Emily decided that a book I did about my Atlanta childhood in the 1930s needed to be published. I had sent it out a number of times back when almost every publisher would accept unsolicited mss., and although a couple of them liked it, they didn't like it enough to publish it. In those days I would send a black and white dummy, which didn't do much for the illustrations. These days publishers do no want manuscripts or any over the transom submissions. One needs an agent, and getting an agent if you haven't been published is difficult.
At any rate, I quit sending things out years ago. I had the book about my mother published at my own expense, mainly for my family. I was very pleased with how it turned out and it was well received by May's many descendants, an inter-family best seller.
Several people I know have had books published through Blurb, another for hire publisher. It's an easy to use system, if you have normal eyesight, which I do not. When Emily was here last year, she had a lot of my illustrations scanned and was determined to have "The Last Summer" published. It's a different system from the way my other book was done. The book costs more, for one thing. They have the same "publish as ordered" production method, but do not offer an author's discount.
They did a very nice job with the printing, and Emily did a superb job with the layout and overall design. She chose the font and color of the text, both of which reflect the time period of the book. Speaking of the time period, one publisher had said that children looking at this book would wonder why there was no Tv set pictured. Apparently he figured that people still dress the same way today as the adults pictured in the illustrations.
You can find out more about it here.
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