How do you come back and thrive after your husband dies four days after you are laid off from a job that was supporting your family?

It’s not easy, but I did it, and my new book, Willful Evolution: Because healing the heart takes strength, shows how. My hope is that it will inspire others to get stronger, too.

In 2010, I was laid off from my full-time job as a communications specialist in a hospital while I was on a family medical leave, taking care of my husband in his last days. I heard my boss tell me my position had been eliminated as I stood on my front steps; Ed lay in a hospital bed in my living room just inside the door. He died four days later. I had no income. No partner, and two teenaged children to raise.

I told the story of that devastating loss in my first memoir, Divine Renovations, which was published in 2011. Willful Evolution is a sequel, and it is poignant, inspiring, and at turns, downright funny. The book shows how I reinvented myself, building not one but two successful businesses and otherwise turning vulnerability into strength.

Willful Evolution offers stories of my travels to far-away places, shows me meeting some wacky men while online dating, and also lets readers see how I used yoga, exercise, and adventure to gain physical and emotional strength.

My book is about wrestling fear, building and repairing relationships, and finally growing up—in my mid-fifties.

Think Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert because the book touches on travel and love.

Think Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle because I write about empowerment and metamorphosis. I show it more than tell it.

Think Daring Greatly by Brené Brown because so many of the moves I made involved daring, pushing myself to do things that frightened me.

My book is as motivating, amusing, and powerful as these works. It’s available in my shop and as an e-book on Amazon.

My hope is that people who read my book will find new strength in their own lives, take risks, set new goals, and reinvent themselves!

If you read it, I feel confident something will resonate and make you feel creative and inspired.

The post “Willful Evolution” Now Available on Janice Beetle Books appeared first on Beetle Press.

The goal of Levellers Press, which is primarily run by Steve, a 65-year-old Northampton resident, is to give opportunity and support to local authors, which is why Levellers and the worker-owned Collective Copies also created the Off the Common Books imprint, giving authors the option to self-publish.

Janice’s book, Divine Renovations, a memoir about her late husband, was published by Off the Common Books several years ago, and Janice often turns to Steve for support with client book projects. Steve, Levellers and Collective Copies are important Beetle Press partners.

When a manuscript is selected for publishing through either Levellers of Off the Common Books, authors can also opt to hire Levellers staff to take on the layout, design and early stages of marketing on their behalf, in addition to printing.

In the Collective Copies and Levellers shops, in Northampton and Amherst respectively, many of Levellers and Off the Common Books titles are available for sale, and most books are now available in Kindle, Nook, and Google Play digital versions.

Once the “start-up costs” have been recouped, Levellers Press and its authors share the surplus on each book 50/50. Thanks to the authors’ local reputations and network of friends and family, a Levellers’ title can break even within the first few months, Steve says.

Still, Steve says Levellers’ methods are a bit unconventional as it has no national distributor due to the small-batch printing technique; books are printed on demand, between 25 and 200 at a time, based on need, making it difficult, cost-wise, to distribute on a larger scale.

To date, Levellers has published 60 books—and of those, only two are from outside of Western Mass—and Steve plays a large role in the manuscripts that are chosen. Some of the biggest selling titles are The Curse by Robert H. Steele, The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State, and Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts, by Robert Romer. Romer’s title was the first title released by Levellers.

The name of the press derives from the Levellers in England who, during the period of Cromwell’s England, fought for extended suffrage and equal rights under the law.

Steve has been in the publishing industry for a long time, starting off at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in 1973 as a “pre-press guy.” He learned a great deal about the printing process and eventually started the worker-cooperative Common Wealth Printing in 1977. In 1997, he needed a change and became more interested in digital printing, joining Collective Copies, a worker-owned collective.

Levellers continues to branch out and grow; it is in the process of creating two new imprints at the moment. For poetry, Hedgerow Books is taking off with approximately one or two manuscripts per year. Thornapple Books is taking submissions from all across the country on the hunt for the next great American novel.

For more information, visit Levellers Press online!

The post Filling a Niche for Local Authors appeared first on Beetle Press.