I began writing when I could no longer stand helping the medical "establishment" disempower the patients by witholding information.  I'd been a nurse for a ton of years and figured any of those patients could
be me or someone I loved...so I wrote a book called "The Nurse's Story" and the first agent I sent it to picked it up and sold it to Simon and Schuster and Bantam.  It sold a million copies and that's how I thought it all would go!!! 

They sent me on a twenty one city tour where I did TV, radio and was in every paper in any town I visited.  And so I fell into innocence believing that all I had to do was write a book and the rest was easy. Just work.  But that wasn't what happened. 

When I wrote my second book "Rusty's Story" it was about a girl with epilepsy who had been locked up in a nut house since she was 13 because her parents were powerless and there was enormous prejudice around "epilepsy"  They overmedicated her and diagnosed her as a paranoid schizophrenic. So I took her home to live with me and my kids.  (after a democratic vote of course)  But the Simon and Schuster didn't find the subject "sexy" enough (marketable, in other words) and wanted me to change the ending so that she was cured and lived happily ever after!   But I couldn't do that to the two million people with epilepsy, so I turned them down.  Then they broke my contract.  But Bantam published it anyway and I sold about 350,000 copies.  (By the way the royalties on books are anywhere from 7 to 10%-that's all, and any advance has to be paid back!)  This time I did a 17 city tour, same thing, TV, radio and print.  I got the National Book Award from the Epilepsy Foundation of America for that one and got to be their keynote speaker at the National Convention where I spoke to Psychiatrists, Psychologists and social workers who all thanked me for putting a "face" on their diagnosis!  Now that should have been a happily ever after.

But the next book I wrote was about the death of my grandson and the appearance of an angel.  Okay, no takers.  It really was about different ways of mourning, the gifts in our tragedies, and dropping the labels around grief and loss.  It was my family's story.  But death (especially the death of a baby) isn't any sexier than epilepsy and so it took me ten years to get that book picked up by another publisher.  I even had to change agents. 

So I decided to start my own publishing company in order to stop the madness!!!!  The public always bought my books when they came out, but I couldn't get them published so I figured I'd do it myself.  But I found it not so easy.  And that's where FOD comes in.  What I can see now, is that while I can write up a storm, I can't do marketing, I can't do promotion and I can't do Press releases.  I set up a web site, which is quite beautiful, but still I can't do promotion, I haven't got time and still write....so therefore, I'm always on the lookout for others who have strengths where I don't.  I belonged to another list where the man who wrote press releases wanted 800 dollars for one press kit.  And there was no way I could afford that.  So I'm here to see and share any info I have but also to find those others who can promote, market and do PR because now that I can publish books, I still need help advertising, promoting etc. And that's why I find FOD so helpful.  Sorry for being so long with this, but I didn't know which parts to leave out....Also, I keep running into miracles, but those I've posted on my website. Thanks so much for listening,