A Sea

This photo  by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet … then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can

Moby Dick

I suppose I could describe these past months as being a sea. I left the grounded world of a full-time salaried job, with its benefits and constraints—and cast off. A paycheck is a wonderful thing, but, in the words of Rav Nachman, it is also a narrow bridge.

Thus, in April of 2025, I end-capped my formal full-time partnership with the Jewish professional world and entered the open sea in my aging bodily vessel, guided by a somewhat glitchy internal compass.

The new sea I am navigating is the publishing world. Writing a book is difficult. However, to build on the nautical narrative, having it published is akin to navigating the Bermuda Triangle, or more currently, the Straits of Hormuz.

As the journey began, I spent weeks crafting, honing, and editing a book query letter that I sent to 25 agents, which were carefully selected based on reviewing their backgrounds, the types of books they support, and their success in getting books published. I was honored to receive responses from two agents, both of whom said no.

Thus, self-publishing it was.

The key word in self-publishing is “self”. Back to our nautical metaphorical framework, it is uncharted waters for me. There is so much to learn and so much that is confusing.

In March, Jacob and I went to a self-publishing conference organized by the Atlanta Writers Club. It was immensely valuable and provided us with a raft (I just don’t give up!) of ideas, tools, and resources. The trick with self-publishing is not getting your book published, that is somewhat straightforward. The trick is getting the public to know about your book and to purchase it.  And thus, the fun began. Here’s what’s been keeping me busy during the day and awake at night:

• Creating and purchasing the narrowbridge.us domain on Namecheap

• Setting up email addresses on Ionos

• Building our website – www.narrowbridge.us. – on wix.com  

• Loading the text of the book onto Amazon’s self-publishing site along with Ingram-Spark – a site that distributes the book beyond Jeff Bezo’s kingdom.

• Setting up Bookfunnel to distribute the e-book and offer pre-release versions.

• Battling with Gumroad for a full week to set up a sales platform and to provide for pre-release discounts and clinician and educator discount.

• Giving up on Gumroad and setting up sales on the Wix site.

• Giving up on Wix and returning to battle with Gumroad—ultimately emerging victorious­—battered but victorious.

• Organizing Pirate Ship to purchase and print shipping labels to avoid the line in our local post office. (I didn’t choose it because of its seaworthy name)

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I’m hoping that my sea-quest doesn’t end with a sinking feeling and a final encounter with a furious and losing battle with a white whale.

The truth is, going to this sea, in partnership with my son Jacob, has been a remarkable journey of wonder and discovery. A sea, the horizons seem endless...and perhaps they are.