As I mentioned in my last post, sales figures for my book SHAME were so weak that my publisher agreed to sell me back the publication rights. That book was (is) deeply important to me, and I had so much invested in its success, that its relative "failure" was a profound shame experience for me. In the book, I talk about one type of shame as "Disappointed Expectation" and another as "Unwanted Exposure." The book's poor sales figures felt to me like both; the shame I felt left me for a long time in a state of mild depression.

The re-acquisition of the right to publish has helped me to recover and I feel newly energized. I also feel that I've regained my feelings of pride in the book I wrote. It's a very good book, a distillation of everything I've learned over the course of my career, and it deserves a wider audience. Part of the problem, I believe, was the wrong title and a scary cover. "SHAME" sounds serious, but the subtitle makes it seem less so, more like any other shallow self-help book. I chose neither one. I liked the cover at first but have since grown to see it as intimidating and off-putting; I selected yellow for the cover and I'll take responsibility for that wrong choice.

The sales figure for my last book SHAME were a disaster for complex reasons I'll write about later, but to make a long story short, I was able to re-purchase the rights to publication from the publisher of that book, St. Martin's Press. I'm now re-releasing it under my New Rise Press imprint with a different title, so I wanted to alert all of you who purchased SHAME that this is not actually a new book. I've had a heartening number of pre-orders for the new book, currently scheduled for a June 1 release, but you still have time to cancel those orders if you assumed I was releasing a new title.

My book is now available in Australia and New Zealand through Pan Macmillan. Like the UK edition, this one differs from the one released by Touchstone in North America and conforms to different libel and defamation laws in those countries.

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I have a memory of my father from when I was about seven years old. Whether it is factually accurate, it is emotionally true.

My mother was in Texas at the time following the death of her mother. My other grandmother, my father’s mother, had come to stay with us because he didn’t cook, clean, or involve himself with the daily routines of his children. My father was a self-employed builder and worked long hours.

Continue "The Father’s Gaze"

For those of you who may have purchased your book through Amazon, need some verified reviews on that site. I realize that it takes time to finish reading the book, of course, but if you finish and feel so inclined, please submit a review. Thanks!