Tag Archives: Adoptee Memoir

Initial feedback from my first readers

Rudy Owens’ memoir on the American adoption experience

I published my memoir on the U.S. adoption experience on May 19. I have reached out first to my personal and adoptee/adoption community contacts, as well as people who may find this topic through the Internet. So far my readers have been happy with the work. This is good news.

Speaking on behalf of most writers, we want to ensure our readers have a memorable experience and learn and grow from our storytelling. Sharing stories helps connect people, so we can be enriched and expand our understanding of this wonderful thing called life.

As an adoptee, I want to build a bridge between adoptees and those who know nothing of this large group of diverse Americans, so they can begin to see and understand issues we raise, for ourselves, for our country, and for others. Adoptees have practical and critical knowledge that can improve family laws, parenting and family creation practices, and legal systems in this country.

I will share more feedback later. I encourage anyone who purchases my work to post comments on the Amazon pages for my Kindle version and the paperback version. This will help the book get better search results within Amazon and be introduced to new readers. Here is a sample of some initial commentary:

Reader 1 (May 21)
Owens makes a convincing case for opening up the secrecy surrounding birth records and other documents involved in adoption in the U.S. and for respecting the human rights of all.

Reader 2 (May 22)
Got your book today. First paragraph of preface is killer.

Reader 3 (May 24)
Until now, the only adoption stories I knew of were successful, happy ones. . . . I never even considered the untold stories like yours. So I am glad you’re putting that out there now.

Reader 4 (May 26)
I’m a few chapters in and I’m very much moved by your story and the larger social context you bring to fleshing out a larger, collective secret history.

Reader 5 (May 26)
I’ve read five chapters of your book. You did an amazing research and writing job. I’m just getting started. Lots there. The title is perfect; glad you presented that first.

Stay in touch, and please share your comments.

My memoir is now ready for purchase in paperback and e-book

Rudy Owens holding his completed memoir.

Rudy Owens holds his completed memoir.

I am thrilled to announce that my memoir on the American adoption experience can now be purchased online, in the United States and internationally. For now I have placed it on Amazon and Smashwords. I will make it available for individual consumers on other book retailing sites soon.

Buy in paperback, on Amazon ($15.99 in the United States; pricing will vary internationally)
Buy for Kindle on Amazon ($7.99 in the United States, pricing will vary internationally)
Buy as an e-book (epub format) on Smashwords ($7.99 in the United States, pricing will vary internationally)

Though I reached out to more than 100 publishers and agents over six months, the topic of adoptee rights and adoption as system that still denies millions basic equal rights is not a popular one and likely not a best-selling theme. In the end, I self-published through my newly formed publishing company, BFD Press. I encourage all readers to write a review on Amazon and share what you think of my work. Reviews will help to draw more attention to the book from other interested readers and better visibility within Amazon. Please be honest with your views.

For Retailers, Libraries, Institutions, Bookstores, More

You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are also can be acquired from IngramSpark in paperback (ISBN: 978-0-692-82156-5) and e-book (ISBN: 978-0-692-12440-6). Please search for my title using the ISBN numbers, the title/subtitle (You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are: An Adoptee’s Journey Through the American Adoption Experience), or author name, Rudy Owens.

My book is ideal for many markets, including independent bookstores, online retailers, chain stores, e-book and niche retailers, public and university libraries, and universities and university programs (public health, law, health care, social work, and more). I am especially focussed on marketing this book to all libraries and many university programs.

How to Stay in Touch and Follow Rudy

To get regular updates about my book, speaking engagements, readings, and more, sign up for my newsletter and follow my blog updates (sign up on the navigation bar on any page or the home page).

You can also follow me and the updates on my book on Facebook and on Twitter (@RudyOwensMemoir).

I always look forward to hearing from my readers directly; let me know what you think.

Memoir index done; launch coming very soon

I could not be more happy with the status of my public health memoir on the American adoption system: You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are.

The index for my forthcoming memoir will help all readers find research on the scores of topics my book covers to explain this significant American institution. Here is a sample of just some of the topics that will be addressed.

Everything is written, proofed, edited, and now indexed.

The book needs a few final touches behind the scenes as I finalize the product for Amazon and other platforms. It will be available in paperback and several ebook formats.

I’m especially pleased with the great work of my indexer, Cynthia Savage, who created more than 25 pages of searchable index listings that will help all readers understand the complex story of American adoption and the millions of people it has impacted since the mid-20^th century.

Scanning the finished index makes it clear just how many diverse topics my book touches: public health, abortion, human rights, discrimination, evolutionary biology, bastardy (the study how bastard-born humans have been treated inhumanely throughout history), mythology, women’s rights, women’s health, religion, politics, U.S. and Michigan history, and much more.

And all of that is on top of my hero’s journey that unfolded over five decades in my quest for my legal rights and my identity taken from me by this complex system. My goals remain reforming this system and ensuring that adoptees have their full legal rights restored.

My next update will include an offer for free books to my first readers, who I encourage to tell their friends about my forthcoming work. I am looking forward in the many months ahead to marketing and promoting this work to a wide audience, particularly to readers who know little about adoption or adoptee rights issues.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for updates on my book and related adoptee-advocacy news and sign up for my newsletter.

Memoir release set for April

Rudy Owens’ memoir on the American adoption experience

At long last, I can see the finish line for the first major milestone of sharing my story about the U.S. adoption system with readers. In April, I expect to begin selling my forthcoming memoir and public-health and historic overview of the still-flawed U.S. adoption system on multiple book-selling platforms and hopefully in book and mortar stores. Promoting and marketing my work, and finding the proverbial “stage” to bring it to a wider audience, will be an ongoing effort that will continue for months afterward. For now, first things first.

I will publish my book in paperback and e-book versions. I will include a searchable index for the paperback edition. My indexer is finishing this task now. I will be including a range of keywords and subject areas that define the experience of being an adoptee in the United States, including the terms “bastard,” “illegitimate,” “illegitimacy,” and many more.

An index is a critical tool for anyone who wants to quickly find material to help understand the history of U.S. adoption and the ongoing treatment of U.S. adoptees by discriminatory laws and public-health bureaucracies in many states. Here are a few ways my index will call out my subject matter:

My work will include original research of how groups like the esteemed American Academy of Pediatrics openly encouraged single women to relinquish their infants without any peer-reviewed or medical evidence that showed adoption relinquishment provided any benefits to the child and mother.
I will highlight new information from the organizations (Florence Crittenton Mission and Florence Crittenton Association of America) that ran the hospital where I was born and the dozens of maternity homes nationwide where hundreds of thousands of women were put in hiding and encouraged to give up their children. That data will include a comprehensive study by the Crittenton organizations of “Crittenton moms” and their circumstances when they gave up their children.
I will provide a detailed accounting how the state of Michigan fails to treat Michigan-born adoptees fairly and has failed to do its job managing adoptee-records requests and original birth records.
It will support my commitment as a scholar and communications and public health professional to be trusted and strongly fact-based source of information that is rooted in evidence and unbiased analysis of data and the meaning of that data.

Please check back on my website to get the latest update on my book’s publishing date, sometime in April. Look for news about a possible Go-Fund-Me campaign too.

I also encourage followers of this website to tell your friends to bookmark my webpage, sign up for my newsletter, follow me on Twitter, and, I hope, purchase my work in the coming weeks.

How my memoir stands out in a crowded market

Moses, a prophet to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, likely is the world’s best-known adoptee. His lifelong journey also embodies the archetypal hero’s journey, as described by writer Joseph Campbell.

As I reach out to agents and publishers, one of the first things they want to know is where my books fits in the publishing world and if this book will sell and be worth their investment. Great questions. Here is how I reply.

When I walk into the biggest new and used bookstore in the United States, Powell’s Books in Portland, I see my memoir standing among the freshest new titles on the front shelf. It will be among other nonfiction works that are must-reads for the book-buying public who will purchase it and tell their friends to do the same.

It is at its heart an investigative memoir, which understands the importance of a good detective and mystery story to engage readers. It is a hero’s story in its purest, most archetypal form.

It combines research of biology, history, sex, taboos, and social engineering and makes sense of what appear to be unconnected fields. Like many great personal stories that tell a larger story about society, it draws from a deeply personal experience and backs it up with rock-solid research that challenges deeply held prejudices of most readers.

Lastly, it breaks form all personal narratives ever written by adoptees by rejecting the prevalent view of an adoptee’s experience and turns it into a reflection on making the most of life, the way Viktor Frankl masterfully did in his global bestseller Man’s Search for Meaning.