Recently a man said to me, “I drive past your house, but I never see you outside!” Now, I drive past people’s houses all the time, and frankly, I rarely see them outside. Maybe he imagined me just standing in my house doing nothing at all. Maybe When I see a vehicle coming down the gravel road, I should run outside and wave. Maybe not.
I am, in fact, not just standing around with nothing to do. I am busy most of the time. It’s true, a lot of what I do is not done outside. Here are some of the projects I’ve been involved with over the last year. Below is a photograph of three books I’ve recently worked on.
Although all three of these books are written by other authors, I have taken their manuscripts and arranged them in word documents, formatted them for printing, edited them, lined up editors, and even assisted with, or completely took care of the printing process for them. I’m proud of the work I did in them and very impressed with each of these writers for putting these books together. I’m also very honored they each hired me to help them with their process.
First, I worked on a book written by Dan Sanley, of California. Dan, originally from Butler County, Nebraska, created the Facebook Group called Nebraska Bohemians in 2015. The group has over 35,000 followers from all over the world. After I published (with his contributions) my book, Czech & Slavic Epic History, I encouraged him to write a book that showed some of his favorite posts from his FB group. He created a book with selected posts that tell the reader who the Nebraska Bohemians, or Czechs as I call them, really are. It’s a wonderful collection of stories, and it’s available in digital and print formats on Amazon.
My role in this book was as the publisher. I took all of his posts from the Facebook page and put them in a word document, formatted the manuscript for print, arranged for editing and cover creation, then published the book on Amazon. This is why you’ll see my name on the Amazon page where you will buy his book, but be assured, Dan is the author. All of the writing is his and all the selections of the posts were originally on the Nebraska Bohemians Facebook group page. Congratulations, Dan. You’re an author now!
The next book, Hero of the Rails, is by Jim Reisdorff, of David City Nebraska. Jim hired me to format and edit the book. Jim doesn’t need much help with editing as he is a tried and true, professional, career writer, but a second set of eyes is always helpful. I also designed the cover for this book. This is a great story, by the way. It’s really unique, and Jim covers the story wonderfully. I know Jim sells many of his books at Train shows and I’m sure people will snap the books up, but one can also purchase the book directly from his website: http://www.southplattepress.com/current/herooftherails.html.
The third project I’ve worked on was for Bernie Auten of Norfolk, Nebraska.
This was a fun project to work on. Bernie is a CPA by day and an avid travel photographer in his off hours. He loves to trot around the globe to take great pictures of the beautiful places he visits. Bernie puts these books together and I had the honor of being hired to write the copy. So, this book is written by me, but the pictures are the main attraction. This book is all about his trip to Costa Rica. What a wonderful place I would like to visit. To write the copy, I researched the photos, and some of the photos have stories Bernie shared with me. Bernie was outstanding to work with and I really enjoyed this project.
Somewhere in this time frame I also wrote posts for a luxury real estate blog, another paid gig, which was interesting. Most of my articles were about cities in California and Washington D.C.. I learned so much!
Also, within the last year, I acted as a writing coach for Glenda Clare of Lincoln. Now her book is published! I was so impressed with her story and loved working with her on this book. So happy she found a publisher! I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction. The Legacy of Prairie Winds
I squeezed in my own little project on something called Kindle Vella. Check it out. It’s about, you guessed it, a small town girl. Write what you know they say! A Walk in the Park. If people show interest in this story, I’ll publish it as a book and write more in the series.
And now, I think I’ll go outside for a while. I did spend a couple weeks this spring helping in the field driving a tractor and disking up the dirt to prepare it for planting. Maybe someone saw me as they drove past and was relieved to see me busy.
G. M. Barlean 
Send me an email at ginabarlean@gmail.com
LikeLike
Gina, How to contact you? It is possible you are a distant relative of me.
My parents came from Linwood and Morse Bluff Nebraska.
LikeLike