Writing from the Experience of a Career that Stumbled

This week, we have the second in our series of interviews with writers who have self-published. Each of these writers reports on the successful experience they have had.

Adina Sara published her collection of poems and personal essays about being a legal secretary–her view into the work world and the world of those who work to keep food on the table–in 2006. 100 Words Per Minute, Tales from Behind Law Office Doors is a wonderful example of how writing to keep your spirit alive can serve to illuminate experience for others as well as teach you more thoroughly what you have learned.

She published with Regent Press, termed a “hybrid” press, meaning, Adina says:

that I subsidized the publication – I could choose to pay for printing only, publicizing only, editing only, or any combination thereof. I had my own editor so only used Regent’s services to print the book, assist with layout and design, and link me to larger distribution companies and book stores. In addition, they sent copies out for review and did some initial publicity.

The great thing about Regent is that though technically it is a vanity press, it has a good reputation with book stores who consider it to be a traditional press. When I presented myself to Barnes & Noble and Borders, as well as many wonderful local bookstores, the store purchasers had all heard of Regent, said they had positive dealings with them in the past, and did not hesitate to order my book. So Regent has given me the vanity advantage of maintaining rights and total control of content, yet also gives the book the status of having been published by a traditional publishing house (something that iUniverse would not).

As Adina says in the lyrical introduction to her book:

For the past thirty years I have wandered loosely through the folds of this accidental career. I tried retracing my steps, hoping to find the place where I tripped into my destiny.

But you can not move backwards. And though I don’t often say this out loud, it really isn’t such a bad thing to have your work life choose you, instead of the other way around.

It keeps you honest. It keeps you alert.

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