Well I feel like that today. Besides being all bogged down with flu and really feeling terrible. I finally got an answer from the publisher.
Oh yes they want to publish the manuscript. Oh yes they thinks it’s great ….. Drum roll please….. They want/ require (whatever) $9000 for the subsidiary fees. Oh my G do they realize that is R72 000 in our money.
I am sure I could do the whole process for a lot less. So after the initial shock and head spinning round like in the exorcist. I decided to take a deep breath and think about this. Now I am a total novice at this new venture and I have to say I never realized that there would be fees involved. No, naive me thought if they liked the book and hey presto they would do all that stuff.
Now let me list what they say the fee is for and you will see it’s quite detailed. And they offer you payment terms, the quicker you pay the quicker the book will be published.
So here it is all listed and pretty
We have reviewed your manuscript, and we would be pleased to publish it
Under our subsidy program.
Please remember, your subsidy fee covers all of the following
services:
• Mechanical editing of your manuscript.
• Typesetting and design of the finished text.
• Creation of original artwork and design for the cover.
• Printing and binding of the book.
• Making your book available for on-line purchase, in a digital format, as a …….
• Implementing a specified, limited promotion plan.
• Warehousing your finished books.
• Shipping books ordered to bookstores, wholesalers, and other customers.
• Handling invoicing and collections to bookstores, wholesalers, and other customers as well as accounting for inventory, books sold, returns, and author payments.
• Our obligation to go back to press when the initial supply of bound and unbound books is depleted and as often as demand dictates during the term of our contract, at no additional cost
Well Hip Hip Hooray – so what exactly do they do – please explain!!
This is of course very exciting and all that but please lets be realistic, who on earth has that type of money lying around? As my dear sister in law said she does not even have 3500 cents lying around.
So I did another search for publishers and there are so many options. And of course it all costs money. I did find one with offices here in South Africa and the offer several packages on how to get the book published. From Bronze to Platinum. This is at a much reduced rate and all that but hey once again….. Who has money lying around? Please tell me where are those publishers who read manuscripts and say “Yes we like it and want to publish it” or “No this is absolute rubbish!” do they exist or are these only in the movies. Who would have thought that just writing down your thoughts or writing a nonfiction book had so many rules and you need an author number or something.
Gosh I think I need an agent … ha ha is that not what they do for you. Which has me thinking about all our hopes and dreams when we started out on our journey as adults.
We all imagine we will land up being wealthy, happy and fore filled.
Well I have the happy and fore filled part down pat but the wealthy…. This is the unobtainable rainbow I think we all chase. Do not get me wrong, I am sure we are all in the same boat and all spend a lot more than we earn regardless of our salary and special benefits, so no matter how much we earn, we all face the moments when we are broke and realize it is only half way through the month.
This is my life, and albeit that I would love to get the book published for my kids, I am realistic and know that some dreams have to be put off and “filed away” so to speak. But one day, one day I will find that Pot of Gold, and hey presto my book will be out there. I am quite happy with my life on a whole though. I have a supportive and loving partner, incredibly supportive family and friends and of course my wonderful children although they do make me age quicker than I thought was humanly possible.
Take last night as an example of how much they managed to age me. I get this call me from Cait – she is in a flat spin because Sarah is as sick as a dog and of course no one has money for doctors and medication, but Cait manages to make a plan with some of her birthday money to get her sister to the emergency clinic. (Strangely enough this was not my son Matt who needed the visit to the emergency clinic!)
An hour and half later Cait asks me to phone her once again. Which I dutifully do and now she is past panicked, she has almost morphed into me she is so hyped up. “Mom send Bern right now to Johannesburg so she can beat these bloody nurses up!” is how she answers my call. Well you can imagine my blood pressure hit the roof and I tried to get some semblance of sense out of her but she was rattling off at the mouth and spouting with such anger and the language was spewing out her mouth and she wanted to kill!!!!
Finally I got her to calm down and asked her to tell me what was going on. In between sighs and deep breaths she told me Sarah had still not been seen too and they had been there for an hour and a half and Sarah was having trouble breathing and the nurse had the audacity to tell her to calm down and stop having a panic attack. “MOM She shouted at Sarah!”
Siren bells went off in my head. My MOM INSTINCT went into over drive and so help me G I was trying to fit myself electronically into the cell phone to beam me to Johannesburg so I could throttle this Nurse who was clearly making things worse for Sarah and Cait.
Cait had already verbally attacked the Top Nurse for grabbing Sarah by the arm and telling her to calm down and told her that she did not care to listen to this nurse moaning about her job and how much she hated her job. "It is her job and she had better sort herself out or I will "hurt" her (not the exact words Cait used) but by the message was conveyed and I am sure the Top Nurse realized she was about to have two frantic girls on her hands if she did not react quickly! By now Cait was wound up as tight as a rattle snake and just as venomous as one as she was ready to STRIKE.
I pity anyone who decides to take us on when we are in one of these states. Even the bravest of the brave would step back and think twice about ignoring our demands as we tend to go a little over board. Well a lot actually and Cait has developed this need to mimic her mother when she is in the throes of a full out tantrum and repeats herself just like I do. Now for an onlooker this is quite a terrifying spectacle because they are not sure if the person is having a fit or are about to launch into attack mode. So be warned, when it comes to family we are definitely a force to be reckoned with.
The blood drained from my face and I am sure Bern thought someone had died because I shouted with Cait not at her “Give me the number there right Now, put her on the bloody phone, Grab a doctor by his private parts and tell him to deal with this RIGHT NOW!”
I hope I did not burst my Cait’s ear drums because I am sure she dropped the phone because the next thing that happened was that Sarah was on the phone trying to calm me down between gasping for air. Do you think this made me any calmer? Do you think my blood pressure stabilized? Do you think my need to beam myself to my girls suddenly dissipated? I think you know the answer to that………………. Imagine a Hollywood production with the music that builds up to enhance the suspense and the mood – now triple that and you will possibly have an idea of the blood rushing through my head and the volume of that noise would drown out all the Vuvuzella’s in any soccer field around the world. I am sure the noise was louder than any concert being performed in Carnegie Hall. Yes I admit it, I totally lost it right there. I was on my way to pack a bag for Johannesburg and was shouting at Bern to get me to the airport as I was going to throttle the nurse myself. How dare she tell my child to calm down who it is quite obvious my child cannot breathe and why have they not put her in the ICU already and why have they not called the top specialist in the world to deal with her. Poor Sarah then got it in the ear –
“Give the phone to the Nurse NOW” Sarah just said “MOM” ( gasp for breath)
“Sarah give the phone to Nurse NOW!”
“MOM” (gasp for breath) calm down, ” (gasp for breath) it’s just sore to breathe ” (gasp for breath) because I have bruised my ribs
“Sarah barge into the doctor’s room now and demand attention NOW!”
“Mom there are other people here” (gasp for breath) worse than me, ” (gasp for breath) they will get to me”
“Sarah-Jane Osterloh; listen to your mother – do not let them push you around get help now!”
This of course did not help her I am sure because Cait was back on the phone and I was frantically trying to find something to throw in a bag. I did manage to find my crocheting and that was going in the bag. Really Michelle…………… were you hoping to crochet her a blanket to keep her warm and heal her of all her illness …before you arrived in Johannesburg….”get real” is what I was hearing in my head. I am still not sure if that was not perhaps Bern talking to me, but I have so many voices in my head who can tell. So there I was all ready to go to the airport wearing my ever so “Sloppy Joe” winter track suit, purple slippers, hair in a disaster state and eyes red from the flu I am dealing with and this red Rudolph nose. I am sure I would have been quarantined at the airport or put into one of those animal transporter boxes and held in the cargo area as I was a sight that would scare even the most seasoned travelers and watchers of horror movies.
Cait told me to calm down as they were now taking her to the emergency section and were looking at her. Of course no doctor had arrived yet and this did little to make me feel any calmer. Then I get a photo of my baby using an oxygen mask and I was finished.
Now I decided that Sarah had to fly to me so I could look after her and Cait had to come with and our friend Shane had to come with too because she had just had her car stolen and I was busy making all these plans and if I had been given a little more time I am sure I could have come up with a quick fix to the economic climate we all live in as I was so hyped up and full of ideas.
Bern and Matt watched me as I (what is that called when you walk up and down with no direction or idea) oh yes “Paced” up and down the lounge with this determined look on my face.
Now Fiona my white Alsatian realized I was experiencing some sort of trauma or an alien had taken over my body or possibly it can be called Change of Life, because she was determined to pace with me and then Little Boy and Jinx decided they needed to clam me down. The Dog whisperer warns about letting our emotion over flow onto our animals…………… well tough they are part of the family and they need to just accept it. I am a mom and I overreact. Ok, ok so I saw I was upsetting the animals and amusing Bern and Matt so I sat down and told Bern that Sarah and Cait and Shane were flying to me.
Bern smiled her patient smile and said “Yes my Baby”, which is code for “OH MY G you over react!” but she would never dare to say that to my face at a time like that. She is not that brave or that stupid. Matt just sat and giggled at me and later told me I amuse him when I get into my “Take over the world and heal the world “transformation - such support… I just shake my head at this. Now Bern was supportive and her response to Cait asking for her to get to Johannesburg immediately was “Who am I gonna karate chop now?”
The end result…. No one flew to me to be nursed back to health. I flew nowhere unless you want to count flying off the handle. And Sarah went to work today as sick as she is and needed to be taken home because her boss was not in and would only be in later. Have you not heard of being booked off for work young lady? The company can replace you but I can’t replace my daughter. Get that into your head……. Ok!
So she is now home and hopefully will get the meds she needs. It was too late last night and no way of getting to the pharmacy as she has no car. Life just does not get any better.
So this is why I need to find a publisher for my silly book and stories and I can get my own Jet to fly to my girls when they need me and buy the MediClinic and fire the Nurse who upset my girls and hunt down the guys who stole Shane’s car and skin them alive and find someone who will give me some serious Therapy as I am sure I need it by now! I am sure my Bern and my kids have secretly booked me a padded room somewhere but are too scared to tell me. “Do you blame them, would you have the courage to tell me?”
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