Tag Archives: Self-publishing

After five years, it’s time to adjust prices for inflation

Rudy Owens’ memoir on the American adoption experience

After five years, I will be slightly increasing the price of the paperback and e-book versions of my memoir, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are: An Adoptee’s Journey through the American Adoption Experience.

This week, Amazon, the monopoly that controls the world of self-publishing, informed KDP account holders that it was changing its fee structure. Amazon told those who sell on its platform costs were going up: “During this time, we’ve kept our printing fees the same, despite increasing costs of materials and labor over the past six years. On June 20, 2023, we’re changing our fees to better align with today’s cost to print books. We have not taken this decision lightly, and have reduced printing costs where possible.”

Inflation has hit all of us, and my prices have not kept up since I first published my memoir in May 2018. My book remains an entirely self-funded effort focused on reforming discriminatory adoption secrecy laws and raising awareness about adoption as a public health issue and gross legal injustice to millions. What I make from publishing my book is used entirely to fund the publication of my website with research related to my book and resources to help adoptees, particularly adoptees denied basic legal equality in my birth state of Michigan.

Starting in late May, customers looking to buy my book will see the following prices changes:

EBook:
Former list price on Amazon: $7.99
New list price on Amazon: $8.99

Paperback:
Former list price on Amazon: $15.99
New list price on Amazon: $16.99

Other platforms where I sell my book online, such as IngramSpark and Smashwords, will also reflect the new pricing scheme as well.

Thanks again to every reader who has supported my story and my vision to reform how this nation continues to treat all adoptees inequitably solely because of their status at birth. I could not have done this without all of you!

Two-year anniversary of publishing my adoptee memoir

Author Rudy Owens at a September 2019 lecture on his memoir, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are.

It is amazing to think that two years have passed since I announced the publication of my memoir, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are: An Adoptee’s Journey Through the American Adoption Experience.

My story remains one of the most distinct books ever written on this hidden chapter of U.S. History.

You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are details my experience being born in one of the largest maternity hospitals devoted to separating families through Adoption, Crittenton General Hospital.

It then examines my life story amid millions of other stories of U.S.-born adoptees and what we know from the long ignored facts about this institution that still denies basic legal and human rights to millions of persons.

Unlike other works on the U.S. adoption system, my book uses a wealth of facts from multiple disciplines: biology, evolutionary psychology, history, public health, sociology, and original source material to provide an overview of the public health impacts on millions of adoptees. This is because adoption cannot be understood without the research from multiple fields and because adoption has to be understood as a public health issue.

That fact matters now more than ever in our COVID-19 world, when many people can finally see the connections between systems, laws, policies, and health outcomes.

I self-published my book in May 2018, through a publishing company I created called BFD Press. You can order it here, or get a copy from Amazon, IngramSpark, or from your favorite online bookseller.

Rudy Owens holding his completed memoir.

Rudy Owens holds his completed memoir.

Since that time, I’ve heard from many readers, in the United States and abroad, who have purchased my work and have shared how much they appreciate me telling this story.

My work has been especially helpful to Michigan-born adoptees like myself, who continue to struggle with my birth state’s extremely hostile treatment of adoptees and its discriminatory laws that make it nearly impossible for uncounted tens of thousands of adoptees to know their past, their medical history, and their family history.

I want to let all of my readers to know that I remain humbled by the trust you have placed in me and my story. You, the readers, have always been my inspiration and the silent yet powerful supporters who kept me going when I wanted to put this project aside because it had no interest to traditional publishers.

Two years since I published my memoir, I can still say with certainty that adoption remains one of the few sacred institutions in this country that strangely binds the political left and the political right in terms of policy.

I can still say with certainty that adoption, as a system of practices and laws, still marginalizes an entire class of people because of their status at birth and because of hidden bias. Few admit to such prejudice that is manifest in the collective and systemic practices against so-called illegitimately born human beings.

Adoption remains an institution that is sanctioned by state laws that still discriminate against millions of Americans only because they are adoptees.

I continue to promote my book to the public and the media, including any opportunity to do book readings. I can always be contacted if you are interested in inviting me to speak to your group, including medical professionals, policy-makers, public libraries, and bookstores.

As a final note, I also can still say with absolute confidence that the underlying truth about my identity has not changed since I first published my work. I have not forgotten who I am and what motivates me to continue to supporting all adoptees in their quest for equality and human rights.

I will never shy away from calling myself the “Bastard from Detroit.” This name honors my true identity, rooted in our country’s historic discrimination against so-called “illegitimate” humans. I will continue to work on behalf of all adoptees because I strongly believe there is no such thing as an illegitimate person.

It takes a team to write a book

My decision to self-publish my memoir followed months of writing cover letters and pitches to publishers and agents. All told, I sent more than 100 email queries, many with a detailed book proposal and marketing plan.

Unfortunately, my efforts failed to pitch my story of an adoptee seeking justice and equality. I knew it would be hard to draw interest in an adoption tale that did not celebrate “adoptee reunion,” while also giving a critical look at the American adoption system as a public health issue. As a new author, I also lacked a massive social media profile or celebrity/notoriety status that publishers demand of any author who wants a backer. If you are not famous, you will not stand out in a crowd, and you likely will not make a profit for a publisher.

So, in the fall of 2017, I decided to self-publish my story, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are.

I quickly learned that self-publishing is a marathon, and an indie author can’t do it alone. An indie author/publisher will need other business partners to create a successful final product.

This is my way of saying thanks, with a smile, to the team I assembled for helping me put together my memoir. Thanks. (Photo taken in 2007, after a great trip to Australia.)

Luckily, I was able to find great collaborators to successfully finish my book with the highest-possible standards associated with respected publishing houses. It was not cheap, and it was worth every penny I spent.

Book Cover: I worked with a graphic designer I already knew, Darren Cools, after soliciting quotes nationally from graphic designers. Darren does great work and was a pleasure to work with. We settled on a simple design that used one of my childhood photos—something I wanted to generate empathy from potential readers.

Editing and Proofreading: I found a great copy editor and proofreader by posting an RFP on the Editorial Freelancer’s Association website. I received more than 100 replies to my query. From that pool of qualified applicants, I found my primary copy editor, Kathryn Hancox, owner of Hancox Editorial. I also found my proofreader, Julina Small, who owns Signet Editorial Services. Both provided great editorial work.

Indexing: Because my book covers a large number of issues concerning adoption, adoptee rights, public health, and related topics, I knew I needed a comprehensive index to make my work useful for all researchers, the media, and adoptee advocates. I used the American Society for Indexing to hire Cynthia Savage, owner of Savage Indexing and Online Librarian Services. She did a fabulous job creating an index with dozens of headings, totaling almost 30 pages. The index will be invaluable to any reader of my book.

I want to thank all of my collaborators for their quality work to ensure You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are is enjoyable and accessible to the general reader, the expert, and perhaps the policy-maker who is seeking information to help reform the country’s outdated laws that continue to deny millions of adoptees their basic human rights.

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.