Marc Liebman's Blog, page 44

Technology Glitches Strike Again

Schedules are just that, schedules and we, as humans, work to meet the dates and commitments in them. They are one of the ways we gain some control of the world around us. Its part of life and its part of the publishing process.

Without getting into the details, we originally scheduled Moscow Airlift to be released by the end of March 2018. The cover was completed back in February, the final draft was ready for me to approve so we could make a March date and then things started to go haywire. March 31st went by the boards and Penmore Press and I were confident we could get it out by the end of April.

Earlier this month, Mr. Murphy decided to make an appearance probably cued by the Gods that rule Microsoft Office and like to play with the minds of its users. That’s a story for another time and place.

Moscow Airlift takes place almost entirely in the Soviet Union, just before it dissolved into the Russian Federation. As I wrote it, I pasted information from Internet sources, mostly Wikipedia into the text and use it either as a reference or to ensure that I have the right title and spelling. Most of what was in the manuscript was the correct spelling of a name or location in Roman letters, not Cyrillic script. If I used text, I’d re-write it so that it fit the needs of the scene. To be honest, in Moscow Airlift, I did this more than in any other book.

Unbeknownst to me, even when I thought I’d deleted the text from an Internet site, it left behind formatting instructions or what programmers like to call code. Even selecting “clear formatting” doesn’t erase the code entirely. What you see on your screen may be “clean,” but some or all of the code remains embedded in the document, hidden from the user’s view.

Penmore was at the point where it was about to turn the Word document into a book format when the embedded code raised its ugly head in the form of little blue boxes, underlining, blue text, symbols and other annoying symbols. The only solution we found that worked was to delete the offending text or entire passages and re-type them into the book.

Supposedly, buried in the minds of those who really know MS Word, there is a command or a series of commands that will remove the embedded code. That technique is not in the help that MS provides as part of is software.

The good news is that we got past that crisis which took us three days of what the Brits call “tooing and froing,” a lot of frustration and many cuss words to get through it. As I type this blog, I think we’re back on track to get it released this month. Unless, of course, Mr. Murphy pays the schedule another visit or the Microsoft Word Gods strike again.

Marc Liebman

April 2018

Book Signings At Kroger Supermarkets

Yesterday was the first day in a series of book signings at Kroger stores here in North Texas. The program is simple. Send a set of books to the program administrator where they are evaluated. Assuming they meet standards set by Kroger, they are entered as products into their point of sale system.

Once that is done, you schedule the weekend dates at Kroger stores, set up a table on the agreed upon dates and sign books. The buyer’s pay for them when the bar codes are scanned and they check out. Kroger collects the sales tax and takes a healthy chunk of the margin.

A couple of weeks or so later, you get a check in the mail from the contractor who runs the program. From afar, it would seem to be an administrative nightmare so I am glad all I have to do is sign up and show up!

I picked the stores within a 30-minute drive from my house based on the record of book sales per/weekend. The sales data only shows the number of adult or children’s books sold by authors participating in the program. I called the store manager and met him to see where I would set up. The location was great – right in front of the check out lanes.

Bad news, no electrical power. Oh well, bring a book to read when my laptop battery runs out of juice.

Times are limited – arrive around 0915 – 0930 and be fully set up by 1000. Pack up is at 1600 unless you want to stay later.

When I arrived, I found part of “my space” taken up by the man from Frito-Lay building a portable display. So, after a bit of discussion, we figured out how to share the space. I lost about 50% of what I thought I would get. The big problem was my pull up banner now had to go behind my table, not next to it.

Lesson number two… In future signings, ask the manager if they will make PA announcements during the day. If they do, come with a short statement someone can read. At this Kroger, they were kind enough to read it on the hour. For Sunday, I have it printed…. Whether it generated sales, I don’t know but it was good for my ego.

First day sales were better than the average I get from Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs and even some book fairs. We’ll see what Sunday brings.

I found out that attire is important. I wore a hat that says Vietnam and Desert Storm Veteran and had my helo helmet on the table.

What was really gratifying was that people of all ages, came up to my table and thanked me for my service to our country. It was totally unexpected, and in many ways, made my day. We’ll see if it continues on Sunday.

Marc Liebman

April 2018

Rhythm of Life

This was supposed to be written and posted yesterday, but it completely skipped my mind. No, it wasn’t because of all the hoopla around Easter because being Jewish, I don’t celebrate that holiday. And, no, it wasn’t because it was the second day of Passover. Nor is my excuse was that it was April 1st and not writing my blog was an April Fool’s joke.

Nope, I simply forgot. I didn’t remember until I was tired and ready to go to bed around eleven last night and didn’t have the foggiest idea of what I would write. By then, the creative part of my brain was done for the day.

So what’s my excuse? Let’s call it the rhythm of life, or in this case, the lack of it.

Back when I was working, life had a definite pace to it. Monday through Friday was focused on my job. Yes, being in the consulting business and on the business development side made it a 24 X 7 position, but for the most part, unless a proposal had to go out or one was prepping for a major meeting or traveling overseas, weekends were, at least theoretically, days off. The rhythm was five days on, two days off. Occasionally, it was modified by vacations and holidays where businesses closed.

Now that I’m retired, everyday is Saturday and the schedule is a lot looser. There’s no job to go to; no commute; no meetings to attend; no conference calls to dial into; and no deadlines to get something out the door.

Unless, of course, you factor in that I am an author. Most of the deadlines I face are self-imposed, i.e. to write a blog out every Sunday; complete a manuscript; send out query letters; take the time to work on getting speaking engagements; sign up for book fairs; etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

To use an overworked business term, net net, my schedule is my own and for the most part, the work can be done when and where I want. All I need is a laptop; electricity (if I want to work longer than the battery lasts); and Internet connectivity for research. The only essential one is the computer. Without it, I’m out of business.

The focus of my working life for the past week is the last version of Moscow Airlift. It should have been published by now, but it isn’t. It should be, if I get the final version back to Penmore in the next day or two, out by the end of this month. So, its back to work for me, on a Monday no less! And, we’ll see what I can get done this week and get back into my rhythm of life, whatever that is!

Marc Liebman

April 2018

Book Fairs From an Author’s Perspective – Yes or No?

One of the “channels” authors use to publicize and sell their books are book fairs. The theory is that people come to the book fair and buy your books. Attendance at book fairs varies. Some are well attended, some are not. At some you sell a ton of books and at others, you can’t give them away!

My mantra is simple. Be polite and talk to anyone and everyone who stops by my booth. The set-up is always the same. The author has a table and you lay out your books, tabletop displays and, if there is room, a stand-up sign. Then, you wait for the people to come by (buy!!!).

There is a second purpose to the book fair and that is networking with my fellow authors. Most are willing to share tips on promotions, contracts and publishers. At the limited number of fairs I’ve attended, more and more authors are self-published. What is interesting is how many who have moved from traditional publishers to self-publishing and the reasons why.

At the fairs I attend, during set-up, I walk around looking for authors who write books that interest me and often we swap books, or I just buy. Sometimes there’s a publisher or two and they are interesting to speak with.

All of this brings me to the people who are supposed to attend who I refer to as buyers, browsers and others. Let’s start with the “others.”

At one book fair, the tent was in a square in the downtown area and open to any and all comers. All day long, homeless people would come into the tent and the organizers and the park police would gently usher them out of the tent. They would talk to us until they were asked to leave. It was sad.

Browsers are those who stop at my table, may ask a question or two and flip through a book. If there’s a conversation, what comes out early is they only buy e-books. Right…

Then there are the buyers. They want to talk to learn more about you and your books. At a fair, I sign and write personal note to the buyer or a loved one in every book I sell. It is gratifying to talk to someone who wants to read you work.

At the end of the day, I am dog-tired from standing on the hard floor even though the most strenuous thing I’ve done all day is lug the books in and out during the set up and take down.

Are they worth the effort? Yes because it is a chance to build your brand. Are they economically viable? In terms of revenue or profit versus expenses, once there is overnight travel involved, the answer is no. Will I keep going to them, probably?

Net net… The jury is still out on book fairs, but I am going to keep speaking to the jury!

Marc Liebman

March 2018

The Spam I Get

Every day, my junk mail folder has emails with interesting subject lines:

Increase your web presence
Drugs for one third off
Business proposition
You’re qualified for a $250,000 loan

And that’s just last week’s collection. How they got my email address is known only to Microsoft, the Internet gods and broccoli. So, unless they collected it from some business that sells its customer list, they can’t get it from my web site.

Web site performance. The first one usually comes from small Indian, Russian, Ukrainian and Indonesian firms. Some may be legit, but my guess most are not. And would you let a foreign company have access to you web site based on an email proposition. Each one gets the same procedure, block sender and delete. Lord only knows what they are proposing because I never open the email.

Discount drugs. So would you buy prescription or over-the-counter drugs from a pharmacy that sends you an email offering deep discounts? At least, when your health insurance provider requires you to get them through their mail, you have some assurance that the drugs were made my a legitimate manufacturer and have the desired efficacy.

Business proposition. Good grief… Any peddler worth his salt knows that you can’t you develop a business proposition for a customer unless you know something about the business?

$250,000 loan. What bank or financial institution in its right mind would tell people right up front that you qualified for $250,000 loan. Right off the bat, the people sending these emails out have violated the Fed’s rules on “know your customer.”

And, last on this rant is the constant stream of scams that call my mobile phone. Last week it was a voice telling me that “Federal Agent from the IRS needs to talk to you.” Really?

The week before it was a message that starts with “We want to talk to you about your credit card balance?” How do you know?

The one that made me laugh the most was someone claiming to be from the U.S. Government Grant Department! Scammers, you need to do better than that!

Normally, if I don’t recognize the phone number and suspect it’s a robo call, I let it ring until its done. If it is important, they’ll leave a message. Then, I call it back and nine times out of ten, it is not a working number. These calls go in spurts, i.e. they’ll come from all over the U.S., usually with a +1 and then the area code and number. That’s my first clue that it’s a spam call. Then, the pattern goes on at two a day for about a week followed by a gap of a couple of weeks and then another spurt with a different scam. They’re annoying to say the least, but it is a perfect example of what warped, criminal minds can create. It is also sad that they don’t put their creativity to work on something legitimate.

Marc Liebman

March 2018

Creating a New Genre for My First Non-Fiction Book

In an earlier blog, I mentioned I was about to write a book in a new genre. It’s a “memoirography” which is a cross between an autobiography, memoir, biography and anthology.

The working title is Gold and Silver Wings and it will be is a series of aviation vignettes from my dad’s, my son’s and my flying career. Gold and silver wings refers to the color of the wings my father, my son and I earned. Air Force (and Army) pilots earn silver wings and Navy (and Marine Corps) aviators wear gold.

In terms of time, when I start writing, our three careers span ninety, that’s 90, years or nine decades. By the time my son retires from the Navy in two years (and it gets published), it will cover a century. Egads!!!

The book starts on May 20th, 1927 on a foggy, humid morning at Roosevelt Field. My grandfather and his nine year old son left their house in Flatbush, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, to watch Charles Lindbergh take off on his attempt to be the first man to fly non-stop from New York to Paris. The prize was the princely sum at the time of $25,000 that in 2017 dollars, is about $350K. That morning, my dad decided that he wanted to be a Army pilot.

The vast majority of the stories will not involve flying in combat but instead, unusual, scary, fun and sometimes dumb things we did in airplanes and helicopters. They’ll be interspersed with short stories from our family life that will make you smile and, may, on one or two occasions, cry.

So why did I decide to write this book? The answer is simple – I feel compelled to write it. It is our family’s story and even if it doesn’t get published, it will be there for generations to read. Second, I think others may like the tales as well. Growing up, one of my favorite books was Fate is the Hunter written by Ernest K. Gann. It was a series of stories from Gann’s aviation career flying airliners and is the model for Gold and Silver Wings.

In writing it, I have the advantage in that I know the three sources (and subjects) intimately. Rather than take a traditional approach and start with when my dad was born and trace his life that overlaps mine and then my son’s that overlaps us both, this memoirography is going to be different. I’m going to do it by decade, starting in the 1930s when my dad started taking flying lessons. Then, I arrive in 1945 and there are some stories from my childhood. Seth arrives in 1978. As a reference, I have our log books, other publications and my memory which isn’t as good as it used to be which is another reason to write this book.

Stay tuned, the outline is written and I’ve already started writing the fifty odd stories. How many will make it into the final draft is unknown, but I think it will be fun writing it.

Marc Liebman

March 2018

The Pre-Writing a Book Blues

It is not a disease, but a premonition. In reality, the “pre-writing a book blues” is a writer’s block of sorts. It raises its ugly head just before I start writing a manuscript. Why, I have no idea because writing the story is intellectually exciting, it is also somewhat obsessive compulsive.

It seems every time I decide to write a book, sometime between the time there’s enough of an outline to begin tapping away on the keyboard, the “pre-writing the book blues” strike. Each time I try to start, my brain says “no way.” I just can’t force it into writing and if I do, what comes out is garbage…. Well, not garbage, but something that gets heavily edited or even discarded.

How long do the blues last? Good question. I don’t know because I have never tried to track it. Before I sat down to write the novel with the preliminary title called The Assassin, I became aware of it. Once I got going, the words just poured out of my brain and I rambled through the first draft in less than two months.

Rather being away from the keyboard, I couldn’t stop writing it. Yeah, there were periods when I slept, did some things around the house, etc. but my brain was thinking about the plot and the characters 24 X 7.

Next in the queue is a ‘memiography’ titled Gold and Silver Wings. It is a collection of stories from by Dad’s, my son’s and my flying careers. It gets it title because my Dad was an Air Force pilot (their wings are silver) and my son and I are Naval Aviators (we wear gold wings).

Back to the “pre-writing the book blues.” The outline for Gold and Silver Wings is finished along with the intro, the first chapter, and several vignettes. Then, I screeched to a stop. I can’t get into typing it yet my brain is writing the stories. It is really weird. So, this reluctance falls into the “pre-writing the book blues.”

There’s no medicine for “pre-writing the book blues.” At the right time, I’ll plunge into the abyss of writing the book and the words will be unleashed. I use the word abyss because when I start on a novel and even have an outline, I really don’t know how it will end. I think I do, but the characters, as they come to life in the book don’t follow my master plan.

In this case, I know the story line from beginning to end because it is family history that means the unknown can’t be the excuse. So, we’ll see. Right now I am torn between the first major edit of The Assassin or starting on Gold and Silver Wings. At the moment, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Marc Liebman

March 2018

Relearning LinkedIn

When I retired, the website LinkedIn was the bane of my existence. I started using it when it first came out back in 2003 or so. It was great for networking. Originally, it was set up for helping people find jobs because experience tells me that you find jobs faster through your network than any other means.

Then LinkedIn started to grow and expand. If you were like me, decisions on who to hire for consulting projects are made either in the C suite or at the vice presidential level. More times than not, the firm is selected based on a prior relationship. LinkedIn became a way of reconnecting with former clients.

By the time I retired, I was spending two – three hours a day on LinkedIn looking for people who I knew who might have relationships in companies I was targeting. One co-worker told me that they spent thirty to forty percent of their time on LinkedIn. I shouldn’t have been horrified because I was in the twenty to thirty percent range.

When I pulled the plug and retired, I wanted to have nothing to do with was LinkedIn. It was a time sump and wasting precious writing time surfing the site was not in my plan. And, I rationalized, for what?

Two years, eight months later and I’m back on LinkedIn, but not in a big way. Yet. The site has a way of sucking you in, but I am determined to minimize my time on LinkedIn.

It started with getting messages from people I hadn’t seen or heard from or emailed in years. They were congratulating me on an anniversary with a firm! Huh? Irritated, I wanted to correct the record, so I logged back into LinkedIn to try to figure out why.

The last profile I created was still there and I tried to add a new workplace. There was no category called “full time author” nor one for “retired.” So, I created one called “full time author” and started responding to requests from people who want to connect with me. Most of them were interested in seeing if I knew of a job opening or am I looking. Answer to both is no.

The next thing I did was run through the people who requested a connection selecting the names I recognized and answering. Halfway through, it dawned on me. All these people are potential book buyers!  This was one of those head slapping moments. Now, if I get a request, the person gets an answer. Sure, I’ll connect with you!

The next head slapping moment was when a friend sent me an article he posted on LinkedIn. I didn’t know that you could do that. Now, my latest newsletter, slightly modified has been posted.

Net net – that’s a common business expression related to ‘the bottom line is – I’m back on LinkedIn. Trust me, when I retired, I never thought I would use it again.

Marc Liebman

February 2018

A New Genre?

I finished the first draft of the book tentatively called The Assassin a few days ago.. You can read about the process of how it came about, some of the challenges I faced while writing it in a blog that you can find on this link – http://txauthors.com/index.php/pages/blog/marc-liebman-s-adventure-in-writing-a-book. It’s going to sit untouched in my laptop for about a month or so and then I’ll start the editing process.

Writing The Assassin became, as I noted in an earlier blog, obsessive and compulsive. Now there’s another one gnawing at my consciousness, wanting to come out and I am going to write it. For me, it will be totally different – its non-fiction. Yikes!!!!

The working title is Gold and Silver Wings and what it is a series of vignettes from three generations of military aviators – my dad, my son and me. Rather than focus on flying in combat, I’m going to write about some of the funnier, more interesting and the human interest side of military aviation. I started writing some of these vignettes on my web site in a section called “Fun and Dumb.” Originally, I was planning to add one story a month and have a list of about sixty.

For some odd reason, my brain kept pushing me to put off writing them and now I know why. There’s a book in there someplace.

The intro is already written in my mind and it is a story my dad told me about when he was eight years old. His father drove out to Roosevelt Field in their three year old Ford Model T in the wee hours of the morning to watch Lindbergh take off on his epic flight. For my Dad, it got him interested in aviation and the rest, as they say, is history.

Organization is, I think, going to be easy if I do it by decades because it, at least at the moment, makes sense. The 30s and 40s will be all about my Dad. In the 50s and 60s, then yours truly makes it into the picture and then by the 70s, my son arrives on the flying scene.

The next step is actually write the table of contents and a few of the stories. Why? To “sell” a novel to either an agent or publisher one has to have a completed manuscript. From what I gather from looking at publisher’s websites on what they want in the way of queries, one needs is a few completed chapters, a table of contents. So, right (write?) now, my plan is to write the intro, the outline and about a dozen stories, probably three or four from my Dad’s life and then three from my and my son’s. Stay tuned.

Marc Liebman

February 2018

The Obsessive Compulsive Behavior Called Writing

While slaving away on a new manuscript called The Assassin, the words obsessive compulsive behavior kept popping into my mind. Plots, sub-pots, character conversations and actions, location ideas, timing were consuming both my conscious and unconscious brain. Creating the story became a 24 X 7 obsession.

The idea for the book came about during and then after a radio interview on December 5th. While talking about my favorite character in Forgotten, the interviewer asked a simple question. “Have I ever thought about writing a sequel based on the life of Janet Pulaski?” At the time, I hadn’t but almost immediately, my brain began working. At the time, I just didn’t know how hard! What the interviewer did was unleash a series of thoughts about what and how a second book based on Janet would play out.

At first, I tried to put it on the back burner, but couldn’t. Rationalizing that I already had too many potential books in the queue didn’t quell the urge. The desire to write The Assassin was way to strong. So, on December 24th, I sat down and wrote a two page document outlining how the story might unfold.

The next day, I opened a file and started writing. The words came fast and furious. Every day, I worked on it anywhere from two to six hours a day. When I wasn’t writing, what was and what might be in the manuscript consumed me. Often when writing a new book, I think about the characters or story line when working out and when walking my dogs. Other times, I lock it away in compartment in my brain.

The Assassin was different.  I’d be driving down the highway and my brain would go to a scene that was already written because it needed a change or create a new scene at some future point in the book. Or, I’d be standing in line waiting at a store to check out and out would pop some element of The Assassin. Or, lying in bed at night trying to go to sleep, something about the characters or the plot would make it difficult to go to sleep. Worse, if I made a trip to the bathroom at night, guess what! Thinking and writing The Assassin became a compulsion and I was obsessive about writing the first draft.

What surprised me the most was how fast I finished the first draft. Normally, when asked how long it takes to write a manuscript, my standard answer is “working 4 hours a day, it takes between four to six months.” I finished the first draft of The Assassin in forty, that’s four zero days. Right now, it is sitting on my laptop waiting for the first major edit a process I’ll probably start in a month or so. Do I like the story? Oh yeah!

If you want to read more about the thought processes and the challenges of writing The Assassin, check out this blog http://txauthors.com/index.php/pages/blog/marc-liebman-s-adventure-in-writing-a-book. It appears every three days or so and you’ll learn more about why I became a slave to the process of what I hope will become fun book to read.

Marc Liebman

February 2018