Ghost Ranch, Ghosts and Gold, and getting it done.

After more that a decade, I have finally finished the manuscript of my short book about Ghost Ranch, the Presbyterian Education and Retreat Center just north of Abiquiu, New Mexico. Ten years is probably some kind of record for a book of around 6,500 words, hardly enough to be called a book were I not planning to include pictures. My “excuse” is that I have allowed many interruptions along the way, and furthermore, I had no idea I was writing a book for the first few of years of the ten.

Anyway, Ghosts and Gold: My Story of Ghost Ranch, is now in the design stage, and I hope to self-publish it by mid-year. That, and sell the house we’ve lived in for 30 years and move to a new one in a retirement village. Talk about looming interruptions.

I have loved this project because I love Ghost Ranch. But it needs to be finished, to be shoved off the edge of my desk, in part because what I really enjoy writing (besides this blog) are short stories and I need to make room in my life for more of them. Once Ghosts and Gold is out there (“dropped” as seems to be the term today), I can get back to short stories...after (INTERRUPTION ALERT!) we get settled in our new house.

I know you who are Presbyterians and who have at least heard of Ghost Ranch will want to be among the first purchasers of my book. I also know those of you who have no idea what I am talking about are now so curious that you will soon follow with your purchases of it. Thank you all in advance.

And so, I’ve made my first foray into marketing Ghosts and Gold, something all authors are constantly told them must be very good it if they wish to be (financially) successful. It won’t be my last marketing attempt, but I will try to avoid becoming annoying. Fact is, I don’t think of myself as one who does well at self-promotion, so the marketing phase of Ghosts and Gold will no doubt be often and easily interrupted.

(By the way, I, Keith Dean Myers, am not to be confused with very successful author Walter Dean Myers...unless, of course, such confusion results in a sale of my book.)

One important lesson I have learned in my work on this book is something all not-yet-discovered authors surely face: no one (well, except maybe your spouse/partner, maybe) is as interested in your damn book as you are. So you just have to keep slogging along until it’s done. At least then people can find out what they were not interested in for all these many years, but now they will have to pay for it.

How’s that for marketing?