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Oct. 3, 2005 “Look Mom, I was published by this great American publisher, Publish America.” Look what they’ve done for me. They placed my words into a beautifully bound book. Isn’t it great!” Her proud mother hugs her and looks at papa, “See Frank, I told you she was a writer.” Frank decides to pack his own lunch for his job as lawn furniture handler at Wal-Mart. He says nothing, but smiles at his newly discovered artist-daughter as he walks out the door to his low-paying all-American job at the all-American retailer. Rhoda is so happy. She will finally be able to get her family out of the doldrums of lower class living, after the local high paying electronics firm moved all their jobs to Mexico...her dad Frank’s, included. But, hey that’s just America on the move. After all, her great American government wouldn’t steer her wrong. Right? Right. She found it just a little disturbing that such a popular publicist would ask her to give them all the addresses of her relatives, but figured it was just a marketing technique. After six months, her book sold a whopping ten copies. Not bad. She thought. It was her first book. Rhoda thought for certain her next book, “Jesus Held My Hand Through Gall Bladder Surgery” would sell twice as many. It didn’t. In fact, five copies sold. Her dad had bought them all to give away at work. He was trying to teach three Hispanics how to speak English. As long as they bought him a six-pack of Corona, he didn’t mind paying $32.87 for each book. After all, his daughter was a writer. Rhoda’s mother had a friend named Sandi Salmon. Sandi had been bad-mouthing Publish America and it began to upset Rhoda’s mom. It seemed to Rhoda’s mother, Illy, that Sandi was swimming upstream with this whole idea until she realized by pure accident that Rhoda was a lousy writer. How did she find out? Simple. She read the first book, “Psalms Make My Palms Wet.” What at first seemed to be a nonfiction story about her Savior turned out to be a poorly written porn book. She decided to then read the second book and discovered the same thing. Without being rude to her daughter, she decided to write Publish America. They never returned the favor. In fact, the sent a copy of Marlin Peekins’ book, “I Swallowed a One Eyed Cobra Without Blinking.”
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