Earlier this year, Hannah R. Goodman emailed me about her book, My Sister’s Wedding, a young adult novel she published in 2004 that addresses the effects of alcoholism on individuals, friends and families and asked me if I would like a copy. The topic was on my mind as I had only recently spoken to an organic farm owner who hosted a 22-person poetry workshop connected with Evergreen College. She was particularly surprised and saddened by the fact that the majority of the students didn’t participate in the hikes and other outdoor recreation planned but drank, even making carrying flasks on their belts the in thing. I was interested in what Hannah was going to evoke in her story.

Hannah’s main character, Maddie, is a high school girl who learns that she is enabling her alcoholic sister and boyfriend and thereby keeping herself from exploring her own life. She is sensitively and realistically portrayed, and I cheered Maddie on as she figured out how to behave and truly help her family and friends by understanding that the only person she can change is herself. Maddie’s growth and growing resolution concerning her alcoholic sister and boyfriend engaged me throughout the book. At the end, I remembered again that although life comes with unsolvable problems, it is in learning how to work with them that we grow and fulfill our potential.

It wasn’t long before Hannah emailed me that My Sister’s Wedding won first place in the 2005 Writer’s Digest Magazine self-publishing category and she had gotten an agent. I think there is an important pre- and early-teen market for Hannah’s book as well as an adult market for those who need to look closely at what their kids are doing and what it means.

In the hopes of sharing a writing success story with Writing It Real subscribers, I emailed Hannah questions about her writing and publishing of story.

Sheila
I enjoyed reading about your award in the May 2005 issue of Writer’s Digest Magazine. You certainly deserve it! How did the story originate? How did you decide to self-publish?

 Hannah
I was 15 and dumped by the school “bad boy” when I began writing this book. That summer I went to creative arts summer camp (Buck’s Rock) and spent the entire time holed up in the “Pub (publications) Shop” clacking out the story on their one (DOS) computer. Fast forward to when I was about to get married to my college sweetheart (not the “bad boy” from high school!), and I decided to take out the eighty or so pages of the book that I had been working on (in long hand) since the age of 15. I figured that I should “finish it” (I tend to write when my life is at its busiest). That was my total goal. Just finish it. Fast-forward to me about to give birth at age 28, and I decide I’d had enough of the “rejection” game from regular publishers and agents (most of which told me I had a beautiful, well-written piece but no market for it) and accept my father’s financial offer to self-publish. I chose iUniverse because it came up first when I googled self-publishing.

Sheila
Where else did the characters of Maddie and her friends and family come from?

Hannah
I wrote the book because I was a teenager who had tons of friends and even some family who drank too much. And when you have a lot of drinking around you, you have a lot of drama. None of the drama around me was really my own, though. But to my writer’s mind, there were stories to tell, lots of them. Later, when I was a high school teacher, I heard stories from my students that echoed my own. I got mad for these kids and for myself as a teen. I got mad that we, as a society, don’t talk about how drinking isn’t cool and how a lot of kids actually don’t drink and don’t like how alcohol has affected their families and friends. I think the media glorifies drinking and drugging of teens. I’m sick of it. SO I wrote a book where the main character doesn’t cave to peer pressure and gets angry and sad about how alcohol has destroyed her family and friends. I also got the ideas for characters from my own family and friends — well, just pieces. The Jewish Martha Stewart Mom is NOT my mother, who is an anti-Martha Stewart, although she is a decorator! My father is a mad scientist who loves World Wrestling Entertainment, just as Maddie’s dad does — but I think that’s where the similarity ends. Susan and Justin came almost directly from my circle of friends. The older sister is the antithesis of my older sister who graduated fourth in her high school class and went on to law school. I don’t really know who Barbara is…she’s an amalgamation of all the friends I had who were alcoholics.

Sheila
Did you realize new aspects of your experience from the writing?

Hannah
Yes, as I wrote, I started to remember more and more terrible episodes of me helping my drunk friends and even realized that as I grew up, our neighbors where raging alcoholics and that they would even drink while toting me and their daughter (my friend) around town. No one stopped them. Not even my parents. I think the seventies and early eighties (when I was a little, little girl) was a time of total denial. More so than now.

Sheila
What are your favorite responses to the book?

Hannah
Wow. Tough question. I like that one reader, Bobbie Combs, author of The Question Box, dubbed me as the “Judy Blume of the next millennium!” Ms. Blume has a copy of my book now…I hope she likes it!

Sheila
How long did it take for you to write the book?

Hannah
Three months to write. Three years to rewrite and edit.

Sheila
What kind of response process did you have in place as you wrote?

Hannah
I had a professional editor work with me as well as feedback from editors in the big publishing houses — the same people who rejected me also wanted me to succeed. They helped me flesh out the story. I also passed the book around to willing students.

Sheila
How did you go about trying to publish the book?

Hannah
First I queried every human being in the industry for almost 6 years…then I self-published. Now I have an agent who really believes in my writing. She’s going to help me sell MSW to a mainstream publisher…she also hopes to sell the other three books I’ve written about Maddie.

Sheila
What was your experience with iUniverse?

Hannah
Great. Easy. They have expanded so much in the last year since I published. They were very available to me via phone and email. And since I won the award and also obtained an agent, they’ve continued to support me. They’ve included me in their newsletter and sent me a letter of congratulations. I recommend them.

Sheila
How did you do advertising and distribution and marketing for the self-published book?

Hannah
You mean what didn’t I do? I did it all: Emailed every former classmate (even joined classmates.com), emailed every colleague in the tri-state area, contacted every NE bookstore via email, snail mail, and in-person, went door to door peddling them to booksellers, and carried them with me everywhere. Also, I am a writing teacher who does workshops all over Rhode Island. Plus the media here is small and have done a great job covering me. I’ve found it pretty easy here…a little harder throughout the country. However, thanks to the Internet, I’ve had booksellers contact me from California and Oregon. Recently, I had an agent email me that they are interested in representing me! How flattering. But the key is to email everyone, everywhere and join a writer’s organization like SCBWI…even emailing you Sheila! I’m pretty fearless and egoless. I’ll approach anyone and I always offer a free book. If someone rejects me or doesn’t respond to an email or phone call, I never take it personally. Also, I show up to anything I’m invited to and I offer myself to every school and bookstore. People ask me how I do all this with a new baby. I have a great mother and husband, that’s how!

Sheila Yes, I was touched when you emailed me to let me know about your book. Once I opened the book, I was immersed in Maddie’s world and stayed there till I finished the book. So thank you for being fearless and egoless!

What’s next in pursuing a publishing company?

Hannah Call my agent! (I love saying that.) I’m exhausted and she’s taking on that part of the job! Gina Panettieri from Talcott Notch! She rocks!

Sheila
What thoughts do you have for others who believe in their work and want to see it through to publication?

Hannah
It’s pretty simple and I’m borrowing from the old Nike Campaign…JUST DO IT! Meaning, however you can get out there — self-publishing, query agents or publishers, submit to contests, attend workshops, attend poetry slams, whatever…get going. It’s a great time to be a writer. But also, and this is really important — write every single day and take writing and grammar classes. Perfect your art. No one is born great. You achieve greatness. (I think I’m paraphrasing good ole’ Mr. Shakespeare here!)

Sheila
I looked the quote up: “Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”

I think most of us as writers of personal experience work hard for our achievements. It makes me smile to learn that you have excerpted just the right part of Shakespeare’s statement, the part that supports us as we tell the stories that are in us to tell, no matter what and what not. I admire the way you have gone about achieving–the seriousness with which you took your motivation to write your story, the way you spent time and effort getting the professional help you needed to deliver that story well, your willingness to go the self-publishing route and your untiring ability to promote your book in the marketplace (contests, organizations, networks, and your own audiences). Thank you for showing us it can be done!

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There are blissful moments between the hours of work writing and publishing entail, and Hannah’s responses to my questions are full of energy, joy, gratification and light. That’s the tide that carries us forward, and it is always a joy to experience it. If you are working on a manuscript that you are thinking of self-publishing, take note of Hannah’s relationship to the editors who couldn’t take the book and her interest in gaining prepublication preparation from professionals. It is very important that in self-publishing you put your manuscript through the editorial processes that established publishers use. A professional looking book will sell much better than one that has mistakes. In addition, a professional looking book stands a much better chance of being picked up by an agent or traditional press.

After all the effort of writing and editing there is still the marketing–knowing your audience and making the connections. Whatever field you are writing in or to whatever audience, after publication, you have to work (perhaps as hard as you did writing) to spread the word about your book and demonstrate to people how it helps or entertains and informs. This is even more important with self-publishing because your book will not come to the attention of book reps the way traditionally published books do. All of this plus the financial burden is a lot to take on, but if your heart is in your work and you have seen that your work changes lives, it certainly helps to keep you going.