" or "you are crazy" deter me. If I had listened to those negative voices I never would have realized $800,000 from a twenty-five page Scrabble strategy book. The whole incredible story of that book is a small part of my present memoir "Landsberg's Law".

In my life I have been involved in some wild, interesting and revelatory escapades as well as something no one in the world has ever done that led to my being included in the Guinness Book of World Records. So I got a notion to write a memoir. I proceeded in an unusual manner. I emailed a chapter about every two weeks to ninety readers around the globe. Forty were friends and fifty were people who knew me or knew of me from a chat room in the Scrabble world. The benefit of this process was immediate feedback and instant editing by many of the ninety.

I did not necessarily intend the project to end up in publication but so many of the ninety urged me to publish that I began a search for the best way to make a book. Of the myriad possibilities I selected working with a printing firm. I would present the formatted text and they would print exactly what I sent them. I could select my own cover, type font and type size. After exhaustive Internet research I chose Morris Publishing in Nebraska. It was a very good decision since they were great to work with and did a fine job.

I embrace unintended consequences. If you do nothing, nothing will happen. Doing this book led to many new and renewed friendships. It led me to become president of the Laguna Woods Writers Club. It led me to discover self-published authors are mostly denied access to traditional venues of commerce. This led me to conceive Self Publishers Place. It is a totally free website devoted to promoting and marketing self-published books. The site also contains an international forum and my blog.

My advice to authors comes from one of my blogs. "At any moment in time we cannot know what event may ultimately prove to be fortunate or unfortunate. As creative people we often have negative experiences that become material for books, films or poetry. The trick is to transmute the lead of life's disasters into the gold of your art in the crucible of creativity."

Visit Mark's site for self publishers. As on this site, any self published book can get its own page!

Preview Mark's book, Landsberg's Law.