The Wine Wench’s Cheap Cabernet sparkles

Cathie Beck has been writing since she can remember. Published in her twenties for the first time, she knew she wanted to write forever. But getting a book about her adventurous friendship published was harder than she imagined.

“I was frustrated with years of rejections. I knew it was a good book, but no one wanted to publish it,” said Beck, about her book Cheap Cabernet, which was published about a week ago.

She went through three or four dozen publishing companies the first time she felt the book was ready, and all told her they loved it, but it wasn’t a good fit. After 18 months of revising the memoir and re-submitting it to the publishing companies with no prospect of publishing, she was fed up. Beck left the book on a shelf for a year and a half, and then decided to take matters into her own hands and self publish.

“Another writer had a similar story to mine, and she managed to get a book deal, and did a lot of it online. So I figured I could do the same,” Beck said. She sold the book on Amazon.com with the goal of reaching the Amazon bestseller list. Beck did not hold back-“I became shameless in my promotion to sell as many books as possible — and it worked. My book was number 12 in memoirs on the Amazon bestseller list, and 67 on the list of overall books on the entire site.”

After the initial launch on Amazon, publishing companies saw the success and wanted to publish the book. She found an agent, and had an auction for the book between three publishing companies. “I poured my heart and energy and money into it, and told myself if I was going to get it published, I had to give it 150 percent,” she said.

The book, now published by the Hyperion/Voice Imprint Every Woman’s Voice, is a story of friendship and the escapades that she and her friend went through during their time together. If there is one message that Beck wants her readers to take away from the book, it’s this: “Life is good. Live big, live funny, live large, cause it’s all we’ve got.”

Beck will have a book signing on today at the Tattered Cover on Colfax, and her book can be purchased on Amazon.com. More information is available on her website at www.cathiebeck.com.
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