DetermineD Magazine Sept-Nov 2013 | Page 26

DM: Yeah me too girly, me too. So let’s talk about your son, Mr. Self-Publisher Entrepreneur himself. Donetha: Yes Lawd. Girl, that boy surprised me. I’m so proud of him. DM: I bet you are. How did he surprise you? Donetha: Well, he’s always wanted to write. When he was little, he kept a journal and he wrote everything in it. Then when he was in the fifth grade, his teacher had the class to write their very own book and she had the books published them. The next thing I knew, I had a writer on my hands. DM: Tell me how he got started in the industry. Donetha: Well one day when we were homeless. DM: Wait! You were homeless?! Then he told me about how no one wanted to represent him and how they all thought that he wasn’t ready for the literary world. I felt sorry for him because I knew that despite his, he was ready but nobody was giving him a chance and we didn’t have the money to pay any of the self-publishing companies out there so I tried to convince him to play sports or find another hobby but my baby was determined [chuckles at the word determined]. He got on the internet and did his research. The next thing I knew, he’d built the Polite Group, Inc. and developed KingDominion Publishers, LLC. Then he came and asked me to read his book. I was like, I’m not about to read no book, leave me alone now. Of course I was about sleep [laughs] you know, that’s when they want to introduce something new to you so that you can give them an inadvertent yes or okay. Well, when I went to sleep, he went to work. A few days later, his first book When the Church Says Amen was published and became an instant hit. Of course there were people in the industry that tried to degrade his work because of the title but he didn’t let that stop him. Now I look at him and I see me. I see that little girl in me that had the same determination to make it, but he’s better than me because he actually made it. DM: Well you made it too. Besides, he had you to cheer him on and to fall back on when you had no one. Donetha: Yeah, that’s one way to look at it. But when I look at him, I see strength. I see will. I see determination. I see everything that I wanted to be and a hell of a lot more. I’m a proud momma, you can bet everything on that. I am the teacher but this time, in this instance, the teacher became the student and the student became the teacher. Quiet 26 | P a g e Donetha: Girl yeah. DM: Damn. Can I come back for that? Donetha: Yeah, of course. DM: Okay, so finish what you were saying before. Donetha: Okay, so he came to me and said “mom, I’m going to write a book”. I was like um hmm. Okay. The next thing I knew, he was talking about getting an agent and everything. He tried, bless his heart, but no one wanted to represent him so he got mad. He stood up in our little homeless shelter room and said “I’m going to get my book out there even if I have to print it on printer paper and sell it mysef”. I was like boy, what the hell are you talking about.