#BookSpotlight & Author Q&A: A Father’s Advice by Terry King

1. Can you tell us why you wanted to write A Fathers Advice?I started writing “A Father’s Advice” when I was involved in helping to raise my two stepchildren.  I was endeavoring to write, at the time, and had hoped to make it my career.  Mostly, what I was writing was short fiction stories and poetry.  I am not sure why I started writing it, but I just started putting my thoughts down, and things happened.
2. Did you find anything unexpected in the publishing journey – good or bad?I am still very new to self publishing, so I am learning a lot, as I go along.  Thankfully, I have had friends that helped me with editing and formatting my book for publication.
3. Can you tell us more about your cover and the story behind it?My book cover is a photo of someone that I knew, long ago, who was, and is, a good friend.  He gave me permission to use his photo
4. Do you think social media is important for authors to utilize? I am unsure if social media is important or not, yet, for authors to use.  So far, I am still learning about using it.  I am on Facebook, as well as on Twitter, at the moment, and am planning to learn how to use Instagram, as well.  I have heard good things about the use of social media to help make people aware of authors and their books.  I am hoping that it will work for me.
5. Are you planning to publish another book?I am definitely planning on writing another book.  My next book will be a book of poetry.  It is tentatively titled:  “Living Small”.  I have a lot of my poetry in this book, both to add interest to the book, and to help make points in a different way.

Author Bio:
Terry King was born and raised in Michigan, but moved to central Florida to be able to help his mother, since she was alone, and needed help.  He has mostly worked in factories, including a brief stint as a guillotine operator.

An Excerpt:

Leaving Home

Up until now, you have been in a safe, protected environment.  When you leave home, you are in for a rude shock.  The world does not care that you forgot, you lost the money, or that you goofed.  What they care about is results.  If you do not produce the results that are expected of you, expect trouble of one sort or another.

The old fashioned idea of hope chests for girls was a good idea.  It embodied the belief that you should plan ahead for your future.  This is still a good idea.
Build your future by taking small steps.  The first thing is school.  This has already been started for you when you were young.  Then obtain your driver’s licence.  Next, you need a job so you will have money when you need it.   You might need further training in order to obtain a good paying job.  Go get that training.  Now, go after that good job.
Sometime during these steps, you obtain reliable transportation. You also start acquiring the things that you are going to need when you have a place of your own.  You are going to need dishes, silverware, cookware, bedding, and other things.
After that, it is time for you to go get your own place.  This sort of thing is kind of like a chess game.  You set things up and get everything ready before you try something.   Then you will have a much easier time of it.
You have been following this same strategy most of your life.  For proof of this, just look at how babies develop.  First, they learn to communicate their needs and wants to their parents.  For example, they cry, and mom or pop, comes to see what they need or want.  Then they start trying to get around by crawling.  Then they take another small step, learning to do something else.  Eventually, after a lot of small steps, they become an adult.
The same type thing happened in the beginning of a lot of the multimillion dollar fortunes around today.  Those people started out very small and gradually built up.  They protected themselves against financial setbacks, because if they didn’t, unless they were very lucky indeed, they would lose everything that they had built up.  Try to follow the same strategy in your life.