Update on my book, Always for Judy: Witness to the Joy and Genius of Judy Garland

I was writing a blog about my visit to Yorkshire and the recent International Judy Garland Club meeting when I realized that I had not written any blogs during the past year. Very remiss of me!

The year has been busy. In January I went with my friends from the Town Square Writers Group to have my book printed at the I Street Press at the Sacramento Public Library. I doubt if I could have come this far without the support of this group.
Bette Lucke undertook to produce the cover page.
One uploads the cover page first from one flash drive and then the PDF of the book from another flash drive and in five minutes a book is punched out. I had about 30 printed to send out for review and Gerald Ward kindly uploaded the book onto worldwide Print on Demand.

Then to took off for Virginia and a month's worth of snow.... April and May were spent editing and making adjustments to the book from the inputs of received from many friends and I'm grateful for their help. We did one book signing at McBride Center.

In June Ellie(Eleanor Lyon) came up from Santa Barbara to celebrate my birthday and we were lucky enough to attend one of Richard Glazier's concerts in San Rafael. It was good to see him and Jan again. Jon Perdue and Rob Mills joined us for this happy occasion. One day Ellie and I decided to check out old haunts in San Francisco and found a restaurant she had frequented years ago in Fisherman's Wharf and we took a jaunt to the Top of the Mark, singing Judy's version of San Francisco all day. 

Richard talking with admirers

View from Top of the Mark

Fisherman's Wharf

After all the edits were done, we went back to I Street Press and had a few more copies printed to check everything was okay and then I found a printer and submitted an order for 250 copies.
At some point I got carried away and started inputting information into Amazon to sell the book there, and amazing I must have completed it correctly and someone on Facebook commented about the posting. Of course in days I received an order from them and panicked because the printer had not delivered the books and so I pushed back the release date to 28 August, 2014, the anniversary of Judy's concert at the London Palladium in 1960. Finally the books arrived and the next few weeks were busy sending books to Amazon in strange consignment figures: 7, 12, 15, and one for 79!  I most enjoy sending to individuals because I could sign each one personally to them. All this took a long time because being one's own publisher, one has to learn how to re-invent the wheel time and time again.

I am currently negotiating with Barnes & Noble to get my book into their distribution centers. Another endeavor is to get the book into the IngramSpark program. This organization puts the book out in Print on Demand all over the world and saves high postage charges. I am sorry that I ran out of books and a have a few orders which I will fulfill as soon as the next delivery arrives in a few days.

In October I traveled to the UK to attend the Club meeting, a separate blog is coming about this joyous occasion.

When the next supply of books arrive in a few days I will be busy packing up books again hence my determination to get this blog out.

They will available from my web site www:always4judy.com and later on Amazon.

Much Love and a Happy New Year to everyone.... Joan