Kean professor publishes first book

By Cameron Beall | Published by April 13, 2018

Professor Martha Salama, who teaches public speaking here at Kean, has dreamed of publishing a book since she was 18 years old. She has been writing poetry almost all her life, and this deep love for poetry is evident in her new children’s book, “I’ll Carry You.”  

“Something I always wanted to write about with poems is establishing a relationship with someone,” said Salama.  

The book is about the relationship between a loving father and his daughter, and how their bond grows and becomes stronger over the years leading up to the daughter’s adulthood.  

“It’s how I always wanted it to be, let’s put it that way,” said Salama when asked if this book is how she viewed her relationship with her father growing up.

Salama was raised  by Middle Eastern parents here in the United States. Her father was rather strict and “by the book”. Though a big reason for that is the way she was raised, it was a lot of tough love and a rather business-like atmosphere in their household.  

“As a female, the way we imagine our first man/first love, is our father,” said Salama. “The way we picture it, we want it to be a loving father. So, we put it on paper.” 

The “we” she is referring to is herself and Stephanie Calixto, who worked with Salama on the book as the illustrator. Calixto is a graphic design major at Kean, and she and Salama had similar experiences during their upbringing. Calixto and Salama have known each other since they were both freshmen in high school. 

“She was always a great supporter of my art, and when she asked me to illustrate her book, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity,” said Calixto. “The loving message in her book definitely shows her great heart, and I’m happy to have been able to illustrate that message for her.” 

Instead of going through a publisher, Salama decided to take the self-publish route. For a first book, this can be a very challenging task. The hardest part for her was all the measurements and alignments she had to go through. Luckily, she found a self-publishing brand called Createspace, which helped guide her through the process and made it easier. However, she finds that other aspects of publishing her own book aren’t as easy as they may seem. 

“When you publish it through a company, they do all the marketing for you,” said Salama. “But when it’s self-publishing, you have to learn how to market.”  

Her main marketing strategy is through social media sites such as Facebook and making all of her content public, allowing friends to share it with as many people as possible. She plans on attending daycare centers to read the book aloud to children, so she can get added publicity and immediate feedback.  

This is just the first of many books that Professor Salama hopes to publish as she is already working on a public speaking book. You can find her current book, “I’ll Carry You” online on Amazon.com.  

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