After raising six sons, I know that there is always that one child who needs more; more attention, more food, more comfort, more, more, more. If you ask my publisher, Rose Cushing or my friends, they’d probably say, the problem child is me. I want more! More help, more understanding, more often to be right, ha-ha-ha, yeah, that’s not happening.

You know that old break-up cliché, it’s not you, it’s me. Well, it’s definitely me! But no, I’m not breaking up with anyone. I’m surprised my publisher isn’t ready to break up with me. When you are used to doing things yourself then you give someone else control, it is easy when things go wrong to assume it is on their end, I mean, you expected it to be on their end. After all, you doubt yourself, your choices, so when we had trouble uploading my cover, I just knew it was Rose’s program or something she wasn’t doing right. I couldn’t be me, but no, it was ME!. This is my public apology for being the problem child.

I convinced my publisher, Rose Cushing of Cushing Publishing to let me do my own covers. I have control issues okay. What can I say, I’ve published a dozen or more books on my own with help from friends so, I really wanted to retain a certain amount of control. When Rose suggested a new cover and a new title for my book, originally titled The Americans are Coming, I at first balked. What do you mean change the name of my book!!! AH! NO! But then I thought about it, and although The Americans are Coming is cute, it didn’t really tell you what the book was about. So, Rose and I came up with How to Sabotage a Wild West Show for book 1 and following books will use the “How to” theme. I trusted Rose and I took a chance on her as she has taken a chance on me. Yet, when we spent two weeks dealing with Ingram Spark trying to upload my cover, I really thought, oh no, what have I gotten myself into. I really thought it was Rose. I doubted her because she is new to publishing, but it wasn’t her. It was ME!

Desperate and near tears, I sent out an SOS to my friend, Leslie Ray. Leslie isn’t just an author, she also designs book covers and gives fantastic presentations. I thought maybe she could figure out what I needed to do to fix my cover and save my design. Realizing I was near meltdown, Leslie agreed to a phone call in the middle of the night and talked me through some changes she saw Ingram wanted and then she pointed out that by sending my cover directly to Rose instead of first uploading it to Google Drive caused it to be compressed <Huh?> Yeah, well, a simple thing like that is what has made the past two weeks hell for both me and Rose. It’s a wonder she didn’t run screaming into the night. I’m sure her husband has heard all about me.

Thankfully, we are now up and running. The book should be live in a couple of days, but this really made me think. I doubted Rose, not because I didn’t believe in her, but because I didn’t trust my own choices. The reason I chose to go with Rose’s publishing company was because she had such a fresh and common sense way of doing marking and promotion. I felt comfortable with her and knew I could trust her. I hope she has faith in me and I will do my best to keep my faith in her.

I want to give another shout out to fabulous Leslie Ray! Thank you so much for solving my problem and helping me get this cover to Rose so we could finally get this book published.