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Viewing Blog: Jill's Blog, Most Recent at Top
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1. Tips for making your book the best it can be

If you are self-publishing, make sure that your book is the best it can be.  Here are a few tips for creating a great book...invest in a good editor, have an eye catching cover, and include the things that make your book look like it came from a traditional publisher, such as an author bio, a summary of the book, copyright page data, a preprinted price marking and barcode.

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2. A list of self-publishing companies



My decision to self-publish Keiko the Koala was a good one for me.   I can tell youfrom first hand experience that you need determination and perseverance toself-publish.  You are the writer, the publisher, the marketing department and the shipping department.  For me, I looked at it like a business.  I had a product (my book) to sell and I needed to make sure it was presented and packaged perfectly. Once my book was ready, I started the process by researching self-publishing companies.  


Below is a list of self-publishing companies:

  1. AuthorHouse (my choice for self-publishing)
  2. BookSurge
  3. Dog Ear Publishing
  4. Infinity
  5. iUniverse
  6. Lulu
  7. Outskirts Press
  8. Publish America
  9. Tate Publishing
  10. Trafford Publishing
  11. Wheatmark Book Publishers
  12. Wordclay
  13. Xlibris
  14. Xulon Press

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3. Bringing Keiko to life

Not long after having decided to write a children's book, my idea for a character came to me.  In fact, I was surprised with how quickly it all came to me..., the idea for a Koala, the name Keiko and the story itself.  It only took me about 2 weeks to write the story... it just kept coming to me.  I didn't know what I was going to do with this story, but here I had a children's story.  Now, I needed illustrations.  I turned to my dad, who is an amazing artist.  I gave him my story and before I knew it, he brought Keiko to life.

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4. You never know where life will take you

When I started writing the story for Keiko the Koala, I didn't know what would come of it.  In fact I started writing Keiko many, many years ago.  My formal education and working experience is in Finance and Accounting.  I have an undergraduate degree in Finance and an MBA in Accounting. I have spent most of my career working in the corporate business world in accounting, finance, budgeting and forecasting.
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5. The Decision to Self-Publish

I chose to self publish my book instead of using a traditional publisher so that I could learn first hand what it was like to go through the publishing process.  Although it takes a lot of time and an financial investment, I don't regret self-publishing.
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6. Naming and Choosing a character

Many people ask me why I chose a Koala Bear and why did I name him Keiko?
The Koala bear is special to me because when I was a little girl, probably in the 1st and 2nd grade, I hated going to school because I missed being home with my mom.  I would cry every morning and there is even a story my mom loves to tell, which I will share with you.
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7. Welcome to Keiko's blog

Dear Parents and Grandparents...Welcome to Keiko's blog. Keiko the Koala was born out of my love for writing and my love of children. I wanted to develop a story for children with a character that was unique, comforting, loving and wise,
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8. Joseph's Birth - It's time!


It’s taken me some time to come back and finish telling my story.  I realize now that it’s not due to a lack of time, or procrastination, but in fact, I realize today that sharing the story of the day my son was born was in fact a frightening experience and I have not been prepared to relive it in order to tell it… until today.

On Thursday, January 25th, 2007 about 2pm in the afternoon, my doctor came into my room to examine me.  Immediately, she looked at me and told me that she could see the baby’s head. He had dark hair just like mine.  She calmly told me that she was going to confer with the advanced maternal obstetrician.  This is just a fancy name for an obstetrician who specializes in births to women of my age. 

Only a few moments passed when I was told that I should call my husband because Joseph would be born today, most likely in the next few hours.  She said this so calmly, as if I should let him know that he should probably wrap things up at the office and head over to the hospital.  For some reason, I didn’t feel any urgency, but she overheard my conversation with my husband and told me that he needed to come immediately.  I remember laughing because we had been at this same place a couple of times before, so I didn’t know if she was really serious.  The drugs I was given surely had an impact on my sense of urgency. Now I know, she was VERY serious.

Before I knew it, Stan was by my side.  Hearing the urgency in her voice in the background, he got the message to move quickly. 

Within an hour or so, the room was being prepared for the birth of Joseph.  I had Stan by my side and my rosary was in my hand.  I was ready.  Epidural time… I had no intention of going the natural way.  Actually, nothing up until now had felt natural, so why start now.  

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9. The days preceding the birth of Joseph


As Day 4 and the following days moved on, I was limited to walking to the bathroom and back, I was not allowed to stand for more than 10-15 minutes at a time, enough to shower and brush my teeth…, and then back to bed.  My loving husband had arranged people to come and visit me as often as possible.  He was trying to think of anything that would help me pass the hours, a DVD player,  a steady stream of books, magazines, puzzles and anything else which would help pass the time.  I expected to be there for the next 10 weeks.

Of course, God had other plans…, only a few days later, just as I was settling in and had come to peace with the fact that I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, I started to have contractions.  This was to be expected and the nurses quickly came to my side with additional medications to control the contractions.  This worked for a few more days.  On the evening of Wednesday, January 24th, I felt something very different. I felt the pain that feels like a knife is being stabbed into your tailbone.  Any mother knows what I am talking about!!! This is a pain that takes your breath away!  I told my husband to call the nurse, and immediately, the nurses gave me something for the pain and called the doctor.  Since it was rather late that night, the nurse told me that the doctor’s instructions were to keep me comfortable (which I was all for) , give me something to help me sleep (even better) and she would be in to see me the following day!

I did sleep very well that night, and that would be the last time I would have the opportunity to sleep like a baby!  More to come…

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10. Day 3 in the pre-life of my unborn baby… Philly cheesesteaks & hoagies


I must have fallen asleep, because all I remember is waking up to the smell of South Philly.  That’s right…the smell of Cheesesteaks and Hoagies.  I just laughed and laughed.  My husband actually arranged it perfectly and the Storti family shared the best cheesesteaks and hoagies with the nursing staff on the 3rd shift that night.  The maternity ward never smelled so good…  Even in the middle of the night, I had to have a bite! 

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11. Day 2 in the pre-life of my little miracle baby, born too soon!


So, here I am in this beautiful hospital room, which would be my home for the next 10 weeks.  I wanted to get out of bed to at least move around and go to the bathroom, but as I tried to move out of bed, I realized I could not move my legs.  I remember thinking that this was definitely a problem.  Besides all the other major issues we are trying to deal with, now, I have to announce to a room full of family and nurses that I can’t feel my legs.  I thought to myself,  “this is not happening, I just need to focus and stand up,” but I couldn’t! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but I had to pee so bad,  I grabbed my mom’s arm on one side and my step mom’s other arm on the other side, and they managed to drag me into the bathroom.  I couldn’t stand on my own and I don’t remember how they did it, but I did get to pee!!!  Thank you Jesus!  Getting back to bed was even more fun, because they had to lift my legs onto the bed. not so easy when I’m 6 months pregnant and I’m supposed to move gently so that nothing causes a contraction.  You just have to laugh!

Once settled back in bed, we decided we should find out how serious this leg thing was.  Clearly, this was not normal. Only a few moments passed and I was reassured, that the magnesium, was the cause of my temporary paralysis. I was assured that once I was taken off of this drug, I would have full use of my legs again.  What a relief… I knew I needed my legs to push this baby out…eventually!

By now, things are settling down and everyone is relieved to know that mommy and baby are ok and we are being taken care of by the best doctors and nurses in Greenville.  We begin our plan to get everyone back home to Philadelphia.  After all, no baby should be here for at least 4 more weeks, probably more like 10.  Everyone should go back to their homes and families and carry on business as usually.  I am going to be at St Francis Hospital for the next 10 weeks, preparing for the arrival of Joseph Nicholas sometime in late march to early April.  Only God knew that was far from the truth. 

By the end of that day, which is only day 2, all plans were made and parents were being transported to the Spinks hanger to be flown back to PA, courtesy of Stewart Spink’s airplane.  But wait! Since Phil (the pilot) is going to be in PA, my husband has this wonderful idea of having someone meet him at the plane with cheesesteaks and hoagies from Philly. Yes, it’s true… Philly does have the best cheesesteaks and hoagies in the world… So, we can’t miss this opportunity to have cheesesteaks and hoagies from Philly directly flown into Greenville just for us!!! Now that’s delivery!!! Believe me, at this moment, I couldn’t believe we were talking about cheesesteaks and hoagies when only 24 hours ago, we were talking a

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12. My little miracle baby...

Before I could think about how I would pass all the hours and days ahead of me, I needed some time to regroup and relax. After all, I had plenty of time (or so I thought) for finding things to keep me busy. As I laid there thinking of the prior day, I remember thinking, Read more »

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13. My little miracle baby...




The next morning, I woke up to my husband, who was sleeping on the most uncomfortable bed in the world. He smiled at me, asked if I was ok and at the click of 7am, nurses changed shifts and a new day began. Read more »

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14. My little miracle baby

A few weeks ago my phone rang and it was my publisher telling me that my book was going live.  I knew that I wanted this to happen, I expected this to happen, I needed this day to come, but like so many things in life, we are not prepared for what we know is coming.  This brings me to think about the birth of my son.
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