Happy New Year to everyone! I wanted to take a few minutes today to say a few things about the writing of The Button Boy's three books. 

These books are 100% fiction. Book One is loosely based around my home town of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, and many of the business names were real in the early to mid 1900's, and many were made up. The characters are all fictional characters from this author's imagination. Book two is based around real towns and cities in Germany and the U.S., although all characters are fictional. Book three is based around real towns and cities, but the characters are all fictional.

I have seen comments questioning whether these stories are indeed fiction or if they were non-fiction. This stories cannot be anything except fiction. The idea for the stories came to my head one morning. I pondered for weeks and finally decided to write it. Book one developed into three. There was no real button maker, no real button business, and no real expansion throughout the United States. All fiction. 

Several people have asked me how I came up with all the details I wrote about; they thought I must have had first hand knowledge of button making and the processes. Like all authors, I did research, and what I couldn't find answers to, I used my imagination to picture how things might have looked and worked back then. It may not all have been correct, but in my mind it sounded feasible, and that was good enough for me. So far, my descriptions of the inventions must have been feasible, because no one has said they were stupid, though at the time I questioned my own processes. 

Yes, everything in the books comes from my imagination, which when I'm writing, can be vivid. I apologize for getting overly descriptive, repetitive, and wordy. The Button Boy was my debut novel and I may have pushed it out too fast and it wasn't properly edited. It wasn't perfect, but I thought the premise of a man becoming successful from a simple, little-known trade, might resonate with a few people, as it had with me. I think I'm writing better.

All I wanted to express was that the books are all fiction; if readers question that they possibly may not, I guess I will take that as a compliment. They do belong on the fiction shelves.