Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised. Mildly disappointed, sure. But not overly surprised.

My March 31 launch date was a little on the ambitious side to begin with. And announcing it left my comfort zone a distant memory. But without a committed deadline, it’s very likely that I was going to procrastinate, putter about, and poke around until my end of days; the manuscript would never be ready. With a firm deadline, I moved mountains to hit it.

As it stands now, the manuscript is now in the hands of traditional publisher/friend who is doing me the outstanding favour of searching out the ideal editor. This part of the process is completely new to me and I have no idea what this does to the timeline. But pretty sure it’s going to take  more than the next three days…

I have no plan to publish the book through a traditional publisher. It’s taken me this long to tell the story – I do not have the patience to sit through another 6-24 months to see a book in my hand. But the professional editing is crucial this time round. And for that, I will suffer through the learning experience I’m sure it will be so that I can put out my best work.

That said, there’s plenty to keep me busy in the background while I ‘wait.’ I just got a bunch of promotional stuff delivered. I’ve now got a big banner of the cover hanging in my office. I’m thrilled with it. The bookmarks look great! And there’s a ton of online marketing in the works. It’s not enough to just write the book anymore. But that’s all a process I’m starting to enjoy!

What I can share now, is the amazing cover that was created for me by Burlington artist Trevor Gustafson. He sat with me while I showed him a ridiculously crude and tiny sketch that I had drawn in the middle of the night of what I wanted. He asked a lot of questions that made no sense to me, and a few that did. His first draft blew me away! A handful of tweaks and revisions later, and I have a cover that could not possibly be closer to what I had in mind. In fact, it’s a little better. My thanks to Trevor and my pleasure now to share his genius with you.