This post was first published here on April 26, 2012. Left is Sally, a friend I sold my first book to in 2006. Seated is Bill, an old friend (91 yrs to be exact), then me, Morgan Mandel, to my right is Rosemary, a grammar school friend. I'd grown complacent with putting my romantic thriller, Forever Young: Blessing or Curse , on Kindle and other electronic media; but still, whenever I ran into certain friends, inevitably they'd ask when was my book Launch Party. Well, that proved print books were still in demand, at least in certain circles, so I bit the bullet and got my book published through CreateSpace, not an easy task to accomplish. I checked the proof when it came in, found some errors to correct, so sent off for another. When everything looked all right with the book, I placed larger orders. With books in hand, it was time to set up the party. Here's what I did: Reserved the venue - Arlington Heights Historical Museum - five weeks in adva...

While preparing my new romantic thriller, Forever Young: Blessing or Curse, for publication, I spent countless hours editing even before turning the manuscript over to my editor for two additional edits. I'd heard too many times about how readers can be so disappointed by favorite authors that they'd stopped reading their books. For a long while, before I learned more about the do's and don'ts of good writing, I really enjoyed reading Danielle Steel romances. The problem with too much knowledge is I came to realize her writing was sloppy and repetitive. In how many books did the heroine's lover or husband have to die so she could go searching for a replacement? After deciding not to read any more of Danielle's books, I did try a few times to reverse that decision when I spotted new releases at the library. After all, her books were easy reads, escapism, and it was kind of comforting to know what to expect. That was then. Now I have a huge TBR pile, a...