It’s good. Retirement is very good. I took early retirment in the Fall of 2008, mainly for health reasons, after more than 27 years with the same company. In early 2009, I was called back to assist whenever I could. I worked from home (bonus!) and called my own hours (also a bonus). There was so much business I essentially worked half days, almost every day until April 2010. Then the market changed and I wasn’t needed. Hmmm…now what? I AM now truly retired!
While I was in the middle of “keeping busy”, I had a conversation with Marsha Canham and she mentioned self-publishing her back list. Interesting, I thought and, after several pokes and prodes from Marsha, I started reading up. Okay, I had a backlist but doing something with the books seemed daunting. I wrote to my previous publishers and requested the rights back to my stories.
Then I was invited to join an authors’ eloop, via Marsha and author Julie Ortolon. The eloop was a huge help to me with all kinds of information being exchanged. I learned a lot but some of the formatting stuff was rather frightening since I’m a techo-dummy. I started re-typing Spring Blossom but found I was dragging my heels because typing The End, meant dealing with the formatting of said book. *g*
Friend Marsha to the rescue again…at this point there were four Marsha Canham books available for all ebook readers. Formatting my document then was old hat for her. It seemed to me that I had just emailed the file when it was back on my computer, ready to go! Thank you to my mentor!
Next step…load the file up to Smashwords and Amazon.com. I made an anouncement in my house before I started going through that process for the first time…”I don’t want anyone to talk to me!” LOL
To my delight (me of little faith) the book went live at both sites by the following day. And, as of this past weekend, Family Reunion, is also available at both sites. People are reading my books again and the makes me very happy in my retirement.
Now I’m awaiting the reversal of rights for three more of my books. In the meantime, I’m once again typing away, happily working on Lila’s Dance and enjoying every minute. There’s a favorite little boy who figures promenantly in Lila’s Dance…his name is Sammy and, while he was purely a figment of my imagination, he makes me laugh. Who said I couldn’t be crazy in retirement? But not so crazy that I want to give this up.
I’m just having too much fun!
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