Swedish Lessons: A memoir of love, sects & indentured servitude. Sort of.

I wrote a book about me.

Sounds exciting, right? Well, it’s not so much about me, as it is about something that happened to me. Or, rather, something I let happen to me because I was a big dumdum.

In 2005, I was invited to be an au pair for a family in Sweden. I asked no questions, I simply dropped my whole life and went. I mean, why would I not want to spend a year of my twenties gallivanting around Europe, having adventures by night and nannying by day?

What happened, however, was something significantly different. There was no gallivanting. There weren’t even children to nanny. There were teenagers who had no use for me, horses wearing coats, a mother intent on building a new career within a metaphysical, new-agey, pseudo-religious sect, and an insane amount of house cleaning. And all of this happened on a farm, miles from the closest city. Oh, and there’s some romance (of sorts), backstabbing and several instances of attempted fraud in there too.

“Wowzers,” you say? Wowzers is correct.

So I wrote a book about it.

Does it really take $7,000 to self-publish a stinking book?

Well, it doesn’t have to, if you’re OK with a PDF file full of typos that no one will ever download, much less read. I’d like Swedish Lessons, however, to be more like, you know, a book. So here are a few of the different people I need to hire to make this happen:

• Graphic Designer
• Book Editor
• Lawyer (It’s a memoir, aka, a litigation magnet.)
• Company that magically makes books into Kindle books
• Company that magically makes books into iBooks (not the same company!)
• Actual paper book printer
• Advertising costs
• A bunch of other little things

As it turns out, once you add up all of those line items, you wind up with a number between $6,400 and $10,000, depending on the vendors. Again, wowzers.

I plan to keep you, my backers, up to speed on what’s happening withSwedish Lessons, so you don’t forget about me and/or think I’ve run off with your generous financial support. I wouldn’t get very far. I have two very large dogs, and they don’t travel well.

Stay tuned for updates throughout the campaign, including sneak peeks at rewards, campaign progress, and how things are going in the final stages of getting Swedish Lessons ready for bookshelves.

Thanks so much!

love, nat

Amazing Cover Art by Sibling Design

Super Sweet Video by Scott Van de Vyver & Frank Terenzi

Incredible Music in Said Video by Mike Vial

RISKS AND CHALLENGES

If the greatest challenge to publishing a book is actually finishing it, I have good news for you: Swedish Lessons is done. It took many nights and weekends over a three year period to write, with breaks for things like finishing grad school, moving twice, getting a new job, meeting my husband, quitting my job and becoming a writer full time, marrying my husband…a few little distractions.

I also have a fairly clear plan for what vendors I’ll use for self-publishing, so there shouldn’t be too much risk for your investments involved there. Really, unless my computer, external hard drive and my Gmail account all crash the same time, the completed manuscript is safe and ready to be made into a book.

Time is our most serious variable. I have based the estimated reward delivery dates on the time estimates given to me by my selected vendors. However, if any of those vendors take longer than expected, or I need to switch vendors for some reason, those dates could change. I’ve allowed for some extra time, so don’t expect they will, but I believe this will be the greatest risk associated with the project.