ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It does take a village to publish a book. Luckily, within Hillcrest Media, I have a village of people who make publishing my book, and thousands of others, possible.
While Sarah Kolb-Williams is technically not an employee of Hillcrest Media, she’s one of our few outside editors and has worked on the third, fourth, and now fifth edition of this book. She’s the Gilligan to my Skipper, the Spock to my Captain Kirk—you get the picture. Sarah acted as editor and project manager, taking a mass of data, tons of emails to and from publishers, and a million notes and assorted gibberish from me and molding the manuscript into the book you’re reading now.
Kate Ankofski, who I was lucky and smart enough to hire from Simon & Schuster in 2011, runs Hillcrest Media’s editorial department and is one of the best editors I’ve ever known. Kate took the mold Sarah made and ensured that every line of this book is compliant with The Chicago Manual of Style, while doing a last check for flow and logic.
Jenni Wheeler, Hillcrest Media’s Creative Director, and the only person I trust to design my cover and format my interior, once again did an amazing job. She came up with this entirely new cover concept and told me I’d be crazy if I didn’t use it. Jenni also designed the cover and interior for the third and fourth editions.
There are many others from the Hillcrest Media team that helped provide insight and guidance for parts of this book. Lindsay Jones and Liz Schewe, from Publish Green (our e-book division), ensured that the chapter on e-book publishing was correct and made sense.
Karina Taylor, Hillcrest Media’s Marketing Director, and two of our in-house publicists, Kevin Finley and Ashley Olson, spent time with me discussing some of the actual book marketing examples I provided throughout the book. Karina also provided some of her SEO and online media expertise as it pertains to publishing.
Finally, I want to acknowledge and thank every single person who takes the time to read this book and who calls or emails me. I know how hard it is to sell books and I’m grateful that you chose to spend some money on mine.