You can now download and/or purchase Cult, A Love Story for your e-book reader (iPad, Kindle, Kobo, iPhone etc.). Cool!
Plus, the e-version is only $9.99.
Click here to go to the page where you can learn more and download.
PS I uploaded this video on the e-book page but just for fun I thought I’d share it here too. (Some days I am really impressed with technology 
I just wanted to share a few photos from the author reading my friend Sharon organized a couple of weeks ago. It was a great day with lots of fantastic questions from the crowd.
I’m coming to realize (very belatedly) that there are many parallels to the cult experience in the lives of those who haven’t been in a cult. When I finished writing the book I didn’t even bother sending it to “publishers” partly because I thought it was a story that had such a limited audience. I’m discovering that that assumption is not true.
Those who I’ve encountered both at the readings I’ve given and at other events are able to relate to my story because of the parallels to cults found in abusive spousal relationships, bullying, gang involvement, abusive upbringings and other life experiences.
What this says to me is that every story is worth telling. Even if you think only three people will read what you’ve written, tell that story anyway. It all matters. You may not know how right at the moment, but you will find out.
Thanks to everyone who came out to hear me speak about my cult experience and about self-publishing. It was a joy and a pleasure to meet each and every one of you.
To close, here’s a photo of my friend and fellow writer, Sharon, and I at the reading. Thanks to Sandi Amorim for being the official event photographer!
In case you’re in the neighborhood of Tsawwassen, BC on Saturday…..
I’ll be sharing intimate details of my story of 10 years as a cult member, including how I joined, insights from the inside of a ‘high demand’ group, how I disengaged, and the deeply painful but ultimately liberating process of recovery.
I’ll be thrilled to answer any questions you have about cults, and about the self publishing process.
Here’s where you’ll find me:
Sun Dial Villas’ Common Room
5421 10th Avenue, Tsawwassen B.C.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
2:00pm to 4:00pm
From Vancouver:
-Go South on Oak Street, which takes you onto Hwy 99. Stay in the right lane, through the tunnel. Take exit 28 to Highway 17 (towards the Ferry)
-Go past Ladner, and turn left at the next set of lights, 56th Street
-Turn right at 12th Avenue (beside Tim Horton’s)
-Turn left at 54A Street (there’s a Harris Nursery on one corner and a Canada Post building on the other)
-The parking lot entrance for Sun Dial is accessed from 54th, about ½ a block down on your right. The Common Room is located on the left side of the parking lot. Enter via the door marked Office.
See you there!!
I am so pleased and proud to announce that Cult, A Love Story has won an Independently Published Book Award.
I submitted the book for consideration back in February, and with one thing and another, had completely forgotten about that. Then one day in late May I returned home from work and had the most wonderful voice mail from the organization letting me know that I had won a Bronze Medal in the category of Autobiography/Memoir.
I’m quite chuffed, considering this is the first book I’ve written (although it won’t be the last). I had realized several weeks ago that I’d exceeded all the goals I had for the book. While I was writing it, my list of most important goals looked like this:
1. Get the book finished. Not as easy as it sounds, but an extremely gratifying goal to accomplish. To have written a book from beginning to end and to be able to point to it and think to myself, “I wrote that,” was wildly satisfying.
2. Publish the book. Given how I felt after Goal #1 was accomplished, I almost didn’t publish the book. It felt SO good to get my story out onto the page and to tell it from beginning to end. I was so satisfied, in fact, that I did consider not publishing it. But in the end, I remembered that one of my intentions had been to use my story to help other cult survivors, so I did publish it (obviously).
3. Have my friends and family read it. Granted, they were somewhat obligated. When your daughter/sister/close friend/niece/cousin/step-sister writes a book you’re pretty much guaranteed that you’re going to have to read it. Thankfully for me, no one grumbled.
That was really it, in terms of lofty goals for my first book. Secretly, I had a couple of others that I admitted to myself only in a very whispery voice, late at night.
4. Have the book help an ex-cult member or family member of a cult victim. As I said, one of my intentions had been to use my story to help other cult survivors, but I had few plans, other than this blog, about getting the word out about the book. However, never underestimate the power of the internet and the power of the family-and-friend grapevine. Within 12 weeks of publishing the books I received several very heartfelt letters from some people who had either survived the same cult I was in or who knew someone who had been in the cult. These letters expressed a mix of gratitude for the new understanding that had arrived as a result of reading the book and, in some cases, forgiveness. Forgiveness for themselves for the feelings and experiences they’d had and forgiveness for those they had known in the cult. Words cannot express how this made me feel.
5. Have the cult itself become aware of the book. I thought it could take 2 or 3 years for this to happen. For word to trickle into the tiny community in remote British Columbia where the cult leader has her disciples trapped. It took eight weeks. Colour me surprised and VERY happy. Up your manipulative, abusive nose with a rubber hose, Lady Guru.
And then there are a couple of lofty goals the book has achieved that I never would have considered hoping for.
6. Winning an IPPY! Click here to read more about the award and to see Cult a Love Story listed as a Bronze Medal winner. (Category #27)
7. Being asked to give an author reading at the International Cultic Studies conference in New York City! More about this in a future post.
Writing a book is a lot of work, as any author will tell you. It’s not like working in a coal mine, but it’s challenging in its own way. It takes a long time but the process can’t be rushed. And this was the first book I’d ever written so that meant there were a number of learning-curves to be tackled. Things like; do I use an outline or not? Do I prefer to write linearly or jump around in the narrative? Do I write better in the morning or the afternoon? What do I do when I get stuck?
So the fact that I learned all that and got all my material collected into a work that is hopefully engaging and educational is almost a miracle. I feel very proud of the book and of the fact that I was able to bring it all the way from idea to printed form.
The little milestone that I reached today is that I collected and boxed up and put away the section of my office that contained all the matter related to the book; letters, drafts, notes, mind maps, idea charts, recipe cards with things to remember, and file folders with research. It’s all packed away.
It might not seem like a big deal, but for almost two years that pile of stuff and coil bound draft copies of the book was all I had to prove to myself that what I was doing was real. To see the pile grow was one milestone in the early days. Now, to be DONE the book, so done that I can pack all that stuff away, is …amazing. My baby has been born.
The “How to Write a Book” books have been replaced with “How to Market a Book” books.
A new journey begins.
Great news to share today. Yesterday I received the proof copy of Cult, A Love Story from my printer. Now all I need to do is go through it and make sure all the pages are in the right place and that there aren’t any lingering typos or grammatical errors etc.
Getting this book from a Word document to an actual book with a cover and an interior design has taken five months – almost one-third of the amount of time it took to write it. Editing, proofing, copy editing, designing, editing again. Sheesh. Who knew that after all the writing work was done there would be this much other work to do?
Now I just have to market the damn thing…. So on that note I went to the library earlier today and picked up a copy of John Kremer’s book, 1001 Ways to Market Your Book.
Here we go!!
One of the very best books I read in 2008 was a self-published account of a tragedy at sea.
Hester Rumberg has written a beautiful and heartbreaking book called Ten Degrees of Reckoning about a family who took to the sea to live a dream and found tragedy instead.
The Sleavin family (parents and two small children) had been living on board their boat and traveling the world for three years when a freighter ship ran into them in the dead of night, cutting the boat in half and killing everyone on board, except the mother, Judith.
I often read the book at night, lying on my back in bed, with tears streaming down my face into my ears. It is a tragedy almost beyond comprehension but Ms. Rumberg tells the story of the Sleavin’s, and Judith’s will to survive after the accident, with such sensitivity and clarity that I was left with enormous admiration for the author. What a difficult book this must have been to write. But I am grateful that she did.
As I move closer and closer to being ready to self-publish my book about my experience in a cult, I notice that I have a bit of anxiety about what the reaction to publication will be. I’m anxious about the reaction of those I left behind, should they ever find out about the book. And I’m anxious about reactions from friends and family who don’t yet know the entire story of my involvement, and all the sordid things that went on then. I’m anxious about the possibility of hurting those family members of others who were or are involved in the cult I was with, who may learn things they’d rather not know if they read my book.
I feel vulnerable about this anxiety and am not yet sure how I’ll handle confrontation with any of those people mentioned above, should it arise.
But this anxiety and vulnerability will not stop me from publishing my book, and telling my story. Speaking my truth about what happened to me, and giving voice to all the secrets and lies I experienced, is more important than my fear. I try to feel the anxiety, I try to experience it rather than pushing it away, and I remind myself that I won’t let it stop me.
There was an article in the Globe and Mail this weekend that featured several self-publishing success stories. It made me happy to see some positive news and an article about literary success rather than recessionary doom and gloom.
Naturally, I’m a big fan of self-publishing. And not just because I’m a self-published author myself; I’d love the idea even if I wasn’t.
Nay-sayers about self-publishing inevitably bring up the issue of quality. i.e. that with self-published books one can’t rely on receiving a quality product. This argument holds as much water as a sieve. Publishing houses print as much poor quality writing as anyone. Perhaps the only difference might be that the package they use to wrap their garbage up in is more polished.
The bottom line is this: if a book is good (interesting, well-written etc.) it has the potential to sell no matter who publishes it. The reason I love self-publishing and the freedom that print-on-demand gives self-publishers, is that we now have an element of creative control that one would not have working with a publisher. Authors can control the design and presentation of their work in a way that aligns with their message, rather than having the message dictated to them by a publishing house.
And I love the ‘global village’ feeling I get from finding out about a self-published work on the other side of the globe. The interweb has given us the ability and means to share our stories with a global audience and that can only bring us closer together. I think that self-publishing allows stories to be told and shared that otherwise might never have seen the light of day, and that is incredibly important.
That’s the end of my rant about self-publishing. What do you think? Have you self-published anything? What was your experience?
Winner of the 2010 Independently Published Book Award
