You Could Write a Book (and Publish It, Too)
Monday July 2, 2001
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During my 17 years at Community Medical Care (CMC) - a small, nonprofit clinic in inner-city Washington, DC that I like to refer to as a "mom-and-pop" - I actually wrote nine books worth of material. Three-ring binders stuffed with lined paper into which I spilled the remains of those days when I came home overflowing with ideas, insights, new experiences, or strong emotions like joy or anger. Out of that mass of raw material came many poems and short essays containing lessons, and reflections from my experiences in the clinic and in the homes of my patients. But they continued to sit in my notebooks - my own personal mulch pile - ripening for months or years.
A few years after leaving CMC, I realized that these writings were part of the legacy I wanted to leave to the next generation of nurses. I'd had a number of articles published in nursing journals, usually one-page personal essays, but it felt to me as if they had been scattered to the winds. I wanted to collect them into some kind of coherent form.
At first I did what most authors do: I wrote a book proposal and sent it around to publishers. Two accepted it, and that gave me a boost, but I realized from previous experience (I once wrote a book about international nursing) that I would have to compete with many other authors and titles to get my work the attention I felt it deserved. The look and feel of my not-yet-written book had to be as personal as a daily journal. And I wanted readers to be able to "see" what I was talking about, so there would have to be a lot of visual interest. After weighing my options, I decided to publish my book myself.
As Mark Ortman writes in his invaluable little book, A Simple Guide to Self-Publishing, "To write a book is an art; to self-publish is a business." I analyzed the cost, and it was not cheap. Was I willing to spend my savings on this "legacy" when I might well live long enough to need the money for myself? And once the book was published, would I find anyone to buy it? Who would be interested? How would I get the word out without the resources of a publishing house and its distribution network? Would I ever get my investment back?
What gave me confidence was a past experience with self-publishing - two small books of poetry. I knew how to get International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs), Library of Congress catalog numbers, and bar codes. I understood the fundamentals of copyright, and of price-setting (charge enough so that you can afford the profit margin expected by distributors and bookstores). In fact, I already had a press for my new book, because when I published Rehab at the Florida Avenue Grill, my second book of poems, I "did business as" Sage Femme Press (sage-femme is a French colloquialism for granny midwife). And I had previously worked with a gifted young graphic designer who could understand and help me realize my intentions. I was also a partner in a nurse-owned company called Window on Nursing that makes and sells notecards to "illuminate and celebrate the art of nursing." Window could become my distributor and sell my book at conferences and online. Most important, I knew who my primary audience was: nurses and caregivers.
Publishing Ninth Street Notebook - Voice of a Nurse in the City took two years. The fun parts of the process - though I agonized over them - were choosing the title, the cover, the contents, and the layout in collaboration with Lisa Carey, the designer, Doris Bloch, my partner in Window on Nursing, and a number of family members, friends, and colleagues. The most tedious parts were typing the manuscript and proofreading it over and over again at every stage of the publishing process. The difficult parts of the process were figuring out how to economize (e.g., use cheaper paper or use a book manufacturer instead of a local printer), deciding how many copies to print and where to store them, asking nursing personalities for plugs and book reviews, and, hardest of all, standing there next to a stack of my freshly-minted books in an exhibit hall at a conference, trying to sell them.
Writing and publishing a book you may have inside you may not be your cup of tea. But telling your story, whether it be in a lunchroom, living room, classroom, chat room, radio or television studio, conference, or a periodical like Nursing Spectrum, adds to the continuing corporate "conversation" through which our profession evolves. It enriches the public's understanding of nurses and their work. In telling our stories, we also come to appreciate ourselves and our vital contribution to the health of our community.
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