From Paperback to e-book with Maris Soule

The Write Way Café welcomes Maris Soule, who shares her fascinating story-making process.

From Paperback to e-book. Easy, right?

Back in 1992, I was writing for Silhouette Romance, and two things triggered a story idea. (1) I heard about Munchausen by Proxy, a mental illness where a parent, usually a mother, makes up fake symptoms or causes real illnesses so she can keep taking her child to the doctor. Hmm, I wondered, how would that affect the child as an adult? And, (2) I loved reading Gary Larson’s single-panel cartoon The Far Side. The cartoons were funny yet thought provoking. Hmm, again. What if my hero was a cartoonist?

I decided the story would feature Greg Lyons, an artist who published a very popular cartoon featuring a savvy lion, Leo, who gave advice and made people laugh. And, of course, Greg had been raised by a mother who suffered from Munchausen by Proxy. Now, what if the death of his mother turned him against all doctors and his cartoons became so vitriolic, newspapers no longer wanted to publish them, and it was suggested he take a break? And, what if during a walk across the U.S., he broke his ankle and ended up having to stay in the home/office of a physically scarred, but wonderful country doctor, Amy Fraser?

Lyon’s Pride was published in 1993. It came out as a paperback and in large print and did fairly well, even though I didn’t like the cover.

(She’s supposed to have scars on her face. The artist evidently didn’t like scars.)

Years ago I’d gotten the rights back for the book, so in 2016 I decided I wanted to give that story a new life and put it out as an e-book. I’d written the story on a computer, so I should have the file on a disc (or a zip drive). Right?

Wrong. From 1993 to 2016, we’d moved twice. I have no idea what happened to that file. That meant I either had to scan the paperback copy I had or retype the story. Scanning by hand would have taken me forever and even then I would have to go through it to catch scanning errors. Hiring to have it done would have cost money. Why spend money if I could retype it?

Actually, I’m glad I typed it myself. As I went along, I realized how much things have changed since 1993. No cell phones back then. Even how doctors treat broken ankles has changed. I had to decide whether to up-date the story to present time or keep it set in the early ‘90s. I finally decided I would have to make too many changes if I set it in 2016 or later, so I decided to set the date to 1993. Nevertheless, as I retyped the story, I did make a few changes. Just a few.

It took me a lot longer to transcribe the story than I’d expected. Almost a year. And I wasn’t sure what I wanted for a cover.

The cover. I guess I am drawn to men who have long hair. So far I have 3 e-book covers with long-haired men. I wanted Greg’s hair to look like a lion’s mane. I needed Amy to be positioned so her scars wouldn’t show. My cover artist, Florence Price, and I looked at hundreds of images of couples, most only remotely meeting my criteria. Finally we decided to forget the couple angle and concentrate on finding a “Greg.” More looking at images. Hours of staring at long-haired men in various poses. (My husband was starting to get suspicious.) I don’t know how many hours Florence spent trying to find just the right image. I gave up after a week. Meanwhile, Florence had come up with the layout for the rest of the cover. We just needed that head shot. And finally, we thought we had it. I took a print of the mockup to a friend. She said the image looked like Jesus. “Is it a religious book?” she asked. Oops, not the impression I wanted. Back to the drawing board.

This month I finally published Lyon’s Pride as an e-book. I really like this story. Poor Greg can’t tell Amy he’s the cartoonist who’s been drawing and publishing these tirades against doctors, not while he’s confined to her house. And, to make matters worse, he’s starting to like this woman, even if she is a doctor. In fact, he’s starting to think not all doctors are terrible. But what is she going to do when she finds out who he is?

This is the cover we finally decided to use. I kind of like this guy. I just hope no one mistakes him as Jesus.

Lyon’s Pride is available on Amazon and on several other sites.

Amazon       Barnes & Noble

For more information about Maris Soule, visit http://marissoule.com or LIKE me at Facebook/MarisSouleAuthor, or follow me on Twitter (@marisSouthHaven), or Friend me on LinkedIn, or visit my Pinterest Page.