Happy Black History Month: Special Announcement

Happy Black History Month! Special Announcement

I’m not a perfectionist. I know that’s a thing creative people say…that their weakness is wanting perfection. I am not that person. The thought of perfection is unattainable to me. The thought of it makes me immediately anxious. The first process of getting my book For Black Girls ready for print was a difficult one. It was my first non-fiction book. It begun in my mind as a short advice book for some of the girls I worked with and then it snowballed into something more. Going through edits and having different people read the book was tiring and exciting. When I got to the end of the process I wanted to delete all traces of it from my computer just so I could feel like I had that space mentally again. Writing a book, no matter the length, is a sacrifice. It’s exciting and challenging but it can also be difficult. When your book is done you wonder what people will think with each page, you wonder how many mistakes will make it through the finished process. How will your book impact others? 

I self-published “For Black Girls” with a Christian self-publishing company. Although I will never do that again it was a good learning process. I imagine they did most things like a traditional publishing company. The only difference is they charge you for everything and may not do a great a job. I found the company and people helpful along the way. I wasn’t impressed with a few things they did so I outsourced the cover and got more involved in the aspects of the design. All of the back and forth took so long in comparison to when I published my Anastasia: The Awakening book directly on Amazon. So you can imagine that the last thing I wanted to do was republish the book again. But there were a few factors that brought me to this decision. Ultimately I wanted to have more control over lowering the price of the book to make it more accessible. 

A friend mentioned years ago that I might want to create a second edition down the line as I gained more experience. It was too soon!  After all that work, I quickly retorted that it was the last thing I wanted to do. But he was right. Back then I never imagined that two years later I would be getting separated and then divorced. A lot has happened since then. Getting divorced and then being thrown into a pandemic threw off a lot of my plans but the timeline was helpful to give me perspective.

Although I’m not a perfectionist and I don’t think my book is perfect, I’m happy to say I’ve finished my updates and the changes which include a new cover from my amazing designer. So for those of you who purchased my book, you now have a first edition copy!  Some originals will still be floating around and places like amazon will continue to sell the original hard cover until they run out. I want to re-introduce to you the second edition of For Black Girls book: The Shaping of a Young Woman.

Happy Black History Month!