How I Got Published:A Summer Publishing Institute Success Story

Kia DuPree: all smiles over her literary good fortune

A good friend asked me how much my dream was worth. I was totally confused by his question. “Is your dream worth more than two thousand dollars?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said.  “Then take two thousand dollars and publish your own book. Trust me. You’ll more than double your money, if it’s any good.”

He was right. That advice plus my experience as a student in NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute in 2006 made all the difference in the world.  I had been calling myself an “aspiring novelist” for years. Until I actually published a book, I didn’t think I could ever call myself a novelist. I took money  from my savings account and published Robbing Peter, a novel about three fatherless families. I sold it at work, to friends and family, online, at the grocery store, at hair salons and at night clubs. Everywhere. It was a lot of work. To my surprise, it went on to win a Fiction Honor Book Award from the Black Caucus of The American Library Association. It was the first self-published novel to do so.