How to Publish Your Book

 When planning her books Elaine considered several self-publishing ideas.  She knew she had a story she wanted to tell, about her great-great grandfather’s courageous life, but she also knew that big publishing houses seldom decide to publish new authors who are not yet established.  Elaine said she found something between an inexpensive company that put out an amateurish product, over which she would have little control, and a $14, 000 per product company which as too much to pay.  She finally decided on a company called Exlibris, and she is satisfied with the amount of control she had over how the book looked and was promoted.

It took her 15 years to write her first book, plus a year and a half of research, and then she had many choices to make in publishing it, such as font for the text and format, then  proofing, and deciding how many copies to print.  Writing your book is only the first step.

  This first book, Calvin Many Wolves Potter, is about her great-great grandfather, who was born in Pennsylvania.  When the family moved westward he got separated from the group and lost.   He wandered in the winter nearly dead until a Native American tribe found him and took him in.  They adopted him, thus his “Indian” middle name, and he lived with the tribe for 17 years.

  The tribe is what we call the Sioux, but that is apparently a derogatory white man’s name.  The tribe calls itself simply Lakota, “The People.”   Elaine wrote about the hatred and bigotry one now encounters towards the Native American nations but says in the early days in the plains and Minnesota, it was more a matter of cooperation for survival.

  In 1851 there was an influx of pioneers, and the Indians signed away their land under various misapprehensions. But they had been on the side of the early American settlers, and helped them in the French and Indian Wars to expand American fur trade.

Then came the betrayal of treaties, and the massacres.  Calvin could see the Native Americans were going to lose the struggles and legal battles with the white man, so he moved on, into the territories of the Dakotas.  The story is told from the point of view sympathetic to the tribe, as Calvin had learned to think like a Lakotan, during the formative years when he grew up with them.

  The other book Elaine wrote is called Alaska Our Way.  It tells of the many trips she and her Rotarian husband, from the South Gate Club, made to Alaska, and their adventures.   On her first fishing trip, her first catch was a 57 pound king salmon.  She also told a story of a mama and baby bear that terrorized a small town in Alaska when they walked down the Main Street.  “Everyone froze,” she said.

  Bears invading homes were not uncommon incidents, she said, and on meeting a bear, her advice is, don’t get between a bear and its food.  Just walk away.

Last year was the biggest run on red salmon Alaska ever had, probably a result of the tsunami in Japan.  She can see the receding Mendenhall Glacier at Juneau, and the glacier at Alyeska and believes they are proof of global warming.  When writing about Alaska she say you can put in everything plus the washing machine, it’s big enough to take it.  If you’ve been to Alaska, you’ll know what she means.

Writing her memoirs and her family history has been important to her, Elaine says.  Her message is, if you’ve got a story to tell, tell it now, while you’re alive, put it in some kind of recording machine if you don’t use a computer, because your children will appreciate you so much for doing it for them.