Making Book Progress... Slowly

For those unaware, I'm planning on releasing a follow-up book to Lessons In Stalking: Life With Cats released in late 2005. My new collection of short humor stories is called Kiss My Kitty Butt: More Life With Cats. The title is already a hit. One friend recommended bumper stickers, "KissMyKittyButt.com." I've reserved the domain name, and am considering it. I think it'd be a riot.

But I've reached a point in the work where I can't tell if I'm moving forward or back. The stories are written and are currently with my critique group. There will of course be edits and rewrites. But the stories themselves are well on the way to being complete.

What I'm doing now is debating how to proceed. My original thought was that I'd self-publish and print a small run of 500. I wasn't interested in spending a lot of time on promotion and marketing. The more I delve in however, the more I want to do. I think this title could catch on. So much so, that I'm now considering dusting off my book proposal skills and attempting to sell the book to a publisher. That has its pluses and minuses. The big plus is the prestige that comes with a traditional publisher. The drawback is the amount of time involved. I'd be looking at 1-2 years minimum before the book ever saw the light of day, and that's if everything goes my way. Plus, I'm still responsible for all marketing efforts.

I've found 2 small publishers who put out pet/gift/humor books and I've decided to send them proposals. If one of them grabs it, fantastic. If not, I have no problem putting the book out through my company, Spotlight Publishing.

That still leaves me bogged down in details. I want to get a web site up ASAP for the book. However, I can't design the site until I know what the cover looks like. I haven't decided what to do with the cover because I haven't decided if I'm going to have illustrations, like in the last book. (Not to mention that I don't want to pay for a cover design until I get a yes or no from the publishers.) I'd like illustrations, but that's another $1500 minimum to invest in the book. Would I be better off just going with text and using that money for promotion? Or is consistency better and fans who read the last book will want illustrations in this book? I'm also determined to write out a week-by-week marketing plan for the book. I just winged it last time and did okay in sales, but I want a much harder push this time. Which means, suddenly, a much greater investment, both in time and money. Plus, I could bundle the new book with the old book and do some really cool marketing efforts that way.

There are so many marketing venues that I know so little about... Facebook, U-Tube, podcasts, viral marketing... the list goes on. It takes time to learn how to operate in these venues and that's time spent away from writing and the next project. I think I should just hire a 15-year-old kid as my marketing director and let it go.

This post sounds downtrodden, but I'm actually lighthearted about the whole experience. You know me... making any sort of living by writing about cats puts me in a good mood. And I like the stories in my new book and for the moment, I'm psyched about getting the word out. For now, it's just a matter of deciding traditional or self-publishing. The rest will come.

Have a great weekend.

Dena

Bloodbath

We barely escaped alive.  I'm speaking of two nights ago when our normally docile Olivia cat "went monkey on our ass" to quote a recent saying of Blair's, and attacked.

It wasn't her fault. Since her dental surgery, she's had to take these huge horse pills twice a day. We'd almost gotten it down to a science. Blair scooped her up, I stood behind them and opened her mouth, popped the pill in, and done. Took all of 5 seconds. Except two nights ago we weren't quite sure the pill had gone down and so repried her mouth open to check. We didn't have a firm grip on her and I could see the panic in her eyes as we tried to peer down her throat and then she got a paw loose.

"Abort! Abort!" I said.

"No, I've got her," said Blair, trying to get a grip on a squirming cat.

I tried to help, but she was already mostly free and used our hands and necks as grip pads for her claws to launch herself to the ground. I escaped with only a few scratches on my hands and arms. Blair looks like he came under mortar attack. His neck has two sets of deep puncture wounds, making it look like he was set upon by vampires.

I felt bad for Olivia that we'd scared her. But later that night when I walked into the bedroom, she was already there, curled up tight against Blair's back, one paw stretched out and resting lightly on his shoulder.

"It was so sweet," I told him the next morning.

"Please," he said. "That paw was just her way of saying, 'Check out my kill.' We're just a bunch of prey to her."

The pills end Thursday. We're all looking forward to it.

Kitty Dental Extraction

Olivia on her favorite chairSometimes I wonder what the world is like from a cat's point-of-view. You go to bed one night and when you awake in the morning, instead of the normal routine you've come to expect, you're denied food. No explanation. The food dishes are there, the tall people are walking around the house like they always do, but no food.  You make small mewing sounds and sit in front of the dish to remind them, but they just scratch your ears and then ignore you.

On top of that, the female of the house scoops you up and puts you in the bathroom for 30 minutes with the door closed. Why? Are you being punished? Plus, now you hear food being put in the dish. Hey--I'd like to get a piece of that. But no. When the door opens, you spy the dreaded black travel bag. You struggle, but are thrust inside, zipped in, and carried to the car.

Normally you're in the car no more than 5 minutes, but this time you keep driving and driving and driving. Thirty-five minutes later the car stops, and you're taken inside a strange building that smells of cats. Your mom leaves and you're taken to a back room.

Now the terror begins. All you know is that you wake up. And when you do, for some odd reason, your jaws are tender, as if they'd been held open for an extended period of time. On top of that, you discover TWO teeth are missing! What sort of torture place is this, anyway?

Thankfully, mom reappears late in the afternoon to return you home. Where you disappear under a bed and refuse to speak to her for the next 12 hours. Fair enough.

Wouldn't that be a bizarre sequence of events if you had no way of knowing what was happening? As it stands, our little girl held up well. We have to give her horse-sized pills twice a day for the next 5 days and we're trying to ensure she eats only soft food. Challenging, as Lucy likes to shove Olivia away and eat the soft food for both of them. Blair actually stood over them as they ate this morning to make sure Olivia got her share.

I think Blair is the most traumatized of all of us. He did not like his little girl having to be put under and is now brandishing a cat toothbrush around the house as if he expects us to use it. Scary.

I'm glad to have Olivia home though. Out of habit, I kept looking around the house for her yesterday.  Even Lucy--yes, Lucy--missed her. I think. Let's just say she did.

Happy Easter Weekend.

Loose Kitty

So much for my mundane world. Yesterday I took both cats to the vet for a nail trim, plus Olivia was due for her yearly shots. It was an unusually long wait--almost an hour. When the vet came in with the vet tech, she asked if Olivia had been experiencing any problems.

"A little runny eyes and nose a couple of weeks ago," I said. "But it seems to have cleared up."

"Sounds like herpes," said the vet.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. "What?" I said and then looked at Olivia. "What have you been doing? No! Bad kitty!"

The vet and vet tech were rolling. Feline herpes is non-sexually transmitted and also rather common--about 30% of indoor cats may be carriers. Luckily, since we've vaccinated our cats all along, it's likely she'll just occasionally have the runny eyes/nose without it getting worse. Her symptoms were light enough that the vet didn't think she needed medication.

It's unknown where she picked it up but I MAY have brought it in from the shelter. Ask me how great my guilt is.

As if that weren't enough, Olivia's gums were bloody and she needs a tooth extracted. The surgery is two weeks from now and I can't feed her after 6pm Sunday night before the Monday surgery. I take her to the vet in the morning but she has to wait there most of the day as they don't do surgeries until the afternoon. They took some blood to test and make sure she'll react okay to anesthesia.

Surprisingly, I was okay. I know tooth extractions aren't uncommon among cats. What I didn't expect was how... distraught is the word that comes to mind... Blair would be. He questioned me closely over dinner about why she had to have the surgery, what were the options, and kept saying, "I hate this. I hate she has to go through this."  It's touching how upset he is. I almost called him at work after I found out about the herpes and the tooth but decided I could just as easy tell him that night.

"I'm glad you didn't call," he told me over dinner, looking miserable. "I wouldn't have gotten much done the rest of the day."

Now I'm debating if I want to take Olivia to a cat clinic in GSO for the surgery. I have a friend who works there so I"ll ask her opinion if it's worth the drive and possibly insulting my vet by having someone else do the surgery. I trust my vet. I just think it might be better for Olivia's nerves if she were in a cats only place that wasn't filled with dog smells and barking dogs.

Stay tuned...