MSI Press Blog

  Today's back story is about the book, Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest  by Shenan (CB) Leaver with Betty Lou Leaver. From the co-author: CB Leaver , the author, is a mentally challenged CHARGE Syndrome adult who never learned to read or write. His mother, Betty Lou Leaver, a highly published author, who wanted her son to understand the purpose of the written word: sharing thoughts and/or information with others. It took a full year of working together to put CB's remembered stories on paper, to check that they had been accurately transcribed. CB learned a lot about the written word both in the process of writing and in getting feedback from pre-publication readers of the manuscript. CB subsequently did a book signing at the Los Angeles Book Fair. He had a great time learning about reader reactions to his book. He was also adept at using his people skills and humor to draw readers to his booth.  Book available at 25% discount with code FF25 at msipress.com/shop. Read excerpts a

  Today's back story is about the book, Living Well with Chronic Illness by Joanna Charnas From the author: In the mid to late 1990s, I was particularly sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, an illness I’d lived with since I was nineteen. During these years, I had several run-ins with large bureaucracies, including the Massachusetts Department of Motor Vehicles and Harvard Community Health Plan, the largest HMO in the state. After I’d successfully obtained the services I needed, I’d tell my father about these confrontations, carefully leaving the distress they’d caused me out of the narrative. My father repeatedly responded, “You ought to write about that.” I was a Social Worker for a large AIDS service organization at the time, and my reply was always, “My experiences aren’t unique. My clients often encounter these same problems.” We had some version of this conversation for a couple of years. At the same time, I had an otherworldly feeling I should be writing something. I’d been p

  This week's blog post is the next in the series of book back stories and is the story behind Life after Losing a Child (Young & Romer). From the author -  A former editor of mine, as well as a good friend, lost her son. When she called to tell me, I walked around my house for an hour before I wrote her a poem. It is the first page in a book I co-authored with another good friend, my late friend Joanna Romer. We agreed, before writing the book, that a loss such as that was even more painful – and different – than the loss we both shared as widows.  We set forth to interview parents who had lost children and followed each chapter on loss with a healing chapter, depicting ways each parent dealt with the loss in a positive way to help with healing. Several of the interview chapters were friends of ours, which made it all the more real, and painful. I hope this book has helped a parent who lost a child in a good way. Paperback copies of this book can be purchased at the MSI Press

  From the author of  Lessons of Labor: One Woman's Self-Discovery through Birth , Julia Aziz - Lessons of Labor  was conceived a few hours after my first child was born. Battered, bleeding, and still in shock over what childbirth had really been like, one thing was clear to me: I had to write everything down, and I had better do it soon, before I forgot. My birth experience was not particularly unusual in any way, but my internal process felt like a long meditation retreat I had done some years earlier: every personal demon I had ever struggled with had somehow come to face me in the past twenty-four hours, and I was reeling from the experience.  Of course in the months to come, I came to see that giving birth, which I had given quite a bit of thought and preparation to, was actually easier than postpartum anxiety, insomnia, hormonal changes, and newborn care. As I began to inexpertly stumble along the path of motherhood, I noticed those personal demons were coming along for the r

    From the author -- Kris wrote a lovely and in-depth sharing of why she wrote this book on Linked-In. Click HERE to read it. (Note: the book has been out for a few moths now; the story was posted on Linked-In prior to the book's release.) AWARD Literary Titan gold award For more posts about Kris and his books, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Planning on self-publishing and don't know where to start? Our  author au pair  services will mentor you through the process. Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com

    From the editor -- Las Historias de Mi Vida  is the third book Fernando Ustman published with us.  It is a good story about how authors actually get contracts. Just like book sales, many come via word of mouth. Fernando had published two books ( Las Puertas de la Eternidad and EL Poder de lo Transpersonal ) in Colombia, his home country, and wanted to publish second editions of them. Not in English, but in Spanish. At the time, we were not publishing in Spanish. However, Fernando's brother was a good friend, a priest from Colombia who had been assigned to our diocese for five years. So, we plunged into the task. Now, we have published other books in Spanish -- Fernando set us on that path. For more posts about Fernando and his books, including excerpts, click  HERE . Fernando's books can be purchased at discount from msipress.com/shop. Use code FF25 to get 25% off any of them.                                    Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on 

  Today's book back story is about the book, Joshuanism, by Michael Vito Tosto. From the publisher: This is one of our more unusual book sagas and author journeys. When Michael came to us, he was enthusiastic about what he thought was a calling from God to reshape Christianity along lines similar to the practices of the early Christians. We found his book to be well researched and presenting an interesting view. Here is what he wrote at the time: Knowing God can sometimes be the most difficult thing we as humans can do. Many obstacles stand in our way: societal distractions, the expectations of others, temptations, even ourselves. However, have you ever considered that the very religion you practice can be the greatest obstacle? Is it possible that the institutions, conventions, and accepted norms of your religion are so fraught with baggage, human distortion, and misconceptions that your religious pursuits are actually hurting you rather than helping you? If the answer is "ye

  Today's book back story is about the book, Jesus Is Still Passing By ,  by J Bennett Easterling. From the publisher: This is one of my favorite books. Usually, I pass along books for copyediting to one of or our copyeditors, and if a book is in need of actual editing, I recommend that the author take on external editor. This book was different. It was well written, but the miracles reached out to me.  In this book, the author provided a modern-day miracle for each Bible miracle. Thanks to the author's willingness to let a publisher have input, I found some interesting, dramatic examples of miracles that we were able to sew into the text.  Beyond that, we shared something that publisher and author rarely do: faith and discussion of faith. Needless to say, publishing this book was an unusually rewarding spiritual experience on a number of levels. For more posts about Bennett and his books, click HERE . Award This book won a Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for religion Paperback

  Today's back story is about the book,  Introductory Lectures on Religious Philosophy,  by Dr. Amir Sabsevary. From the publisher: A colleague of the author, a distinguished dean at a distinguished university but not (yet) highly published, brought to us a collection of the author's lecture notes, asking if they were publishable, especially given that the author was not a native speaker of English or writer of texts in a format expected by American readers. The answer: yes, with some editing. We put one of our best copyeditors to the task, a professor of English with a background in spiritual topics. Together, author and copyeditor worked through the book -- and, upon launch, it became one of our bestsellers. The author has since self-published (with our encouragement) two other books . Paperback available at 25% discount with code FF25 at  msipress.com/shop . Read excerpts and other blog posts about Amir and his book HERE . For more posts about MSI Press's religious books

  Today's back story is about the book, It Only Hurts When I Can't Run  by Gewanda Parker. From the publisher: When Gewanda approached us with her pre-publication manuscript, it was clear that here was a person who had experienced tremendous trauma as a child. That is a story, of course. A sad story. However, what was also clear was her resilience in overcoming that trauma very, very successfully. That was a story worth publishing. An uplifting story. A story that can help others. More important for us as publisher, it fit into a line of such books, the leaders of which were Elizabeth Mahlou's Blest Atheist and Geri Henderson's and Seanne Emerton's Healing from Incest -- and ultimate prompted the commissioned book by Joanna Romer, Recovering from Domestic Abuse, Stalking, and Abuse . When it was released, Gewanda's book quickly flew to the top of Amazon's hot new releases lists: #4 Hot New Releases in the child abuse category #8 Hot New Releases in the fam