An Inside Look at TRUE COMPANIONS (The Pre-Order Bonus!)

If you pre-order True Companions, you can receive an exclusive pre-order bonus: an eBook called An Inside Look at True Companions: An Author’s Reflections from Writing Through Publication.

Here’s the Introduction from the bonus eBook…

Publishing a book is like giving birth.

I know that metaphor is overused by authors, but my female author friends tell me it’s overused because it’s about the only accurate metaphor for the experience. I’m also aware that I’m a man, so I have little right to make the comparison. However, the same female friends have given me permission to do so, given the lack of other appropriate metaphors. Having said that, True Companions will be birthed into the world on February 9, 2021. However, the manuscript was completed on June 26, 2020.

That’s quite a gestation period.

For a while, during that time of gestation, a book grows quietly and incrementally in the womb of the publishing house. Cover images are created. Proofreading is done. Typos corrected. Fonts are chosen. Typesetting is finished. The book is slowly growing and taking shape behind the scenes. Then, something entirely new happens. At some point, well ahead of its birth, the time comes to start telling people about it. You show people the cover. You describe the themes of the book to your audience. A publicist starts sharing it with news outlets. There are countless discussions and interviews that ensue.

And every conversation is like a new ultrasound.

Every time you talk about this baby of yours that is basically already finished, you begin to see new things in it. Features that are becoming more clear. Ideas baked into its DNA that are just now beginning to appear. It’s becoming more real by the day and, in that becoming, you begin to fall in love with it even more. With that love, comes new experiences, new insights, more nuance than you could have ever imagined. You realize it really is a living thing and you’ll be getting to know it forever. You thought you’d said everything you have to say about the topic, but now you discover there is so much more to learn and to share. Yet, the pages are already on the way to the printer. Where will you share all of this new insight?

That’s what book tours are for.

That’s why you pay an author to come speak to your group. At these kinds of events, authors don’t just read excerpts from the book. They share the new things they’ve learned about their baby from all the ultrasound conversations that preceded its birth.

In a way then, the document you hold in your hands right now—or your tablet or hard drive—is like a book tour or a series of speaking events in written form. It’s my journal of the days between completion of the True Companions manuscript and publication of the book. Each entry chronicles a conversation or experience that helped me to see this creation of mine more vividly, and I believe it will help you benefit from True Companions more, as well. Each of the entries are like an ultrasound picture, giving you a new image of the book from a new angle, before the world ever saw it. If any of the images are unclear, try not to blame the baby. The sonographer was new at this.

His hands were still a little shaky.

Click here to find out more about how to pre-order True Companions and sign up for this exclusive eBook, before the offer is gone!

Click here to hear Kelly read and discuss another chapter from the bonus about the many languages of apology.