It turns out it is simply not enough to research and write a book if you are self publishing. No, you also have to design the cover, and graphic design simply isn’t a skill I possess.
Book jacket design isn’t just high art, it’s also a dark art. Sorcery skills I also don’t have. To be fair, I’m not entirely convinced that I possess any real skills or abilities other than tenacity — an innate characteristic that I turgidly stake a claim to — maybe I can strike a blow for stubborn people everywhere. On occasions, success is born from a dogged strength of purpose. I really wanted to write this book! And this tome required writing. I hope, of course, that it’s widely read.
My skin in the game is my lived experience. In 1978, at fifteen years old and six months pregnant, I was ‘sent away’ into a Catholic-run mother and baby home. This fate was predetermined by my local priest, Monsignor Welsh. Apparently, the difference between a priest and a Monsignor is that the latter is a title bestowed on a priest who has distinguished himself by exceptional service to the church — and granted by the pope — typically, upon the recommendation of the priest’s diocesan bishop. It’s a purely honorary title and has no effect on the priest’s duties or ministerial assignment. Maybe it was his reward for sending girls away? Was there a tariff, I wonder? Just how many girls did the very reverend Monsignor have to banish to earn ecclesiastical elevation?
I digress.
Luckily I have a glamorous assistant who can expertly design books (and much else besides), can typeset print, who knows his Times Roman from his Arial.
It takes a lot to put a book together. Much more than I first anticipated. I’m hoping that I have done that. Not because I want to be proud of what I’ve done (of course I do), but because I want those who made such important contributions to also feel pride.
Self publication was the only realistic route through the puzzle and game of chance that publishing is. If women are going to obtain an apology within their lifetimes — I wanted to publish quickly.
