Resonate…
… as in evocative of past memories.
CW Post LIU Reading
The reading at CWPost was great. At least I had a good time. I think the students did also. As my friend and professor from undergraduate days, Dr. Joan Digby said, “There were a lot of people asking questions so that’s a good sign that you didn’t scare them away.”
I’ll get to the student’s questions and my answers over the next few day’s posts. Today it’s about the pictures and what resonates for me.
I went to Post as an undergrad and Dr. Digby (who is in charge of the honors program and has been so since I was there) has since invited me back a number of times to read short stories and talk about my various careers to students. It’s great to have a teacher believe in you especially long after your class-taking days are over. I’m taking her to lunch next time we get together. This kind of faith keeps a writer writing.
Art Museum at CW Post
So the reading, in the art museum at Post, as the inaugural event for their newly opened poetry center, was very cool. There was standing room only with over 70 folks in attendance – young adults to older adults pretty much 18 and up. It was something to stand there with my book in front of me and speak to folks who were in my seat thirty years ago.
It resonated like a long, loud, ringing, Om.
Brain Freeze and The Slurpie of Doom
I was interviewed by Johnny Tann yesterday for his talk radio show From My Momma’s Kitchen.
It was an hour-long and I have to say I was nervous about it. I’ve done interviews before and I’m usually nervous about them. That is as it should be. They are anxiety provoking experiences.
Things I worry about include:
- What will I say?
- Will I say too little? Will I say too much? I have an hour to fill…
- Will I embarrass myself? My family? (My wife would tell me before every improv show I did, “don’t embarrass the family,” which, of course, is exactly what you do in improv but…)
- What if I get brain freeze and can’t think of a thing to say? (It’s the slurpie of public speaking and these days I use simple breathing techniques to get through it but it does still happen.)
- What if I say something that doesn’t make sense? (Do I ever make sense?)
- What if I say something that makes sense but is stupid? (That puts me back to embarrassing.)
- What if I say the word ask like ax and my family hears about it (my wife and son have been trying to help me get the New York out of my accent but it’s tough going – it doesn’t seem to want to leave.)
Post Toastie – Reading
I’m off to CWPost tomorrow, my alma matter, to do a reading at the new Poetry Center. The head of the Honors Program, Dr. Joan Digby (I get to call her Joan and not Dr. Digby these days and I still can’t get used to it) has been a supportive presence in my writing life since I was an undergrad with her in her newly started honors program way way back when.
She taught me one of my first and really powerful lessons as a writer. In a tutorial with her on writing we spent a whole semester rewriting and reviewing one short story that I wrote.
I rewrote is 16 times.
I counted.
And I still remember each of the 16 times.
This taught me the importance of rewriting – what it can do and how it can change and improve a manuscript. I’ll have to tell that story at the reading. It runs from 12:30-1:20. Here’s a link to the event at Post on their Greenvale LIU campus: Poetry Center.
From My Mamma’s Kitchen – Talk Radio Interview
I’ll be interviewed tomorrow by Johnny Tan – Tuesday morning 9/20/11 from 11-12noon ET on FMMK Talk Radio on his weekly radio show From My Mamma’s Kitchen. It’s the whole hour and it will be archived on his site afterwards so if you have a chance check in and listen.
Here’s the link for the show:
What will I be talking about? His opening question to all his guests is, “Tell me about yourself from birth to now.” Gulp! How long do we have? Seriously, it’s going to be fun. And he takes questions from the audience so feel free to call in and ask away.
Amazon, Goodreads, and Subsidiary Rights, Oh my!
I don’t do well on labor day. See this post on my Zen Dadd-itto blog for the reason why. So I didn’t post yesterday or the day before.
But today I’ll finish up with groups three and four, business people and reviewers.
Group three is made up of editors, publishers, media folks (movies, audio, book club, the same folks in other countries) who might take an interest and buy subsidiary rights. These are paperback, audio, e-book, world rights, movie rights, and book clubs. I might be missing one or two but you get the idea. How do you reach these folks? Either through your agent (if you have one – hence the importance of having an agent) if you retain the rights, or the publisher if they retain the rights. How else can you influence these folks? You can sell books. A lot of books. Print runs these days for a small press and even medium or large presses first authors can be 2-3,000 copies hard cover. If you want to get noticed the first thing to do is sell through your first print run, then try to hit the 5,000 mark and then the 10,000 mark. That will get you some notice. Dewey Lambdin, a bestselling author of a naval series called the Alan Lewrie Naval Series (one of my favorite historical novel series) told me he was told by an editor about his fifth or sixth book (he’s got over a dozen by now) that he needed to hit the 50,000 mark to get noticed.
Let’s start with the number 10,000. It’s a big number. You have to reach a lot of people and convince them to buy your book in order to reach 10,000. Still, if you get there, selling a second novel will be that much easier as will selling subsidiary rights. Which, once sold, help you sell more copies of your book. It’s synergy – as far as I can tell.
Group four is reviewers. Reviewers reach a lot of people. I’ll say that again. Reviewers reach a lot of people. Good reviews are important but getting reviewed is even more important. Internet reviews by bloggers who have 100 or 300 or 1000 followers get you visibility in different parts of the country that you wouldn’t get in any other way. It can also start word of mouth from blog to blog. You can reach people fast and with a review with information about your book that some percentage of people will hopefully use to buy it. Other good places to be reviewed include Amazon (because it’s used as a barometer of how well your book is doing and people from group three browse it to see how books are doing.) and Goodreads. (By the way if you haven’t reviewed Open wounds on either Amazon or Goodreads please do – I can use all the reviews I can get!). Goodreads is another story worthy of a blog entry all by itself. Andrew Smith recently commented on his relationship with Goodreads and I have some similar and lively things to say about my relationship with it too. Still, readers and group three media and group two booksellers also look at Goodreads so it’s worth getting on and asking people you know who read the book to post there in addition to Amazon. It’s all about visibility. In order to sell 10,000 copies of your book you probably have to reach ten times that number of people (100,000). I’m only guessing. It could be more or less depending on how targeted your market is.
But what does it all mean? It means I’m overwhelmed as all hell with the odds against selling well and the tremendous amount of work that needs to be done to sell books. In other words when the writing is done and the book has been bought – it’s not over. If anything, a new kind of work has just begun.
Lunievicz 