Behind Our Eyes Book Launch Presents Author Sherry Gomes Interviewed by co-author Abbie Johnson Taylor February 23, 2023 Transcript Readers Note: If you have found this transcript to be helpful, please take a moment to let us know by sending a brief message to Marlene Mesot at: Marl.Mesot@gmail.com. You may also contact someone you know in our writers’ group. Thank you very much. Abbie Taylor: Welcome everybody to the Behind Our Eyes Book Launch for Sherry Gomes. This is February twenty-third, 2023, and I am Abby Taylor. I will be facilitating this evening. I'm going to be asking Sherry some questions, and then we'll open up for questions from you. So. But before we start things I would like to share with you Sherry's bio and book blurb. Abbie: As a child, Sherry Gomes began making up stories with her dolls and stuffed animals, writing stories about favorite rock bands or TV characters. She's been writing in one way or another ever since. A teacher told her once that she painted pictures with her words, and she's dreamed of being a published author from that moment. In the meantime, she's worked as a switchboard operator, executive assistant, computer teacher and a tech support representative. She loves reading, shopping, movies, musical theater, spending time with friends, cooking, and of course writing. Abbie: Now, here's her book blurb. Elizabeth arrived in Haven Valley, seeking healing after her unscrupulous ex-husband, uses his family's political influence to gain sole custody of their daughter solely on the basis that Elizabeth is blind. Abbie: At Haven Valley church, Michael still grieves for his wife, but he focuses on his love for the son he is raising alone. He deeply longs for companionship and love. They meet on a snowy night that will change their lives. Abbie: Through this town, its people, and two special children, Michael and Elizabeth begin to create their safe haven, though the past relentlessly places stumbling blocks in their path. Abbie: Sherry, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Start first of all by telling us what inspired you to write Haven. Sherry Gomes; Thank you guys, for having me. I'm really excited for this opportunity to speak to you all and tell you about Haven. So what inspired me started because I came through a very hard time in my life in the two thousands. I can’t talk over the bone. In 2009, some friends of mine who lived in Colorado said; Why don't you move out here? The cost of living is cheaper. We'll be here. You won't be alone. Why don't you move out here? I said, Okay, and I found a great deal of peace out in Colorado. Abbie: Okay. Sherry: And kind of put my life back together so the fictitious town of Haven Valley came about because I wanted to pay homage to the place where I had found so much peace and had been able to really do amazing things in my life after a very hard time. When I started thinking about that, then the rest of it kind of fell into place. Abbie: Well, that's great. That's interesting. So are any of the characters or locations inspired by people or places in your life? Sherry: Well. The town of Haven Valley is very loosely based on Estes Park, in Colorado. Abbie: Okay. Sherry: Estes Park is a fun town, very touristy, but you can just walk down the main drag and there’s stores and restaurants and coffee shops and all kinds of things along each side of the street for blocks upon blocks, and I kind of set Haven Valley up that way. Abbie: Okay. Yeah. Sherry: Haven Valley up that way, and though there aren't any characters inspired by people in my life. Their main character names are inspired by people in my life. Abbie: Okay. Sherry: I named, for instance, Elizabeth parents, Jerry and Rose, and my dad's name was Jerry, and my stepmother is Rose. Abbie: Oh yes, yes, and not to give away any spoilers, but I believe Rose, wasn't she actually Elizabeth's stepmother, if I remember correctly? Sherry: Yes, stepmother. Abbie: Yeah. So, yes, okay, that is really neat. Okay, all right. All right. Sherry: And just as a kind of quick, add on to that. Abbie: Oh, sure! Sherry: The bad guys are named loosely after people who really hurt me badly. Abbie: Oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. Right? So, I like the way you portray blindness and the use of a guide dog. I know you're blind, and I'm assuming that Shani, is she or he your guide dog? Sherry: She is my guide dog! Abbie: Okay. So you've had experience with guide dogs then. I imagine that probably helped you with writing about the guide dog. Sherry: Yeah. Yeah, I've had guide dogs since I was 17, and that was 1975. So it's a long time ago. Abbie: You probably had quite a few of them then. Sherry: I've had a few. Yes. Abbie: All right, well, good, good. So the Audible book narrator does an excellent job, I think, of creating a distinct voice for each character. Can you tell us about the process of producing the Audible version? Sherry: Yes, other than writing the book itself, doing audible was one of the most fun parts of publishing that I did. I looked on the Audible site where you do this, which is ACX, like Alpha, Charlie, x-ray dot com, and I've read all the how to go about it’s, all the FAQs and when I was ready to start, it's easy, since Amazon owns Audible. They were just able to bring my stuff into ACX. And when I filled out the initial form to start the process, I had to pick things like, first of all, did I want full royalties, or did I want to split the royalties with my narrator. What cost was I willing to pay per hour for the narration. Then I had to pick that type of voices I want, and they had everything from a child's voice to an adult, to a teenager, a rough voice, a sultry voice, a ingénue voice. I ended up picking versatile because really there are almost three main characters. Abbie: Right. Sherry: There's Elizabeth, there's Michael, and there's Michael’s son, Ethan and I wanted someone who could read all three of those voices and make them distinct. And there were several other categories I had to fill out, and then I had to make a one to three page sample for the narrators to read as an audition for me. Abbie; Um hm. Sherry: And then, you know I would get to listen to all these and pick the one I wanted and I did end up, increasing. I started with a lower amount for what I was willing to pay my narrator and I did end up increasing that to get some better narrators and there were a lot of people that were really good. But maybe they didn't do Michael very well, or maybe they did a bad job with Ethan, or maybe they just didn't get Elizabeth's emotions right, and her emotions are so important to the story. Abbie: Right, right. Sherry: So I spent the winter of 21 like Christmas Eve to just after New Year, listening to audition after audition, till I finally picked my narrator Whitney Dykehouse. Abbie; Um hm. Sherry: A nice thing, too, was that you can go on to Audible and listen to the narrators that audition. Abbie: Oh! Sherry: Because you can find them if they've read other books on Audible, and listen to samples. Abbie: Right? Right? Oh, that's nice. Yes, I bet. Yeah. Sherry: Yeah, I did that with everybody that I was considering, and eventually I picked Whitney. At that point she read the prologue and submitted that to me. I listened and approved it. So then we had, two checkpoints, I think where she would read the first few chapters, and I would approve those or not. Discuss anything that needed to be changed. Abbie: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sherry: And then, when we were about three-fourths through, I think, and then, when it was done. Abbie: Wow. Okay. Sherry: And we communicated by email very closely, I made sure she pronounced my last name correctly, because I didn't want my book to say it was by Sherry Gomez because it's… Abbie: Right? Yes. Sherry: …pronounced Sherry Gomes. And once I approved it, it took, I think, Audible, said it could take up to 15 days. It was just a few days, and it was up on audible site. And it was great. Abbie: Wow, wow! And do you think that the expense of getting that done, do you think it was worth it? Do you think you've gotten enough sales to justify the expense, or does that matter to you? Sherry: Well, it matters and doesn't matter. Yes, I would like to make that up. Abbie: Yeah, right. Sherry: I haven't made up that money yet. It was over thirty-five hundred dollars, and I'm not trying to brag moneywise. Abbie: No. Sherry: You have to sell a lot of Audible books. Abbie: Right. Sherry: I chose to get royalties and not split them. But Audible. Abbie: Huh, yeah. Sherry: They only give you 40% of your sales. So yeah, you know, I don't get enough yet. I haven't sold enough yet to make up that cost, but to me it's well worth it. Abbie: Oh, wow! Right, right. Sherry: I get to hear my words… Abbie: Right. Sherry: …spoken aloud by a professional. She's a vocal voice actor. Abbie: Uh huh. Sherry: She's an actress, and it's very exciting, and other people get to hear, and people who can't read the print book or don't like to read Kindle can read it and enjoy it too. So, I've waited a long time for my book to be on Audible. I can tell you that. Abbie: Oh, that, yeah, that's great. That's great. All right. So, I know we just talked about the book being on Audible and it's on Kindle. Have you considered submitting it to Bookshare? That wouldn't cost you anything? Have you thought about doing that? Sherry: Actually, I started that process a year ago or more. And I had some problems with their DocuSign form… Abbie: Uh oh. Sherry: …that they wanted me to fill out to allow it. And then I went on vacation, ended up moving back to California. Abbie: Oh, my! Gosh! Sherry: And you know a bunch of things kind of went crazy in my life last year. Abbie: Oh, oh, okay. Okay. Sherry: So, I never followed through. But that is on my short list of things to do, because I do want to, and it is in process at BARD. Abbie: Oh, it is! Oh, that's good to know great! So, I understand you're working on a sequel to Haven. Can you tell us when that will be available? Sherry: I don't know yet. I got stuck on a chapter, and I'm not one who can write out of order. Abbie: Right. Oh, I know what you mean. Sherry: I have to write in order, and I got stuck on Chapter 15. Abbie: Oh dear! Sherry: But it's going to be called Fascination. And it takes place in Haven Valley also, but it is about different characters. Abbie: Oh, okay, okay, interesting. So, it's not really a continuation of Elizabeth’s and Michael's story then. Sherry: No. Abbie: Okay. Right? Sherry: We’ll see them. They'll make an appearance, but this is for people who've read the Virgin River Series. It's kinda like that. Different characters in each book. Abbie: Okay. Okay? Right? Oh, interesting. Okay. Sherry: But you'll see familiar characters again. I always imagined Elizabeth and Michael as being in their thirties. Well, I am 65 now. Abbie: Oh interesting! Sherry: And I realized that one reason I didn't intend reading romances anymore, was I didn't relate to the characters anymore. Abbie: Right, right. Sherry: So when I started Fascination, I made them in their late fifties. Abbie: Yeah. Oh, okay. Alright. Well, that works. Sherry:Yeah. Abbie: Yeah. Okay. So, do you have any favorite authors? And do any of them write in similar genres as you? Sherry: I do have a lot of favorite authors. A lot of my favorites are not writing anymore. They're deceased people like Mary Stewart and Madeleine Branton, Elisabeth Ogilvie. I wouldn't say any of them exactly write in the same genre, because they weren't really straight romance. Mary Stewart was more of a Gothic sort of author, and Elisabeth Ogilvie was family sagas, or kind of romantic suspense type things, too. I also like a lot of fantasy, love Tolkien, and my favorite fantasy author is a guy named Guy Gavriel Kay. I don't write fantasy at all. And I do have a very, very favorite named K. B. Hoyle, who writes the best, it's a young adult fantasy series, but it's really great for adults too, and her books are available on Kindle by the way. Abbie: Okay. All right. Huh! Sherry: The first three are on Audible, but the rest aren't yet. So, they're all kind of different. Abbie: Uh ha. Sherry: I could have had a hard time finding romances that I like to read, and I need to, because I write romance. I need to read it. I also have my friend author D. A. Charles, who writes a wonderful disability series. Her character is a paraplegic, and he's a doctor, but there's also romance involved in it, or will be, I believe, once the series is done. And so she's another favorite author. She is a personal friend. We've known each other since we were, writing other things together, but she's also a really good, fantastic author. So. Today's romance authors. I like a little bit of Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and I like, there's an old-fashioned romance author. Sherry: I really like her, Emily Loring, and if you like a sweet romance with a little bit of mystery in it, she's very good, and she wrote mostly in the thirties through the fifties. So they're very clean. There's no sex scenes. There's not really any swearing. There's no heavy violence. There's just a little mystery, a little drama. But those are really nice books, too. Abbie: Okay. Well, do you think reading any of these authors, even those that aren't in your genre, do you think reading any of these books has helped you in your own writing? Sherry: Oh, yes, I think so. It's not that I wanna be like them, Abbie: Right. Sherry: because I am too much being myself, you know. But I like them, and I learn from everything I read, and I think that the biggest way I ever learned about writing, though, was by writing. Also, I'm not ashamed to admit this. I have written fan fiction and fan fiction gave me the ability to see how total strangers reacted to my works. Abbie: Wow. Sherry: Yes. That really was worth it, an experience. I would have written Haven some time, but I might not have written it as soon if I hadn't done the fan fiction, because I knew my family and my friends would always like what I write. Abbie: Yes. Sherry: But this gave me the chance to have thousands of strangers read what I wrote who didn't know anything about me, and yet they liked it. And that was a real inspiration. Abbie; Um hm. Sherry: But all my favorite authors have given me something. How they develop characters, because characters are really important to me. You know, about plotting, about development, world building and dialogue, which is one of my favorite things to write. So, I learned from everybody, and hopefully keep learning. Abbie: Right? Okay. Well, those are all the questions I have so I think we'll open things up. If any of you have a question for Sherry, please raise your hand and please stay muted until Meka calls on you. Meka, do we have any hands? Meka: Yes, Jo, go ahead and unmute. Please. Abbie: Hi Jo! Meka: Make sure that you did hit the Got It button. Jo Elizabeth Pinto: I'm so excited! I have not met another person who knows who Elisabeth Ogilvie is. Sherry: Oh really? You know Elisabeth Ogilvie too? Jo Elizabeth: Yes. She's wonderful. Sherry: You know, she's one of my favorite authors, and I'm just crying that you can't get her books anywhere. Jo Elizabeth: I know. I think some of them are on BARD. Sherry: Some are on board, but she wrote a lot more than that. Jo Elizabeth: Yes, she did. But my favorite historical fiction is the Jenny G. Books. Sherry: Yeah, I didn’t like those as well as I liked the Bennett Island. Those are in my top ten favorite books ever. Jo Elizabeth: I was gonna tell you I finished Haven while I was sick with a cold during this winter, and I love Ethan. Sherry: He's adorable. Jo Elizabeth: He is adorable, and my favorite thing that he does is try to kick the bad guy. Sherry: Yeah, that's great. Jo Elizabeth: He's four years old, and he's gonna stand up for justice. And I think that's why I love him so much. He reminds me of my own child, and I just couldn't get over that. Abbie: Oh! Sherry: I'm so glad you liked that. I based him on my dear friend’s three sons, who I did help raise, and I was once criticized because they said Ethan speaks too good, but none of my friend’s kids ever used baby talk. They always spoke in regular words and real sentences, but they were, all three of them were, well, they were hellraisers when they were young, and so I made Ethan kind of a composite of all three of those, voiced when they were young. Jo Elizabeth: Well, I thought he spoke fine. My daughter never spoke baby talk either, I think because she couldn't. Sherry: Yeah. Jo Elixabeth: Because I wouldn't know what she was wanting as a blind mom. So. Sherry: That’s right. Jo Elizabeth: I thought she did fine, and you gave Rosie a little bit of baby talk, so I thought you did fine with that. Sherry: Well, thank you very much. Jo Elizabeth: Great book, I have to write a review. I think I might have, but on Amazon, but I wrote one on my page. Abbie: Good for you. That's great. Oh, yeah. Sherry: That's really helpful. Abbie: I think I did review. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I did review it on Goodreads and Audible. I think I did. Abbie: But yeah, okay, that's great. Okay, we have another hand. Meka? Meka: Yes, we do. Next up is Denise. You can unmute. And again, if you didn't navigate to the Got It Button, it’s not gonna work. Denise: First of all, Hi, Sherry, thanks for inviting me. Sherry: Hi Denise. Denise: One of the things that kind of stole my question or comment, but you actually didn't, kinda work me under what I'm gonna mention. When I'm Sherry's friend. And when we were talking about the Audible platform, and I had talked about that with someone with my project, and they said, You know, why does it matter if a book is released as an audiobook, when there are other platforms like text to speech, and Alexa, and things like that. And Sherry was really passionate about why it mattered so much to her and so I kinda wanted to ask about that. Sherry: Well for me it matters. The reason it matters to me, take Haven. Haven has three really distinct characters. The text to speech would read them all the same. Ethan wouldn't sound different. Michael wouldn't sound different. Elizabeth wouldn't sound different, even though it's programmed to express appropriate punctuation expression. So it will say, “Oh, no!” if there's an exclamation point, or “Are you okay?” if there's a question mark, it still can't express emotion. Think of Elizabeth in the courtroom, and imagine a synthesized voice reading that. It'll read it fine, but it won't really show her heartbreak. So, that's really important to me. Plus, you know, I grew up listening to talking books on records and on cassettes. And now digital talking books, and grew up with my mom reading me books at night, and teachers reading books in class in the early grades. So, there's nothing that compares to human voice recordings. Text to speech, and it's great and all. I do not bash text to speech. I read hundreds of Kindle books with my screen reader on my computer. It's different. But if it comes down to my book, and to your book, or any other book, or there's characters, and there's, if I have my brother's, I want human voice audio. Denise: When you spend a lot of time listening to computerized voices for work, too. Sherry: Yes, I did. Sally: Good, question, Denise. Denise: Thank you. Abbie: Thank you, Denise. Meka, do we have any hands? Meka: Yah, yah, we’ve got several. Abbie: Oh, my! Gosh. Sherry: Wonderful! Meka: Oh, yeah. We've got several. So next up, I don't know your name. Sally Rosenthal: Hi, it’s Sally Rosenthal. Abbie: Hi! Sally! Okay. Sally: Hi! It's Sally! Hi! Hi! Sherry! I also love Elisabeth Ogilvie. I could read print when I was younger, and I went through all her books in my little small town public library, and it's so lovely to hear other people who like her. But I had a question about characters. You know the characters are very important to you when you start to write the book. Do you have an idea of where everybody is going, and how they are going to react? Or in the middle of it do the characters sometimes take over and want to go in another direction? And what do you do then? Sherry: Well the characters are kind of always in control, but what I do is, before I even write a word, I sit down, and I think this out, and I generally have a where it's gonna start, where it's gonna end, and some things that are gonna happen in the middle. And then we're just gonna have fun getting there. But the characters often come to me almost fully formed in my head. Sherry: Michael Kelly in Haven, for instance, came to me as a pastor. I tried to make him several different things, because I didn't want people who don't like Christian fiction to be turned off and not read the book, because Michael is a pastor, because the book isn't really about that, even though he is a pastor and there are a lot of scenes in his church. Sherry: But I sit down with each major character, and I ask myself a bunch of questions. Everything, from how they look, what they do, how old are they? Do they watch TV? Do they like movies? Do they listen to music? If so, what kind of music do they like? Somebody in my book always has to be a Beatles fan by the way. Do they drink coffee? Do they eat healthy or do they eat junk food? Do they like kids? Do they like animals? I mean, I have this huge, long list. If they watch TV, what are they like? Do they like to read? Not all characters like to read. How they traveled. What is their profession, and what do they do in that profession? I have this whole list. Sherry: Sometimes the characters kinda change my mind. I’ll start on something, and the new book I started with, the characters are in their fifties, so they kind of grew up a little bit when I did so. Their music is kind of the late sixties, in the seventies. My music is the sixties and the seventies, but sometimes I think they change their mind, and now they are characters who don't like that music, but they also were around their parents, who like the stuff from the Big Band era and the Frank Sinatras and the Dean Martins, and so they like that music, too. Sherry: But the characters well, kind of hijack the story, and I joke and tell my friends that oh, the characters are talking to me! They're really clamoring in my head about this, and I think it's that our moms know where it needs to go. And so sometimes, it needs to go there through the characters and the characters tell us where they wanna go. Sally: So do a lot of people. Sherry: And I really like that part of it, because I know the beginning and the end in the middle. But since I don't know exactly where I'm going with, between all those spots, it's really fun to see where the characters and I are going to take it. Sally: Thank you. Abbie: You're welcome, Sally. Good question. Sally: I'm welcome. Thank you very much. Abbie: Alright! Next! Meka: Next we have Alice. Alice Massa: Serry. Congratulations on the publication of your novel, and Abbie had mentioned about your development of character who is blind. But I was also so pleased that this second attorney, or the attorney, who was in charge of the second court, and not trial, but court decision I guess I should say, is also an attorney who’s blind and I liked the way you developed that character, and while many times when I'm reading a novel, I really don't care too much for the trial scenes or the courtroom drama, I thought you just did those portions of the novel so very well, and, like Jo Elizabeth, I really enjoyed how you developed the children's character of Ethan, and also Rose, and especially during that latter trial in the book. So I wonder if you can talk to us a little bit, did you have any experience ever in going to a courtroom, or just from reading books, were you able to write so well those trial scenes? Sherry: The only courtroom experience I ever had was going to say I don't object to the divorce a long time ago, but I did. I do read a lot of books. I did research also. I am a child of multiple divorces. So I know from the custody side, a little bit from personal life experience, and I talked to people who had been through it. I knew it wasn't gonna be exactly real life, but I wanted to make it as close to real life as I could. Not brief exactly, the opening prologue scene isn't exactly brief, but I wanted it to show the different sides and express the emotions and the thoughts of what was happening in the courtroom in both scenes. Abbie: Okay. Next. Meka: Next up is Marlene. Marlene Mesot: Hi, Sherry, I have read your audio book, and I absolutely love the character development, and I agree with you with the narration. It brings everything to life in such depth, and your narrator has done many of the Christian romantic suspense authors as well, so she's very well known. Question I'd like to ask is, if you would be able to tell us in your next book, could you tell us who the main characters are? And if not, could you tell us if some of the characters from the first book will be in there because I really liked Terry the music director, and Josh and their wives, and of course Michael and all of those. Sherry: Well, the new main characters will be Mary Michelle and her brother and his partner. They all own a cafe together, and Mary Michelle is blind, and then the man, the male lead is Thomas. We will see Michael and Elizabeth again, and their kids. I hadn't thought about bringing in Terry and Josh, but I do miss them so they might have to make a few visits to the coffee shop. Abbie: Yeah, sure. Marlene: Sherry. We have to know what Judy's baby is. Come on now! Abbie: That's true. Yeah. Sherry: The coffee shop is called the Bookshelf Café. Abbie: Oh neat! Sherry: And the reason it is it's a, a la Starbucks type coffee shop. But instead of being a bookstore, they have bookshelves where they just put second hand books up for people to take to borrow, to take whatever they want. Abbie: Oh, interesting! Sherry: If they want to read the book and it's kind of a thing where their regular customers donate money, or bring in their own second hand books to donate to the process. And it's just a place where people can come and have good company, good coffee, good treats, and read. Drinks are named for different types of reading things, like a short coffee drink is called the Short Story. Abbie: Hmm! Sherry: And there's a very elaborate drink that's called an Epic Fantasy. Abbie: Well, that's interesting. I wonder. Maybe you could have a piano in there, and Terry could come and play sometime. Maybe. I wonder how that would work. Sherry: That is a brilliant idea! I'm gonna write that down when I get off of the meeting here, and put it in my notes… Abbie: Okay. Okay, yeah, that. Yeah. Sherry: …folder for that story definitely. I take any idea that comes into my head or somebody else's head, and I write it down. Abbie: Okay, okay, right? Sherry: That would be good. Beause I thought they'd have a piano in there. It just hadn't come up in the story, and Terry would be a perfect one to come and play. Abbie: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay. All right. Meka, who's next? Meka: Next up we have Deborah. Deborah Kendrick: Hey, there! So, I just want to say that I did not buy the Audible book, because I may have been the first customers. A mutual friend of ours told me Sherry had published a book quite a long while ago, and I was so excited now I went to Amazon and I bought it right then so. Sherry: Yay, thank you, Debra. Deborah: Well, that's okay. I've done that. I bought it right then. So yeah, so. Reading the blurb, I realized there was an Audible, so I went and listened to the sample of the auto from her voice that she's well matched to your material. So that's nice. So my question is. Those of you who know me, know that I've been very fortunate in that. You know my writing has been my living, and I've been paid to write, and I've not ever paid, and I'm going to go down that road sometime soon. I think I’ll join all of you to write something just because I want to, and pay to get it, to let it see the light of day and hear the sound of day and all of that, but because you had to pay for this, you I mean you wanna get your money back. You wanna make a profit. You wanna be successful. So, I'm thinking, everybody talks about self-publishing means self-marketing. And it's a struggle. And so, as I was reading the book, I thought. Well, Christian fiction is really popular, and I personally don't really read that much of it. But this would fit that genre and I'm wondering, what are you doing to market yourself? And if you're not doing much, then you need somebody to shake you up. So you do it. Sherry: Okay. Deborah: But what do you? Sherry: Well, that's good, and it is hard because it isn't my forte. Abbie: Right, right. Sherry: I know that I do have a Sherry Gomes dot com website which hasn't been updated in a while, and it needs some updates. Seen that right? I have an author page on Facebook and Author Twitter. I have a Facebook group called Haven Happenings, which is where we discuss a lot of things. But we discuss Haven and we discuss Fascination, and we talk about writing and all that. But I know that I need to do more. I need to try to do more things like this and, problem is, a lot of times I just don't know how to go about it. Selling myself was not something that really comes easy to me. Deborah: Right. Sherry: So, yeah. Deborah: Have you thought about trying to get an agent? Typically maybe people do that before publishing. But I don't see any reason that you couldn't do it after publishing. Sherry: Yeah, I have thought about that. Agents try to get you published with a traditional publisher, which would be great, because that takes a lot. Not all of it. They want authors to do more and more of their own marketing these days, but that helps us getting an audio book and all that kind of stuff done as well, and getting it printed, and all the things that really generous people in the field did for me. But I understand from another friend who had an agent for a while, but her books don't fit the current publishing trends. I don't really know that Haven fits any of the currently publishing trends either. Abbie: Yeah, you know, that's the problem with agents and traditional publishing. You know you have to meet their trends where if it was self-publishing, it doesn't really matter as long as you get it out there, and people enjoy reading it. I think that's really all that matters. So. Deborah: Well, I don't read much Christian fiction, but I've read Karen Kingsbury, and I kept thinking of Karen Kingsbury while reading your book. And if I were you, advice is free, that means it's worth nothing. Deborah: But I'm gonna give it anyway. If I were you, I would go to Bookshare, or wherever, for Karen Kingsbury. Look at her acknowledgements, because she will certainly thank her agent, and I would contact that agent. Denise: Yeah, that's a good idea. Sherry: That's it. Abbie: Well, another idea is, Sherry. If you're interested in, if you want some help with marketing, I know somebody who helps people with marketing. She has a business, and her name is Patty Fletcher. In fact, she tagged you on Facebook after I posted my review of Haven on my blog. And on my Facebook page she tagged you. She'd like to help you, and so if you want, email me later, and I can put you two in contact if you're interested. Sherry: Yeah, that would be great. I see her posts all the time. Abbie: So, okay, Meka. Who do we have next? Meka: So that is all for those who raised their hands for the first time. Abbie: Okay. Meka: Jo does have her hand up. Abbie: Okay. Jo. Or do you want to be called Jo Elizabeth? I kinda… Meka: Oh, sorry about that! Abbie: No, no, it's not your fault. Jo Elizabeth: It's okay. In any case I was thinking of when you said that about marketing it kind of tied into what I was gonna say anyway. I really appreciate you taking on the issue of blind parents and custody, and all of that. As a blind mom who has been through issues with that. I'm glad that you took that on. Because it's a tough topic, Sherry: Yeah. Jo Elizabeth: And I think that you could, probably, if you wanted to, go to either one of the blindness organizations and get some marketing help with your book as a novel in a new approach to taking on the topic from a different angle is something they could use. Sherry: Oh, yeah. Jo Elizabeth: It can be used as a new educational tool, because it's a novel that people could learn without knowing they're learning. Sherry: Yeah. Jo Elizabeth: They could read a book that's suspenseful and fun to read, but they're learning about an important topic at the same time. Sherry: That's a really good idea, Jo Elizabeth. When I first started hearing about parents having their children taken away just because they were born, I was so incensed, and I remember I would cry every time I heard these stories, and I never was blessed to have my own children, though I did want them, but that just didn't happen for me, but I ache for all the parents that this happened to, and I wanted to write about it someday, and this is kind of something I forgot to say when Abbie asked me about what inspired me. I wanted from a long time ago, to write books for blind characters where the characters were blind. They're blind. You know it. They read braille, or they read audio books. They use a screen reader, they have a guide dog, or they have a cane. They mark their appliances, you know, whatever it is. But I didn't want it to be about that. Abbie: Right, right. Sherry: I didn't want it to be what I call how-I-live-life-as-a-blind-person. I wanted it to be about these people involved in things that can happen to anybody. Now obviously Elizabeth’s custody issue is a blindness issue, and a disability issue. But her journey of recovery and finding love and growing is things that happens to other people and isn't really anything to do with her being blind. Jo Elizabeth: But the way they discover about how all she can do it was the same way I wrote in my novel. : I don't know if you've had a chance to read that. Sherry: Yeah. Jo Elizabeth But it was very, just organic, the way Ethan and Michael figured out about what she could do, and they just accepted her. Sherry: Yeah. Jo Elizabeth: And then they saw how strong she could be. And they thought alongside her, but they didn't take over. Sherry: Right? Exactly. I wanted blindness to be normal. Jo Elizabeth: Right. Sherry: That was really important to me. I wanted blindness to be normal, not something weird or unusual. I wanted it just to seem normal. And I did that with the way the other characters interact with her. Jo Elizabeth: Right, right. And so I think I have made some headway, although not as much as I would have liked with my book. My mothering memoir, and I think you could also try that with this book in the blindness organizations. Jo Elizabeth: This is a tool to teach other people about how blindness can be normalized. Sherry: That's a really great idea. Yeah. Jo Elizabeth: The other thing you could do with this book is, take it to churches. Sherry: Yeah. Jo Elizabeth: Or church events, and say, this is a book that might be interesting to your congregation about normalizing blindness, and you could even make up a study booklet for it about how to make the church more inviting for people. Sherry: Those are great ideas. Jo Elizabeth: Make some study questions, or, you know, make it a presentation to churches. Sherry: I love that. That gave me such great ideas to work on. Jo Elizabeth: I've been marketing for a long time, so those are some ideas that you could look into. Abbie: Okay, well, thank you, Jo. Okay, do we have any other hands? Meka? Meka: There are currently no other hands. But I was wondering if I could ask a question? If that's okay. Abbie: Okay, sure. Why not go for it! Meka: I just wanted to know, Sherry, in the course of writing your book, if dealt with like any kind of imposter syndrome or anything like that, and how you kind of worked through that and kept writing? Sherry: I don't think I really did, because, if I'm understanding right, and you know I might not be up on it. But imposter syndrome, like thinking, why am I doing this? I don't deserve this. I'm not any good at this kind of thing. Meka: Yes, or if you've ever dealt with, if you've ever dealt with that. Sherry: I've certainly dealt with that often in my life, but I don't think I really did with the book, because it was kind of my destiny, but I always felt from very young. I was gonna do this someday. it's kinda like the first time I walked with my first guide dog. I never! I had been waiting for ten years to get my first guide dog, and so when I picked up the harness handle the first time and said, “Forward!”, I was ready for it, and I never had any issue trusting the dog or getting used to the dog. It just was. This was what was supposed to happen, and that's kind of how I felt about the book. I feel that a little bit now, about the second book, though. And I think that's maybe why I kinda have gotten into this road block with Chapter 15. The second book is harder. Abbie: Yeah. Sherry: Because I think it's one of the best things I've ever written in my life, and I just got stuck, and I think there's a little imposter syndrome in that, and I'm not sure how to get over it except just to try to keep writing. Jo Elizabeth: Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing. Meka: Yeah. Absolutely. Just keep. Keep getting the keys. Sherry. Thank you so much. Sherry. As soon as your book was published I ducked out of a meeting to go buy it. Sherry: Thank you very much, Meka. Everyone laughs. Abbie: Okay, well, are there any other hands? Meka: Just Alice is the last one. Abbie: Okay. Alice. And then I think you'll be it, because it will be time to wrap up. Go for it. Alice: Thank you, Abby. Hi, Sherry again. Of course, I know that the Audible book is approximately fifteen hours. But can you tell us how many pages your print book is? And also can you describe to us the cover of your book, and thank you. Sherry: Okay. So the print book is in paperback. I think it's around 400-something pages and, Nice, if you're still there, could you unmute and describe the cover? I think you do a little better than I do. That's Denise, if she's still there. Denise: I'm still here. Sherry: Okay. I'm not real good at describing the cover. I know you'll make it just described very well. Denise: Alright, so let me pull up. Sherry: I know that it kind of follows… Denise: There it is! Sherry: …through from the front to the back. Denise: Yes, and they cover this kind of like a torn picture. There's a half of the picture with the man walking away with the little girl. Is that Michael and Ethan on the left? Sherry: No, that's Mico and Rosie. Denise: That's Mico and Rosie. Sherry: Yeah. Denise: That's right, and that's in black and white. And then on the right side of the book, the other half of the picture is in color, and it's got Elizabeth, and Jolie. Sherry: That's her guide dog. Denise: Yes, and I don't see the back here on the photo that I've got but it's kind of a wraparound cover. And I should have it in front of me. I should have brought it along. Yeah, I don't have it. Sherry: I don’t remember what the back was, and it follows through from the front cover. Abbie: Well, I hope that maybe answered your question a bit, Alice. Thank you so much. We probably need to think about wrapping up here. It's twenty-four after the hour and we usually go run for about an hour. So before I turn things over to our President, Marilyn, to finish off the evening, would you like to give us some contact information? Maybe your website. You mentioned Sherry Gomes dot com. Can people contact you through there? Or do you want to give us an email address? That's up to you. Sherry: Sure. There's a Contact Me link on the website, Sherry Gomes dot com. Also, if you do Facebook, well, probably do my author page, because I don't remember my personal one. It's Sherry Gomes, author. Gomes is G. O. M. E. S. It's Portuguese. If you're interested in the Facebook group, it's at Facebook dot com slash group slash Haven Happenings. And my email address, there's either my personal address which you're welcome to write me on, which is Sherry dot com, or my author email is, Sherry at Sherry Gones dot com. And if you still do Twitter, I'm at Sherry Gones or at S Gones dot Author. Abbie: Alright. Well, thank you so much, Sherry, for doing this, and I'm going to turn things over now to Marilyn Smith, our president, who will say a few words, in closing. Marilyn. Marilyn Smith: Thank you, Abbie, and thanks Sherry and Abbie for a great presentation. I'm looking forward to reading the book, and I think it's great. You're kind of starting into a little thing of your own, where you move from characters familiar in one book to the next. I know that's very popular. It keeps us reading because we're suspenseful as they were saying, about who had a baby, or whatever. I'm one of these moms who also was challenged. I never had to go through any custody, but challenged by city ladies coming out wanting to know if I really knew what I was doing as a blind… Sherry: Yeah. Marilyn: …mom. So I can definitely relate to that. Of course, this Book Launch is a part of Behind Our Eyes, and we've been around since twenty oh six, that was part of the beginning circle, and the Book Launch is one of our newer aspects, and we're very proud to have it, and make it available to writers with disabilities, which is what our group is all about, and this broadcast, or podcast. I know it's not a. podcast, this Book Launch, whenever. Before we go, wherever people choose to. They can find it on our website, or it will probably get passed around because people can go up there and read it, and tell somebody else about it. Marilyn: We also have an awful lot more to offer in terms of critiques, classes, interviews, panels, almost something going almost every week that people can participate in, and for any who would like to join who are writers with disabilities, Behind Our Eyes dot org, and there's a link that will take you to a form you can fill out, a simple thing, and put you in touch with us, and we'll go from there. Marilyn: And I also wanna mention our magazine, Magnets and Ladders. I know that's kind of an unusual name, but that's who we are. Since twenty-eleven, and we have our own website, Magnets and Ladders dot org and the issues come out twice a year. And you don't have to be a member to submit something and see if it can be published in our magazine. I just want to invite anybody to check out our website. Marilyn: If you're not a writer, if you're just disabled, for whatever reason, go up there and see what we have to offer. There's some special events we've recorded, or interviews that you might find interesting just to take a look at. And thanks again for such a great presentation this evening. That was really fascinating. Sherry: Thank you, everybody. It's been fantastic. I enjoyed myself very much. Abbie: Well, thank you, Sherry. I definitely enjoy it as well, and thank you so much for sharing your book with us, and before we finish up here, I just want to thank Meka and Annie for hosting and recording and keeping things running smoothly, and Marlene has been doing our transcribing, and thank her for doing that. And of course, thank you, Sherry, and thank you all for coming this evening. Everybody have a good night. Sherry: Good night. Marilyn: Good night. Readers Note: If you have found this transcript to be helpful, please take a moment to let us know by sending a brief message to Marlene Mesot at: Marl.Mesot@gmail.com. You may also contact someone you know in our writers’ group. Thank you very much.