My friend Bob wrote a book

and he's pumped!

I am part of a supportive group of authors that meet twice a week at our public library in Kingsville. We gather at 1 pm on Mondays and Fridays, and after a brief, or not so brief time to visit, one of us will set a timer for a 45 minute writing sprint.

When the alarm goes off, we pause from our typing to look up at each other, and do a check in. We get to hear how the writing is going for everyone around the table. Some times it takes longer to get back to another sprint, because one of us has news to share, or a problem for which they are seeking help.

A few of us who gather have been published, or we’ve published ourselves. Others are on their way.

Some of us have navigated the murky Amazonian waters of putting an e-book out on Kindle, and also use them as our printer. We get called upon to guide and encourage those who are just wading in. It feels good to be able to help.

Yesterday I met my friend Bob at the library. It was a good day to be there. The program staff had set up a projector so patrons could watch the Winter Olympics.

A sad thing was that the event they were showing was the Women’s hockey game between Canada and the US, which did not go well for those wearing the maple leaf.

A happier thing was the friendly librarians had rolled out the theatre popcorn maker, and were serving little red and white bags of salty buttered goodness.

I sat with my friend Bob as he worked through the many steps to upload his manuscript, cover, and author photo to the Kindle server. It is a less than intuitive process, and can be daunting, especially the first time.

Another of our group had worked with Bob the week before to convert his Pages documents into the epub and pdf formats required for publication. We’d also helped him get his ISBN from the National Archive and Library. (It’s a team effort!)

I ate popcorn, and cheered my friend on while he typed and clicked as needed. It was a gold medal performance on Bob’s part. By the end, Bob was rewarded with an onscreen notice that pending final review by the algorithmic judges, his book will soon be going live on Amazon in both the paperback and e-book versions.

I shook Bob’s hand, and congratulated him on the premier publication from Alien Cat Press. His book is called The Fate of Norry Li, and it is the beginning of a science fiction series that sweeps across time and galaxies in the grand tradition of Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Larry Niven. Bob’s had this arc of stories in his head, and playing in his dreams for a long time, and he’s been working so hard to share them with the world.

Bob is having the time of his life. He was so excited we didn’t even notice the score of the hockey game.

When his book does go live, I will add a link to his Amazon page.

link to Bob's book on Amazon