I Published My First Book

Intersections: Stories, Chats, Truths, and Verses

Designed with the cover helper from Kindle Direct Publishing, plus some suggestions from a friend with actual graphic skills who was, frankly, appalled at my first two drafts. This, by the way, is the paperback version, because the hardcover version has its own strange properties, as I found to my surprise. (illustration by author)

Available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle, and in e-reader format on Apple Books.

Seeing my very own book with my name on the cover is a definite rush, I confess. There’s more to it than that, though. I learned a lot from folks who went before me—Gail Boenning, Roz Warren, Tre L. Loadholt, Karen DeBonis, Toni Crowe, Terrye Turpin, Heath ዟ, Mark Starlin, to name a few—but I’ll write more about what went into publishing the actual book in a later piece.

What Is The Book?

Short stories, Chats with Deb, creative nonfiction, and poetry. All previously published on Medium, although some pieces went through suggested revisions (thanks, Roz!) and updates.

None of the pieces are very long, so it’s a great book for bedtime (there are no scary stories—there are some ghost stories, but the ghosts are very nice people, trust me) or reading on the toilet when your phone’s battery is running low.

Why Did I Not Publish a Kindle Version?

Converting from Apple’s Pages program to Apple Books was just selecting a menu in Pages and answering some questions. Formatting and TOC converted automatically. Easy! Amazon’s Kindle Create, however, is, um, a bit more complicated. I’m working on it.

Edit: I did it! Many thanks to Mark Starlin, who talked me through it. The secret is to export from Pages as EPub, then import into Amazon Kindle Direct. Ignore Kindle Create, it just causes problems.

Please Review!

I heard from a reliable source (thank you, Karen!) that even a terse review counts toward Amazon deciding to feature a book.

My Ex-wife Likes It

Linda got one of the first copies after the paperback version went live. (She gets mentioned a lot. Not as much as Deb, obviously.)

“What did Intersections make me feel? Impressed, very. I always knew you were a really good storyteller. But this was truly great work. The dialogue rings with an authenticity that is rare. And your running commentary is like getting a story with editorial subtitles that really add to the narrative.”

Please Buy a Copy and Donate It to Your Local Library

…and then make an anonymous call that you are shocked—SHOCKED!—that a library would stock a book with LGBTQIA+ characters in it, treated like they are actual people! (Can you swoon over the phone? I’d appreciate that.) Getting on the Banned Books list would be worth more advertising than I can afford, frankly.

Thank you to my Medium peeps who have read, commented, and supported my writing. This book would not exist without you!