Have you heard about Kathryn’s new book, Crochet Saved my Life? She’s been collecting stories about this book for quite a while now, & I’m really excited that she’s finally released it.
It’s a book that tells how crochet can save your life, from chronic pain to emotional pain.
Kathryn Vercillo wrote Crochet Saved My Life based on her own experience of using crochet in conjunction with therapy and medication to survive lifelong, life-threatening depression. When she first began to tell people that she was writing about how crochet had saved her life, she expected to be laughed at. Instead, she was inundated with story upon story from people who felt that the craft had saved their lives as well. The author went on to interview nearly two-dozen women about their experiences. The group is made up of women who are professionals in the industry, working as crochet designers, craft book editors, and crochet bloggers as well as women from other walks of life. This new book shares their stories along with her own to highlight the many facets of crochet that make it a great therapeutic tool for people of all ages.
Kathryn choose to self publish her book through Create Space, & is also available as a Kindle download. It is part of the Kindle Lending Library and so is free to Amazon prime members who use that service. Information on ordering can be found at www.crochetsavedmylife.com.
Some Q & A from Kathryn:
Q: What made you decide to start a blog about crochet?
KV: I have fallen in love with the medium of blogging. I write in many different formats but what I love about blogging is the genre’s immediacy (the potential for real-time posting) and it’s potential for interaction (through comments and links and related social media). I had already run several other blogs but wanted to start something that would give me an excuse to really delve deeply into researching a topic area of interest. Crochet really had my attention because it had helped me through a serious period of depression and so it was a natural choice for the blog.
Q: Why did you choose to self-publish Crochet Saved My Life?
KV: I went back and forth about this decision for a long time. In the beginning I had identified a couple of agents that I might want to work with and had reached out to them but they didn’t take an interest in the title. I was getting ready to submit the idea to other agents and small publishers when I realized that my pitches to these people were presented very weakly and that this was because of an inner conflict about whether or not I even wanted a publisher.
In 2011 I had put together a booklet of articles about elderly women who crochet and self-published it through Amazon’s CreateSpace. The purpose of that project was primarily to teach myself about using this self-publishing tool. I had found the experience to be really positive.
Obviously, there are pros and cons. I had to outlay a lot of funding to make this book happen. And I chose to be involved in every step of the process from working with a photographer on the cover design to working with my web guy to make sure my site was stable enough for a book launch. There are definitely times when doing all of those steps is tough. But I think it’s worth it because as an author it allows you to truly retain all of the creative control.
I honestly believe that self-publishing is what makes the most sense for authors in the 21st century. I think that if you’re going to be successful as an author today, you need to be involved in all of the marketing and whatnot anyway (even if you do work with a publisher) and with self-publishing you get that added knowledge that you really directed the whole thing and made it come to life. I like that I can easily decide what digital formats to make the book available in (get it on Kindle!), that I could choose to re-release it with a different cover and a prologue, etc. and that I don’t have to get permission from a publisher to do those things.
I tried very hard to make sure that the book looks as professional as possible. I utilized many different resources and collaborated with some great people. I’m sure that there are little things here and there that make it obvious that it’s a self-published work instead of a work from a big publishing house but I’m okay with that. In the end, as professional as I try to be, I’m very much a member of the DIY movement who got her literary start publishing in ‘zines that got sent to pen pals via snail mail!
Q: So now that this book is done, what’s next?
KV: I have outlines for two other crochet-related books. One will be similar in style to Crochet Saved My Life. The other will be a different type of book with a more creative/ artistic style. I don’t have a release date in mind for either of those projects, though. In the meantime I will continue publishing daily on my crochet blog (Crochet Concupiscence).
