I'VE BEEN DOWN THIS ROAD BEFORE

In 2008 I completed a book about my father, TROY WYE PRITT IN HIS OWN WORDS. He had made 30 audio tapes on which he told stories about his life and the memories he had of people in his family and of his close associates. I worked for two years transcribing the tapes and then organizing the material in chronological and subject order. There was enough material on the tapes about his father to write a six page article for GOLDENSEAL magazine. (Winter 2005)

When the book was completed I had to decide how to publish it. I didn’t think it was worth the effort to try to find a publishing house that would want to buy it. It would have had to be a publisher that specialized in West Virginia history. There are only a handful of these.

The other possibilities were various forms of self publishing – vanity press, print on demand, and set up my own publishing company. I chose the latter. I created Mtnpride Books. I obtained a business license for Troy Lynn Pritt dba Mtnpride Books. I opened a checking account for Troy Lynn Pritt dba Mtnpride Books, obtained a sales and use tax permit from Arkansas, an EIN number from the IRS, an ISBN number and bar code for the book, and a Library of Congress Number for the book.

My niece Laura Lynn Sullivan of Photography by Laura Lynn used an old photograph of my father to design the book cover. Then I sent the book and its cover to InstantPublisher.com of Colliersville, TN to be printed and bound. Including overruns I received 265 books. I sold the books on my website mtnpride.com, in a couple of book stores, by email solicitation, a newspaper ad, reviews in several magazines, person to person. My father was in a nursing home. He sold probably half of the books. After about a year I was almost out of books and I ordered 50 as hardbound copies. There were 10 overruns. I sold most of those. June 30, 2009 I closed the business. For almost a year selling books had consumed most of my time.

In November 2009 I wrote a novel LOST AND FOUND for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It was originally a little more than 50,000 words in length. I revised it, rewrote parts of it, added another 20,000 words and now I think it is ready for publication. I have awakened Mtnpride Books from sleep. My granddaughter, Emily Margaret Pritt designed the cover for the book. In the next week or so I plan to send the book and cover to InstantPublisher.com.