BEAVER’S POND PRESS SUMMER BBQ

Each year in August, Beaver’s Pond Press has a BBQ for their authors. I published my children’s / coffee table book, Real Norwegians Eat Lutefisk, with them in 2009. They are a local self publishing company, which is why I chose to work with them, and the founder, Milt Adams turned out to be an old Norwegian who fell in love with my book. They made the process easy to go from finished manuscript to printed book. I chose to self publish my book because it was a niche book that would most likely appeal only to the Norwegian American people in the Midwest. It has been successful and can be found in most of the Scandinavian stores in the Midwest along with some independent book stores. Considering it came out at the start of the recession, I think it has done extremely well! I like going to the BBQ because it gives authors a chance to meet with other authors to exchange marketing and promo ideas. And of course the food is always tasty. This year it was a pleasure to meet Marilyn Jax who worked as a government enforcement investigator and fraud examiner for many years and just put out her second book, Road to Omalos. Her first book, The Find, received numerous awards. I chatted with Dara Beevas, who was the editor for my book and now is the VP, about possibly putting out my second book, Real Norwegians Eat Rommegrot, in 2012. I have this book ready to go but have been waiting for the economy to recover before taking the leap of faith again. It has been almost three years though, so I think it may be time to take this next step in my Norwegian Traditions Children’s series. This was the second Beaver’s Pond Press BBQ I was able to attend and it was well worth my time because of the networking opportunities it offered to me as one of their authors.