I’m pleased to announce that my book, ExtraOrdinary Detour, True Stories of Life, Death and Miracles, is now available on Publishizer. It will be available for pre-order from August 15 to September 14. You can find it here:

publishizer.com/extraordinary-detour

 

Hook

Try summing up an entire book in 30 words. Easier said than done! When you submit a book proposal to a publisher, you must do this, so if you’re an aspiring author, start thinking about it now. Here’s the summary of ExtraOrdinary Detour:

[click_to_tweet tweet=”A storm raged the day my husband died and went to heaven. God sent him home to care for me through cancer. Sometimes, scary detours can be extraordinary miracles in disguise. Visit http://publishizer.com/extraordinary-detour to preorder!” quote=”A storm raged the day my husband died and went to heaven. God sent him home to care for me through cancer. Sometimes, scary detours can be extraordinary miracles in disguise.” theme=”style2″]

 

The Beginning

Our true memoir began five years earlier, after Ron returned home from a week in the hospital and another week in rehab. After being home for a month, he began tentatively sharing his incredible journey with me—and I began writing. He described his experience in little bits and pieces at first, but many times couldn’t finish because he’d become so overcome with emotion. I didn’t fully comprehend the magnitude of what had happened until much later.

This book has taken quite a few detours of its own since the story began to take shape. Let me share a few.

ExtraOrdinary Detour Detours

First, I wrote solely about Ron’s incredible trip to heaven and what he experienced there.

Second, I was diagnosed with breast cancer seven months later. Amazingly, my surgery was almost a year to the day after his stroke. So the fact that God told him he had to go home was very important. If he had died, I would have been alone through one of the scariest times of my life.

He did not become paralyzed in any part of his body. He was well enough to care for me through cancer, drive me back and forth to Moffitt, and do all cooking, cleaning, and taking care of business.

Thanks to a friend of mine (Lillian), the book was originally entitled Kicked Out of Heaven. She’s a fellow breast cancer survivor I met at Moffitt Cancer Center while we were both getting chemo. Eventually, however, the title changed to best convey the overall theme of God’s faithfulness through the darkest times of our lives.

I pondered not only the trip to heaven and my cancer, but all the other little detours that happened throughout this bigger story. For instance, all the wonderful people I met and prayed with at Shands in Gainesville Rehab. The countless others at Moffitt beaten down from cancer and needing prayer and further encouragement from Ron’s story.

A new story emerged. Details became more about God’s faithfulness to us through tragedies, crushing trials, and lost dreams.

Then, as I worked up the outline for the book proposal, I began to dig a little deeper and discovered how many extraordinary detours were taken by men and women throughout the Bible. I felt it was important to emphasize that every single one of us encounters these detours despite the fact they are distressing, discouraging, and feel like roadblocks to our success.

Campaign Updates

I’ll be providing updates as the campaign progresses, so be sure to subscribe and pre-order your copy today! If we reach 100 pre-orders by September 14, then the book will be pitched to 50 hybrid publishers. Not only that, if 750 orders are reached by that time, Publishizer pitches your work to traditional publishers.

I’ll share more in the next post about what it takes to promote your own book using a site such as Publishizer. 

In addition, your pre-order helps women devastated by breast cancer. I’ll donate 10% of the profits to a charity called Knitted Knockers. They provide homemade knitted prosthesis to women cancer survivors, and generously donated mine after my own cancer surgery and recovery. 

Please Pre-Order One or More Copies & Share!

This is what you can do to help us make this book a reality. Go to the site and preorder one or more copies of the book. There are several rewards, and they are all wonderful! I will even be scheduling a retreat to be held in Tampa after the book launch. Surprise location to be announced!  As a gift for reading this post, you can copy the following bookmark to tuck into your favorite story (until mine is ready, of course)! Just Right click, Save image as, Save to your desktop, and Print!

I know our true story will bless you. Your faith will strengthen as you read how God still performs miracles today. My prayer is the book will encourage many who need hope through their own dark days and nights. Thanks for your support!

What is your own ExtraOrdinary Detour?

 

 

 

Penelope Silvers is a freelance writer, author,
and radio host of Penelope’s Book Chat on Blog
Talk Radio. She lives simply and sanely on Florida’s
beautiful nature coast.