Michelle Cox's Blog, page 40

How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy StepsA Practical Guide STEP 10: THE COVER CONTINUES

Dear readers, while you are swirling around in what is surely your depressed miasma regarding social media and your potential blog, trying desperately to figure it all out, the publisher will probably choose this moment to send you the first stock photos/mock-ups for the cover, as if you weren’t already confused enough.

At this juncture it all becomes scarily real that this thing is actually in production.

In my case, since my book is set in the 1930’s Chicago, hundreds of stock photos began coming in of staged couples dressed in vintage attire as well as many authentic photographs from forgotten starlets from the ‘20’s.  Anxiously I poured over these until the wee hours of the night, glad to be included in the process but nervous, too, that so much was riding on this decision.

After all, everyone knows that the cover is what sells the book.  What if I got it wrong?

The publisher informed me that the art director was of the opinion that, given the title, A Girl Like You, the cover really should be a headshot of a woman, her head slightly turned away.  While I liked this interpretation a lot, something pulled me instead toward the shots of the couples, as I really wanted to capture the hesitant attraction of the two main characters. None of the photos, however, seemed to be quite what I had in mind.

As expected, after about a week of deliberating, I got a call from the publisher asking if I had spotted anything that would work, as, well, time was ticking and they need this done sooner than later.  Clumsily I tried to explain my lack of progress.  Her tired response was that if I really couldn’t find anything I liked in stock photos, we could opt for a photo shoot in London with a very well-respected historical fiction photographer (what was that?) for probably about two thousand.

I admit that at this juncture, I allowed myself to wallow in this fantasy for more minutes than was reasonable.  Smugly I imagined myself casually dropping into the conversation with the receptionist at the kids’ orthodontist (as if she cares) that I’m going to have to move some appointments around because I was off to a photo-shoot.  In London.

Just as quickly, however, I soberly began to calculate the price tag for such an extravagance, the two thousand probably unrealistically low in the first place, plus the flight, hotels, and any other add-ons that were sure to be part of this adventure, such as, perhaps, the crew’s lunch?  Also, I quickly deduced that I would be paying out what was rapidly becoming an exorbitant sum and still not necessarily be guaranteed to love the result.  Worse, I would probably then feel uncomfortably obligated to go with one of these new shots after having now spent so much money.  That and the fact that I would surely come back to certain disaster if I left my husband and kids alone for more than a few hours, decided it.  “No,” I said, “that’s probably not going to work.”

“Good answer,” the publisher said, as if I had passed a sanity test.  “You know if there’s something you kind-of like in the stock photos, we can do amazing things in photoshop.  Really, you’d be amazed.”

So, with new hope or perhaps new monetary motivation, I went back to the drawing board and, meanwhile, the art department happened to dig up yet another file for me to look through, in which, of course, I miraculously found what I was looking for.  I have to admit that the first time I saw it, I actually had a visceral reaction to it.  As I stared at it over and over, even printing it out and hanging it by my monitor to gaze at it and forwarding it to friends for their opinions, I became even more convinced.

“Really?  This one?” the publisher asked.  “I don’t think the art director’s going to like this.  She’s kind of starting to obsess on yours.  She really thinks it should be one of the starlets.  And anyway, this couple is in a forest.  This is supposed to be set in a city.”

“Well, didn’t you say something about photoshop?” I suggested tentatively.  “And while you’re at it,” I asked, my technical ignorance obvious, “could you photoshop in a different hat and tie for the man and change the girl’s hair color?”

Irritated sigh.

A couple of weeks later when I got the mockups, I was shocked to see that only the girl’s hair color had changed and the forest photoshopped out.  “What about the man’s hat and tie?”  I asked, confused.

“Well, we can’t photoshop out a hat; that would look stupid.”

But, what about the amazing things? I wondered, guessing that I had expected too much yet again.

But in the end, it didn’t matter.  It was perfect, and I absolutely loved it.  And I’ve since, if truth be told, received hundreds of compliments on it.

So the lesson this week, darlings, is to go with your gut feeling, especially regarding the cover.  Trust your instincts!  You know more than you think you do.

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A Practical Guide STEP 10: THE COVER CONTINUES appeared first on Michelle Cox.

“Stay With Me…”

Michal Havelka was born on March 28, 1898 in Chicago to Michal Havelka, Sr. and Ivana Beran, both immigrants from Czechoslovakia.  Michal’s father worked as a house painter, and the family lived on Pulaski Avenue in the city.  Michal says he can still remember when Pulaski was a dirt road and horses and buggies were still the main means of transportation.  Originally, there were six children in the family, but the two oldest boys died in the flu epidemic, which left only four: Martin, Agatha, Michal, Jr. and Robert.

Michal went to high school and started working in various print shops around the city before he began working at Commerce Clearing House on Peterson, where he remained for over 42 years.  Michal says that he had a good reputation there as being a hard worker and is very proud of the service award he was presented with when he retired.

Oddly, only one of the Havelka children married.  Their mother, Ivana, made them all promise that they would never leave her.  “Stay with me,” she begged them over and over.  Only Martin broke his promise, marrying a girl and moving to Colorado Springs where he worked as a printer like his older brother, Michal.  The rest of the family remained with their mother at the house on Pulaski and then in Berwyn where they moved when their father died at age 78.  When asked if he regretted never getting married, Michal responded, “No, because you might pick up a lemon.”

Michal says he and Robert didn’t mind so much not getting married, but it was very hard on their sister, Agatha.  She wanted to marry her high-school sweetheart, but Ivana put so much guilt on her that Agatha eventually gave him up and instead stayed home to take care of her aging parents.  Michal says she took a long time to get over it and was depressed “for years.”

For his part, Michal dealt with his mother’s strange wishes by taking up a life of travelling whenever he got a vacation.  In all, he visited thirteen European countries as well as Hawaii, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica.  He also travelled extensively with Robert throughout the United States, especially liking the western states.  His favorite place of all, though, he says, was Hawaii.

Michal’s other love in life was baseball.  He spent many years on a team until he was one day hit in the back of the head by a ball, which caused permanent hearing damage in his left ear and put an end to his playing.  He also a devoted member of the Elks and enjoyed reading the paper, watching westerns, following the New York Stock exchange and listening to big band music.  Slowly the years passed by and everyone died and left him.  His mother died of heart failure in her mid-eighties, Agatha died of breast cancer, Martin died in a nursing home for printers in Colorado Springs, and Robert died of a heart attack.

Michal was able to live alone until age 96 when he fell at home and lay for two days before his neighbor discovered him.  He was taken to a hospital and eventually discharged to a nursing home where he is able to get around with a walker and a cane.  “It’s not a bad place,” he reports.  When asked if he would have done anything differently, he says “I suppose not.  It wasn’t really such a bad life.”

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How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical GuideSTEP 9: WHY YOU NEED A BLOG

Dear readers, you cannot imagine how much time and energy I wasted fighting the idea of a blog.  Spare yourself this misery and learn from me and just agree to do one.  Ironically, thousands of blogs exist out there explaining why writers should have a blog.

But here are the real reasons:

It lets your readers, or potential readers, get the feel of your voice. What you say doesn’t really matter so much.  It’s like reading to your child every night.  The story itself isn’t so much the important piece, it’s the sound of your voice and the fact that you’re consistently there.  And, like when reading to young children, in particular, long stories don’t usually go over so well.  Shorter is better.  Snuggling in with Watership Down, for example, is not a fav.


It provides some real content. According to my limited observations, much of social media seems to be a vast wasteland where people are clinging on to anything relatively decent and eagerly sharing or retweeting it.  If you have or are in the process of opening up several media channels, like a website, a newsletter, Twitter or Facebook (which you should be if you read Step 8), you have to have some content to put in them.  Having a blog is a great source of starting material.

Let me predict that at this juncture you’re going to say that you have nothing to blog about, and I know just how you feel, darlings.  Not so very long ago, I, too, found myself struggling for a topic and put my poor contact person at the publicist’s through what was I’m sure hell for her, as I would one moment dash off an email in which I refused to get sucked into writing a mindless blog only to capitulate the very next day and send over a potential draft at an embarrassing length of about 2,000 words.  With extraordinary patience and tact she would gently inform me that while said tome was certainly interesting, anything that gargantuan would really be considered an essay, at which I laughed.  For God’s sake, some of my essays for college lit classes were easily 10,000 words or more!

Slowly she had to reeducate me regarding today’s gnat-size attention spans, the gist of which I will pass along to you.

Here, then, is a handy chart for the modern writer:

*A Good Blog Post = 4 or 500 words

*An Online Magazine Article = 800 words

*Literally Essay = 1500 words

*Short Story = 2,000 words or more

*Average novel these days = 5,000 (just kidding – 80,000.  But by the time you read this, it may

have dropped to 70,000 as we continue to grow weaker.)

At this point your superior mind can go either one of two ways:  Either despair at the dumbing down of our society or rejoice that you really don’t have to write that much.  I mean, really, you can’t muster out a 4 or 500-word post once a week?  (Don’t, by the way, go by mine.  They’re clearly much too long!)

I know it’s easier said than done, but try to find a topic that perhaps surrounds your book – a companion piece, as it were.  Popular topics are, of course: writing, books, relationships and parenting, but I have found that people are also very much drawn to fashion and food.  Pick any topic, really, and grow it over time.  It gets easier and easier, and even if no one reads it, you’ll become a better writer.

The important thing is to be short, short, short!

And another important thing: forget everything your English teachers taught you about paragraphs.

These days a long sentence can pass for an acceptable paragraph; forget all that about a topic sentence and supporting sentences – that’s terribly old fashioned, darlings.

This is much easier on the eye.

And people will read them.

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STEP 9: WHY YOU NEED A BLOG appeared first on Michelle Cox.

“We All Have Questions…”

Evelyn Feldman was born on October 31, 1922 in Chicago to Russian Jewish immigrants, Aron and Riva Mayer.  In Russia, Aron worked as a tailor, but once in Chicago he went into the “junk business,” which involved going around with a horse and wagon collecting, buying and selling used goods or metal scraps.  Riva stayed at home and cared for their five children, of which Evelyn was the youngest.

Evelyn attended high school and then got a job downtown working for Collier’s publishing, which mainly put out sports and racing magazines.  She remained with them a few years until they closed down and then went to work for a finance company called Madison Discount Co.  While she was there, her mother, Riva, passed away from a stroke at age 54, which left her home alone with her father, as all of her siblings had already married and left.

As it happened, the Mayer family had always been very close to the Feldman family, one of Evelyn’s older sisters being best friends with one of the Feldman girls, though all of the children played together at family functions.  In fact, when Evelyn was just seven, she and her friends and one of the Feldman girls formed a club called “The Little Women,” in which they promised to be friends forever.  Upon finding out about the secret club, William Feldman, the oldest of the Feldman clan, teased them and said they should instead call themselves “The Little Pests.”

It was very surprising to Evelyn, then, when WWII broke out and William, five years her senior, asked her to write to him while he was away, having immediately joined up.  She agreed, however, and through their letters they fell in love.  When he came back from the war, they were married on June 1, 1947.

The young couple got a small apartment, and William went into the junk business with Aron, though by now they had a truck instead of a horse and wagon.  Evelyn got pregnant right away, but later miscarried the baby, which was very devastating for them both.  Soon she was pregnant again and had Polly and later, Paul.

After a number of years, William became the foreman for the streets and sanitation department and then a precinct captain for his ward.  Evelyn says that absolutely everyone knew Bill and that he considered everyone in his ward his personal friends and would do anything for them.  He worked constantly for the ward, almost as if “he was married to it,” laughs Evelyn.

She, too, however was very active in the community.  Besides caring for Polly and Paul, she was a volunteer at the Ruth Lodge Home for Spastics and also volunteered at the Women’s Defense Corp, where they sold bonds and stamps and worked in hospitals for servicemen.  Evelyn says that they were very busy, but she and Bill managed to spend a lot of time together and that they loved each other very much.  “He was a good man,” Evelyn says, “kind to everyone.”

It was hard then, when Bill died at age 71.  But Evelyn’s grief was doubled when her daughter, Polly, died just six months later.  Polly was 38 years old and living with Evelyn and Bill, caring for them and working at a menial job.  She was extremely close to both of her parents and some said that she just couldn’t face Bill’s death, wanting to die herself.  She developed a cold of sorts and stayed home from work for a few days.  She refused to go to the doctor and when Evelyn went in to check on her one morning, she found she found her cold and clammy.  Evelyn immediately called the ambulance, but Polly died enroute.  Evelyn says that not only did she lose a daughter that day, but she lost her very best friend.

Unsure of what to do next, Evelyn put her townhome up for sale, thinking it would take about a year to sell, during which time she would plan out what to do with the rest of her life.  The townhome sold immediately, however, forcing her to move in with her son, Paul, and his family.  It was meant to be a temporary arrangement, but then Paul remodeled the house and built an in-law apartment for her to stay permanently.

As time has go on, however, Evelyn has started to have a number of health problems, including a cerebral hemorrhage, which she survived she says because while it was happening, she fell down the stairs, cutting her head open and releasing some of the blood.  Recently she broke her shoulder and has been admitted to a nursing home for rehabilitation.  She is hoping to go back to Paul’s, but Paul does not see this as realistic.

Meanwhile, Evelyn is an enthusiastic participant in the home’s activities, though she enjoys sitting and talking with people the most.  She is very bright and intelligent and can talk about almost any subject.  She is extremely pleasant, despite the loss of her beloved Bill and Polly.  She says she still misses them, but adds, “We all have questions.  There are no answers.”

 

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How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical Guide STEP 8: SOCIAL MEDIA 101

The first thing the publicist will do upon being hired is to begin an uncomfortable conversation regarding your social media platform, or lack thereof, which is more than likely the situation or you wouldn’t be reading this Guide in the first place.

In my case, this was absolutely the truth; I came to the table armed only with a sketchy FB page.  Well, actually, to be perfectly honest, I also had a rather empty author FB page and a relatively static website, both of which I had constructed as homework assignments for an online class I had recently signed up for entitled “Social Media 101,” which provided, among other things, no end of mirth for my kids.

As requested, I submitted the links and all the passwords to my online life to my new publicist and waited for them to call me back with their assessment, which took all of about five minutes.  From the heavy sigh on the other end of the phone, it was clear that they were fully cognizant of the work ahead of them.

The conversation went something like this:

Them:  “Your author Facebook page has no likes.”

Me:  “I know, but I haven’t told anyone about it yet.”

Them:  “Why?  You know that’s the point, right?”

Me:  “Well . . . because there’s nothing on it, really.”

Them:  “We noticed.”  Pause.  “What’s the cover photo of?”  (It was a shot of an English manor house I had taken on a vacation a few years back.)  “Is this supposed to be the setting?  How does it relate to the book?”

Me:  “Well . . . it doesn’t, really.  I just thought it was . . . well, pretty, I guess . . .”

Silence.

Them:  “Well, we’ll work on that.  We need a banner.”

What’s a banner? I wondered.  And I could almost envision her vaguely snapping her fingers to some underling standing attentively behind her who now scurried to create this thing called a banner while she continued to scroll through my humble online offerings while cradling the phone next to her ear with her shoulder.  (Even my imaginings are sadly dated!  See if you can count the ways, beginning with the fact that this was probably a virtual office . . .)

Them:  “Where’s the blog tab on your website?”

Me:  “Well,” I said, trying to chuckle.  “I deleted it.”

Them:  “Accidentally?”

Me:  “Well, no, it’s because I don’t have a blog.”

Them:  “Not any blog? Are you planning to?”

Me:  “Well, not really . . . I mean . . . not exactly . . .”

Them:  “How are you going to attract readers?”

Me:  “Well, I wouldn’t have a clue what to write about.”

Them:  “Just look up your favorite authors and copy theirs!”

This probably wasn’t a good point to tell her that all my favorite authors are dead.

Them:  “Aren’t you on Twitter or Instagram?  I don’t see any notes here.  Did we miss something?”

Again I could imagine her glancing over at her minions scurrying around and them shrugging back at her.

Me:  “Well, no, I’m not on those, either.  What would I tweet?  Is that the right word – tweet?”

Irritated sigh.

Them:  “Okay.  Let’s start at the beginning.  Do you have the cover?”

Me:  “I . . . no, it’s still in production, I think.”

Them:  “I’ll call the publisher.  Meanwhile you create a dropbox and invite me.”

Again, I didn’t think that now was a good time to ask what a dropbox was.  Later when I asked my thirteen year old, he gave me his first ever look of real pity, as if I were in a nursing home and had just dribbled my food.

Them:  “We’ll start rebuilding the website right away.  What you have is not going to work.”

Me:  “Yes, obviously!  We can all see that!” I laughed, attempting levity.  “It was just a homework…”

Them:  “And I’ll have Ashley contact you about the blog.”

Probably to alleviate the fear that was welling up, I distracted myself with the quick internal aside question of why everyone there had beautiful (dare I say – marketable?) names like Sophia, Krista, Olivia, Lauren?  Were they fake?  Was everyone assigned a fake name upon being hired?  Where were the Pat’s, the Lisa’s, the Sue’s?   Surely not just a coincidence?

Them: “Are you there?”

Me:  “Oh, yes.  I was just thinking . . .”

Them:  “I’ll have Ashley email you.”

And so, dear readers, this is your lesson for the week. As much work as you and/or your publicist have to do to pump up your platform, equally important is for you to begin to change your limited world view.  Save yourself the months of complaining and stalling that I indulged in and set aside your preconceived notions – perhaps terror – regarding social media and just jump in.

Start thinking of yourself as a brand, an entity that people want to know about.  Equally important, as my publisher once wisely advised, is to start thinking of your book “as a product, not a baby.”  If you want your readership to extend beyond your family and friends, you have to find a way to reach people, and the only way to do that, I’m afraid, is through social media.

Remember, if I can do it, surely you can, too.  Believe me, darlings, it’s not so bad.

 

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STEP 8: SOCIAL MEDIA 101 appeared first on Michelle Cox.

“For God’s Sake, See Reason!”

Lois Wright was born on March 23, 1911 in Chicago.  Her parents were Thomas Wright, who was on the Chicago Board of Trade, and Ida Carroll, who stayed home to care for their eight children: Pearl, Thomas Jr., Joseph, Roger, Frank, Mary, Lewis and Lois.  Three of the boys – Thomas Jr, Frank, and Lewis – died in the flu epidemic before Lois was even born.  Shortly after, Ida got pregnant again and, still grieving for her baby boy, Lewis, hoped that she would have another boy so that she could name him Lewis, too.  Disappointingly, however, it was a girl, so they named her Lois as the next best thing.

Lois, it seems, was surrounded by death all her life.  When she was just thirteen months old, her father died of “dropsy,” or “water on the lungs.”  Her mother, devastated and overwhelmed by his death, decided to give baby Lois to Pearl, who had already married and moved out, saying bitterly, “You always wanted a little girl; well, here’s your little girl!”  Unfortunately, however, Pearl died in 1921 when Lois was just ten, and though Lois looked to Pearl’s husband, Earl, as a father figure and her cousin, Doris, as a sister, she was ripped from them when Earl sent her back to live with Ida and her real siblings.  Tragically, in 1924, Ida died, too, leaving the four siblings – Joseph, Roger, Mary and Lois – alone.  They lived together for the next 35 years.

The three elder siblings all got jobs, and Lois, being the youngest, went to high school.  When she graduated, her siblings scrimped and saved to send her to college.  She was able to complete one year at Northwestern, studying personnel, before she had to give it up, as the struggling family just couldn’t afford it anymore.  Instead, Lois got a job as a filing clerk at J. S. Paluch.  She worked there for 28 years, eventually working her way up to being a production manager.

None of the Wrights married, including Lois, but she did, once upon a time, fall in love.  Already in her thirties and beginning to think that romance and marriage had passed her by, she happened to meet a young lawyer, Arthur Cunningham, whom she liked very much.  They began dating and fell in love, but their relationship, it seemed, was doomed because she was a Catholic and Arthur was a Protestant.  Lois’s siblings were furious with her for dating a Protestant and begged and pleaded with her to give Arthur up, as her life would be nothing but misery, they warned, if she pursued a marriage with him.  Arthur’s family, apparently, was no different and likewise urged him to break it off.

The situation came to a crisis when WWII broke out, and Arthur had to leave for the navy.  Still in love, they contemplated getting married before he went, but both families begged for them to “see reason,” and wait until he came back.  In the end, Lois and Arthur obeyed their families’ wishes and agreed to postpone the wedding until Arthur came home on leave in September of that year.  The wedding was not to be, however, as Arthur was killed in Germany in August.  Lois, understandably, was plunged into despair.

Both families instantly realized their terrible mistake and deeply regretted what they had done.  Poor Lois grieved terribly for her lost love, though both families tried valiantly to make it up to her.  Even Arthur’s mother tried to assuage Lois’s grief by taking her on long trips.  Eventually, Lois says, she had to get over it and go on, but she never fell in love again.

When she was 62, Lois decided to retire early, though all her friends said she was crazy.  Not listening to them, Lois calmly pointed out that her mother and most of her siblings had died from diabetes before they reached sixty, and she wanted to have some fun before her “number came up.”  Thus she quit her job and pursued her hobbies.  She was a lifelong member of various church committees, the girl scouts and loved roller-skating and swimming.  Her real passion, however, was travel.  Over the years, she traveled to every state except Hawaii, which she missed only because she couldn’t find anyone to go with her and she didn’t want to go alone.

After a series of recent falls, Lois decided to go to a nursing home to live and sought the help of her “nieces,” who are actually the daughter and granddaughter of her cousin Doris, whom she grew up with and whom she still calls her “sister,” having stayed close all these years despite being separated at age ten.

Lois is an incredibly alert, intelligent, articulate woman who loves conversation and activities.  She has adjusted well to her new surroundings and is interested in her roommate and all that the facility offers.  She is a very sweet, humble, delightful woman who has tried to make the best of what life offered her.

 

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How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical GuideSTEP 7: HOW TO CHOOSE A PUBLICIST

Having hopefully proven to you how very important it is to secure the services of a publicist, this week I will provide some helpful tips on how to possibly wade through the vast vista of possibility that exists out there.

It may seem that we are spending an inordinate amount of time on the publicist question and that you may be eager to, well, get on with the rest of the publishing process, but you will see that this careful examination is well worth it, as the publicist will occupy much of the next year of your life, so it pays to spend a little bit of time taking a closer look.

Where to start?

Your publisher is the most likely place to inquire first and probably has a handy list of reputable publicity firms that they trust or like to work with, but it is up to you to interview and hire them.  This sounds relatively easy, but being virtually ignorant (sorry) about the publishing industry thus far (after all, we’re only on Step 7) and having only learned about a publicist actually does (sort of) only weeks ago, it’s fair to assume that you haven’t a clue what to even ask them.

In my case, I began by fishing around on various websites offering advice and was only able to gather this meager list of suggestions.

Things like:

“Get a vibe”
“Ask what they’re going to do for you”
“Know what you want”
“Get references”

Okay, but these are all vague enough that they could be applied to hiring someone to repaint my living room, an endeavor I have much more experience with, actually.  In the case of remodeling, I do know what I want from the contractor, and yes, I understand the “vibe” thing.

But what do I really want from a publicist, and what is the “vibe” one should be looking for?  Is that even a real thing?

After making a few tentative calls, I found that there are basically two different camps:  the nurturing type and the bat-out-of-hell type.  Also, they sometimes differ in the services they offer.  Some offer platform and social media help, for example; others don’t.  Almost all prefer you begin earlier than later.  Some offer a media burst right before the book pubs, but most prefer a long, steady campaign to slowly brew interest before the big media explosion.  And almost all will, of course, tell you “no guarantees” – warning you that you can run the most successful, well-strategized, expensive campaign ever and the book might still…well, flop.  Why is this sounding more and more like a game of Risk?

So, not much to go on, then.  Nurturing . . . Bat-out-of-hell.  Hmmm.

I will admit that I’m naturally more inclined to run toward the nurturing camp, but I decided that this was not really what I and my book needed.  I could find nurturing in other places.  If I was going to smack down a small fortune, I decided it should be for some power!

Before signing my name on the dotted line, however, I did pose one interesting question.

Didn’t they want to read the manuscript before taking me on as a client?  “I mean, after all,” I chuckled over the phone, “what if it’s a dog turd?  Then you’d have to sell a dog turd. Wouldn’t that be hard?”

Irritated sigh.  “We trust the publisher,” was the crisp reply.

But should I tell them that the publisher hasn’t really read it either? . . . not all the way through, anyway.  Somehow I tried to squeeze that into the conversation, but they didn’t, or pretended not to, hear me.

“Let’s get on with it shall we?  Are you going to hire us or not?” they asked, in true bat-out-of-hell fashion.  Needless to say, I did.

Which type you prefer, however, dear reader, is of course up to you.  Take some of the pressure off knowing that either way, the publicist will open doors that would normally be closed to you, an unknown author.  And by hiring them, more of your time will be freed up for writing, or so you tell yourself in the beginning, anyway.  You don’t need to know the truth just yet.

And so darlings, make your choice, buckle up, and let’s go!

 

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STEP 7: HOW TO CHOOSE A PUBLICIST appeared first on Michelle Cox.

Friends for Life

Sonia Meller was born on November 4, 1913 in Chicago to Valentine Orzel and Maria Kawa, both of whom were Polish immigrants.  Valentine made a living as a tailor, and Maria cared for their eight children.  She gave birth to eleven, but three died immediately after being born.

Sonia attended grade school and was thrilled when she won an art scholarship given by a sorority at Northwestern University to attend the Fine Arts Academy in Evanston.  Valentine and Maria allowed Sonia to accept the award, and she did well the first year but then became very ill.  Her appendix burst, and she suffered horribly from peritonitis.  The school held her scholarship for a year, but after that time Sonia was still not recovered enough to return, so she had to relinquish it, much to her sorrow.

After a couple of years, Sonia was strong enough to be able to work again and got a job in a factory, though she hated it.  She went to Wells High School at night to earn her diploma, which she eventually achieved, and then got a job as a bookkeeper.  Sonia never returned to art school, but she didn’t forget her time there and was very proud of having attended.  She kept all of her paintings and hung them up at home and liked to show them off.

At some point, Sonia’s thoughts turned to love, and she wanted desperately to have a romance.  She met Edmund Meller, with whom she fell in love with right away and eloped.  She had a baby, Maria, a year later, at which point the relationship soured, though Sonia doesn’t say why.  Sonia and Edmund divorced, and Sonia, devastated, took Maria and went back to live with her parents.

Sonia’s mother was apparently a very wise, insightful woman who was ahead of her time.  Though she was sympathetic and comforting to Sonia, she urged her to get back on her feet, to work and save money so that she could get her own apartment and be independent, believing it would be the best for Sonia.  Two months after this speech to Sonia, her mother died.

Sonia took her mother’s words to heart and did save her money so that by the time Maria was seven, she was finally able to get her own place.  Now, however, she was confronted with the problem of what to do with Maria while she worked.

At that time, almost all school children went home for lunch, which for Maria was obviously not a possibility with Sonia working.  Sonia therefore searched around for a school that provided a hot lunch program, which was a rarity then, and finally found one at Holy Family Academy.  The tuition was higher, but Sonia felt it was worth it.  She then began looking for an apartment within walking distance of the school and also a different job at a company called Celmers, which was also within walking distance, though she had to take a cut in pay.

Sonia was preoccupied with caring for Maria and for being prepared for any contingency.  She made arrangements with the nuns at Holy Family that if anything should ever happen to herself, Maria could stay there with them until someone from her family could come and claim Maria.  Sonia walked Maria to school every day and left work each afternoon to walk her home.  She would then turn around and walk back to work until evening.  Since they lived above a store, Sonia also made arrangements with the owners that if Maria ever needed help or was simply scared, she could go down into the shop and sit.

When asked about this time in their lives, Maria says that Sonia was constantly worried and nervous and had many digestive issues because of her perpetual stress.  Likewise, she had an elaborate prayer ritual which she followed day and night and which she only very recently abandoned.

Their first year alone in the apartment was rather a lonely one, Maria remembers, as they were both used to being around and living with Sonia’s big family.  Eventually, however, Sonia made friends and enjoyed having groups of people over to discuss current events, philosophy, religion and psychology.  She never lost her passion for art, her creativity spilling out into any area it could.  She loved decorating the house, did artwork for her church, and croqueted and sewed.  Even in her attention to her makeup and clothes, her flair for color and pattern was evident.

Mostly, however, Sonia just wanted to be home, spending time with Maria, whom she was utterly devoted to.  The two of them were truly best friends, Maria living with Sonia for years and years, long after she became an adult, as there never seemed to be a reason to leave.  So devoted to each other were they, that Maria even waited until her sixties to get married!

When Sonia finally retired, she became very dependent on Maria as she began to suffer from a long list of ailments and had to have many surgeries, including corneal transplants to help her increasing blindness due to glaucoma.  She then began to have a series of falls and became very disoriented and confused.  Maria agonized for a long time about placing her mother in a home, but in the end, she saw no other choice.  Maria, despite being a newlywed, remains faithful to Sonia and continues to visit her daily, a beautiful tribute to the life they once shared.

 

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A Page from Clive and Henrietta’s Songbook

Music floats throughout the upcoming novel, A Girl Like You, especially when the heroine, Henrietta Von Harmon, finds work as a taxi-dancer and then as an usherette at a burlesque theater. The 1930s heralded the sound of Big Band Swing, replacing the red-hot jazz of the roaring ’20s. Dance halls boomed, from the elegant and chic to the tired and dirty, where a dance with a pretty girl could be had for a dime. Take a listen to some to some of the early songs of the era that feature in the novel…plus a few more!

Click Here to Listen to Clive and Henrietta’s playlist on Spotify>>

As a special bonus, here’s an excerpt, taken from the scene where Henrietta is first introduced to Clive Howard, after he pays a dime to dance with her:

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he said, his voice deep and resonant. “I’m new to this, so you’ll have to inform me if I’m going about it all wrong.”

     Henrietta smiled up at him. “Oh, you’re doing just fine,” she said, giving the hand that held hers a little squeeze. It never hurt to give the new ones extra encouragement. She breathed in his smell as he held her close, and found it oddly enticing . . . crisp linen muddled pleasantly with pipe tobacco.

     “May I ask your name? Is that allowed?” he asked, attempting innocence.

     “It is allowed,” she said as he twirled her gently. The band was playing Louis Armstrong’s “You Are My Lucky Star,” one of her favorites. Tonight was going to be a good night; she could just tell. It always hinged on the first dance of the day, and this one was turning out swell. Stan’s didn’t count, of course.

     “So are you going to keep me in suspense for the whole of the dance, then?” he asked, a smile lurking behind his eyes.

     “It’s Henrietta,” she said, flashing her dimples. “Henrietta Von Harmon, but most people close to me call me Hen.”

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How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical Guide. STEP 6: THE PUBLICIST AND INGRAM

Last week I explained why it is so crucial – if you can possibly afford it – to hire a publicist, leaving you dangling at the secret reveal that the publicist and Ingram are intimately intertwined.  Hopefully I haven’t left you too breathless and you’ve had enough time to recover from the shock to now absorb the relevancy.

Ingram, of course, is the largest book wholesaler and distributor in the world and essentially your only way onto the shelves of a bookstore.  Without being traditionally distributed by someone such as Ingram, you are virtually invisible to booksellers.  Up until very recently, only the Big 5 had relationships with Ingram, but now many hybrids do as well, which is actually what really sets them apart from self-publishers.  A different day we will look more closely at Ingram, but suffice it to say for the moment that they are your ticket to sales, as they are the middleman between the publisher (and thus you) and the retailers.

Assuming that you are going the traditional or the hybrid route, your publisher at some point will meet with Ingram to get them excited and interested in all the new titles she is publishing that season.  Ingram then looks at all of your data (put together in what’s called a Tip Sheet – more on that some other day), which includes your cover, perhaps a chapter of the book, your comparative titles, your target audience, your platform, and – here’s where it all connects – your publicity plan to determine, among other things, how big a sales force – how big a push – they’re going to put behind your book when they tuck the list of titles under their arm and stroll into Barnes and Noble or Target or any random independent bookstore to secure an order.

The bigger and more legitimate your PR plan, the more oomph they’re going to put behind your book.  If you have no publicist – no major plan in place – you’re a dead horse to them.  Why should they bet money on you even finishing the race when they don’t see you as even having entered it?  See the problem?

And that, darlings, is the truth.  That’s the real reason you need a publicist.  Even if you somehow find the time, energy and dogged devotion to run a successful media campaign on your own (good luck!), you’re still left holding a limp rope at the end.  Sure, Ingram will list you, but they probably aren’t going to go out of their way to push you.  Why should they?

And here’s a good place to tell you, if you haven’t already somehow heard this by now: publishing is a business.  Period.  I still have to be reminded of this on an embarrassingly frequent basis.  Especially when I begin to wax lyrical about some part of the creative process or art for art’s sake and all of that.  Remember, dear readers, they don’t want to hear any of that.  Publishing is a business!

If by chance I have at this point convinced you of the necessity of securing some sort of publicist, I will leave off and next week examine exactly how to go about procuring said services.  This will allow you ample time to go check your bank account balance or possibly siphon some change from the kids’ college fund as previously suggested in Step 5. Don’t worry.  You’ll find a way.  Don’t despair just yet!

The post How to Get Your Book Published in 7000 Easy Steps – A Practical Guide.

STEP 6: THE PUBLICIST AND INGRAM appeared first on Michelle Cox.