Literally Speaking: Rockin’ the Self-Publishing World

It was the end of the summer of 2010, and I bumped into Karen Pokras Toz at a party. “I’ve been looking all over for you!” she said excitedly. “I have big news to tell you! I wrote a book!”

Now Karen, in real life, prepares tax returns, so I had no idea she was secretly dreaming about writing a book (of course everyone is, so I shouldn’t have been deeply surprised). I had two predominant reactions to her announcement, both of which I kept to myself (until now). The first was “Oh, no, here it comes—the usual tedious questions about how to find an agent, how to get published etc.” The second reaction was “You did? You wrote a whole book in a summer? Damn you, how did you do that and why can’t I do that?!”