I recently sent an email to my friends and family about a January 2019 book that I thought could be useful to them. It’s not on the cheeriest of topics, but it’s about an important subject that affects us all, sooner or later: how we can take action in the here-and-now to help live our best lives up to the very end. Yes, we’re talking about the dreaded “end of life.”
For the past year, I have been the “book shepherd” (a paid step up from my usual “wingman” role) for Finish Strong: Putting Your Priorities First at Life’s End and its author, Barbara Coombs Lee. Barbara had written most of the book several years ago but her agent and she were unable to strike a deal with a New York publisher. Publishers were interested in some book from her—a thought-leader memoir or a behind-the-scenes policy tract (Barbara’s the president of Compassion & Choices, the end-of-life advocacy org)—but not the one she wanted to write.
Barbara envisioned that her book would be directed at healthcare consumers like us, and not written by the usual medical-book authors (a physician, or a sick patient, or a journalist) but someone who’d been in the healthcare trenches as a former ICU nurse, physician assistant, a lawyer, policymaker, and national advocate. Someone who’s seeing what’s going on in U.S. end-of-life care from countless up-close encounters with patients and our medical system at all levels. Someone who feels passionate about preparing future patients to manage their experience with that medical system.
Sadly, Barbara had to stash her unedited manuscript in a desk drawer, but couldn’t stop thinking about it and all the good information locked away in it.
A few years passed, and self-publishing suddenly seemed like a more viable option. But how does that work? I was brought on board to help Barbara get it published, working with her and her organization. After Barbara completed her manuscript to her satisfaction, she turned it over to me.
The first thing I did was reorganize the order of the chapters, to create a journey from the most accessible topics to the toughest ones. Next, I suggested a book title tweak. Then I added subheads and sidebars to each chapter, as guideposts to readers. Consulted on the cover art. Posed numerous queries on every page (like the readers of the book, I’m not an end-of-life care specialist, so many of my questions were pretty basic such as Can you explain the differences between palliative care and hospice care?) Hired a freelance editorial and design team. Assembled the Endnotes. Wrote the jacket copy. Proofread every page. Designed the ebook. Etc. I once made a list of how many hats I wore on this job and stopped after 40 of ’em. It was both the most difficult and exhilarating “bringing this book into the world” project I’ve ever taken on.
And it continues on, now to the hardest stage, which is trying to promote and raise awareness about a self-published book in a culture that is a) mightily distracted by the shenanigans of Donald Trump, R. Kelly, and Tom Brady, and is b) loathe to confront even the possibility of waning vigor as we age.
On that note, it’s been interesting pitching the book to various target magazines, blogs, and radio shows. I could write an article about how all the advertising-supported baby boomer magazines and blogs view “death talk” as something akin to the third rail, never to be touched. It certainly doesn’t fit their “feisty” or “it’s all good” approach to aging.
But I know, someday, that boomers are going to have questions about our current medical system and its tendency to overtreat, over-intervene, and overmedicate, leaving us in pretty bad shape at the inevitable end. They’re going to wonder how they can craft a better end-of-life experience for themselves, the way they created a pretty good life all along. Basically, boomers are going to want to know how to finish strong. Their magazines won’t tell them, but the books will.
Despite the media’s reluctance to dwell on unpleasant things like medical overtreament or life’s end, the word is getting out about the book, as seen in this excellent review of Finish Strong in the ChangingAging.com blog.
In closing, clients who know me know I love to make book trailers. Here’s the short one I made for Finish Strong, while wearing Hat #39 (my favorite hat)!
