Happy rebirthing [via Eleanor Vincent]

[This is a reblog of Eleanor Vincent's post today - by permission]

I’m throwing a party for the rebirth of Swimming with Maya. Thanks to the power of networking, it has a new life as a paperback and eBook.

But in 2010, the future of my book did not look bright. Capital Books, the independent publisher that issued the hardback in 2004, was closing its doors. My beautiful book about raising daughters and rebounding after loss would be pulped.

I tried everything I could think of to sell the remaining hardback copies – and had some success. But even if I sold them all, the book would still slowly fade and die. I considered the Author’s Guild program “Back in Print” that creates print-on-demand books for authors in situations like mine. But I’d have to live with a generic book cover and format, and no marketing support for the book.

Sadly, this story is not uncommon. Small publishers close their doors with alarming frequency. And big publishers – those consolidated megaliths – can arbitrarily dump an author if sales don’t measure up.

In worst-case scenarios, authors get little or no notice. My dear friend Madeline Sharples, author of Leaving the Hall Light On, a courageous tale of resilience and recovery following the suicide of her son Paul, had recently received three days notice that her publisher was closing.

Madeline Sharples

Madeline and I met at a writing workshop at Esalen, just months after Paul’s death in 1999, and instantly connected. Over the years, we saw each other whenever we could, and stayed in touch by phone and email, becoming cheerleaders for each other’s ventures in the world of small publishing.

Madeline reached out to other writers when she learned that her book was about to go out of print. She soon connected with a small press in Chicago called 
Dream of Things that agreed to republish her memoir in paperback and eBook format. She promised to introduce me to the publisher, Mike O’Mary.

At the same time, in the spring of 2012, I had just marked the 20th anniversary of Maya’s death. As I sat under a giant California oak tree just yards from her grave, I got a strong message from Maya: “Mom, I want you to bring back our book.” Maya did not want to be forgotten, and I didn’t want her to be!

As in life, she insisted on her place in the spotlight.

That afternoon at the cemetery I made a promise to my daughter. One way or another, Swimming with Maya would be back.

Maya at age 18

A few days later, I called Madeline.

True to her word, she introduced me to Dream of Things founder Mike O’Mary, and by the fall of 2012 I had a contract. Mike worked tirelessly to reissue the book and in February of 2013, the new version was published.

Madeline and I were both born under the sign of Taurus. (My birthday is May 14, hers is May 20.) We never give up! I was with her in Los Angeles in May of 2011 for the original launch of Leaving the Hall Light On, and she will be with me on Friday, May 17, for the “Rebirthday Party” of Swimming with Maya.

Please join us at 7 pm, May 17, at Studio One Art Center, 365 45th Street, in Oakland. Or come at 5:30 pm, and join the fun at “Bites off Broadway,” showcasing amazing local food trucks, hosted by my friend Karen Hester.

Come celebrate new beginnings in life and in publishing with us!

Eleanor and Madeline

Book marketing - is there ever enough?

Okay, I’m on to another marketing project. 

I was overwhelmed and indeed impressed by the numbers of blogs Jessica Bell is going to visit during her two-week book launch blog tour for her soon to-be-released, String Bridge. And that got me thinking I hadn’t visited nearly enough blogs at the time of my book launch. I visited one blog a day for about three weeks, and she’s going to have interviews and reviews on up to seven or eight blogs a day for two weeks. Plus she’s going to have a whole lot of these same folks and more hit Amazon on the day of the book’s release. Now that’s using the network to the fullest, I would say.

With my friend Susan at my book launch 

with Ben in the background

I asked her how she amassed such a list and she admitted it was a lot of work. She reads and comments on all the blogs on her list regularly. And that’s why she felt she was justified in asking them to do this book marketing favor for her.

I know that’s true. Jessica visits and comments on my blog consistently, plus she read my book and wrote an incredible review that she posted on her own blog, The Alliterative Allomorph and on Amazon and Goodreads. That’s what I call being supportive. The goal of it is to sell books and not just one’s own.

As she sees it, we can all play a part in promoting each other’s books. On Tuesday we’ll all get a chance to do that on the Internet Book Fair. I’ll not only promote mine, but I’ll pick a couple of my writing colleagues’ books to promote as well. Come back on Wednesday and you’ll find out which ones.

So now that I have all this information and this need to be a copycat, it’s time to do something about it. Yesterday I started a list of blogs I’m familiar with, and today I transferred the list into a two-column word table with the name of the blog owner and email address in one column and the name of the blog and its link in the second. So far I’m up to over fifty candidates and still counting. I really was surprised how many I have just in my own frame of reference, and Jessica says I can go to hers if they seem appropriate for my book. Looking at her list, I’ve already found several that we have in common.

But that’s just the beginning. I need to, as Jessica suggested, be more consistent in reading and commenting on all these blogs. That’s the hard work. And that’s why I need quite a bit of lead-time.

I had originally thought I’d schedule this second blog tour at the six-month anniversary of the launch of my book, but that’s way to soon. Now I’m thinking I’ll kick it off at the time my eBook comes out – sometime next spring. That way I’ll have time to develop and reconnect with the blogs on my list and the ones still to be added. I’ll also need to set up a plan, after contacting everyone, about whether I’ll provide a guest post or answers to a questionnaire. Plus the blog owners who will review the book will have time to read it.

All that will take a lot of coordinating, so I’m thinking of asking my high school senior girlfriend if she’d like to assist me. I know I’d do a much more thorough and complete job if I have some help.

I think the moral of this story is that it takes lots and lots of time and attention to details to market a book. If I let myself I could be at it all day without any time left to write. I need to enter into this project with time for both.

A book launch and signing - what's that?

Paul's Bench

I'm going to write about the book launch and signing of Leaving the Hall Light On in three parts: Preparation, The Actual Event, and Lessons Learned.


Part One: Preparation
I think the worst part of the preparation stage was waiting for the book signing to happen. I booked it for the first Thursday after the book's release at Pages, my local independent bookstore, several months in advance, and I started to stress right away. I always stress before speaking in public and always end up calming down right before I speak, so it’s really the waiting time that drives me to drink.

I also arranged for publicity in our local newspapers, "The Beach Reporter" and "Easy Reader." "The Beach Reporter" interview happened the Monday before the event and appeared on the day; "Easy Reader," though it got a review copy of my book, has yet to print something. Well, as I said to them in my email today, it’s never too late.

Then I sent out invitations. I created an event on Facebook and carefully selected people in my local area to invite. In all I got about forty yes RSVPs from the Facebook folks. I also sent out an electronic invitation by email. I chose the Punchbowl application – I think it’s a lot nicer than Evite. The invitation actually comes in an envelop that the invitee clicks to open. I got another forty or so yes responses as a result of that invitation. With that number of positive responses I started to stress even more. Plus my husband kept wondering where the small bookstore could put all those people. I didn't worry about that. I knew people would come and go – not everyone would be there at the same time. Also a woman I do Pilates with advised me to have no expectations about the number of attendees. She said I could have a huge crowd or no attendees at all. And I knew from my The Emerging Goddess reading experience, people who say they'll come don't, and people I don't expect to come do.

Next I had to plan the food. My wonderful facialist offered early on to host mini cupcakes, and I was delighted with that offer. To accompany those I decided to offer strawberries, mangos and cheese cubes; wine, and sparkling water. At my last reading we had way too much food, so I worried about how much to serve. It seemed like the crowd would be bigger this time, so I of course, the typical Jewish mother, didn’t want to run out.

Another hard part of the prep was deciding what part/parts of the book to read. I had read an article about book signings and readings a few months ago, and the advice was to read for no more than ten minutes. Otherwise the audience would start nodding off. So after a few tries I picked a short prose piece, purposely chosen not to reveal much of the dark nature of my story and to show how I started on my way to survival. I also decided to ask the other three main characters in the book, my husband, son, and daughter-in-law to each read a poem. I picked out their poems.  As the article advised, I printed out the excerpt and poems in large font on white paper so we wouldn't have fumble around reading  from the book. And as suggested I practiced my part three or four times.

Stay tuned for Part Two: The Actual Event

One month to go until launch. So what’s on my list of to dos now?

Last Friday at exactly 6:29 pm, my publisher sent off my manuscript to the printer. And exactly one month from then, my book will be launched. And right now I’m feeling overwhelmed with thoughts of what should I be doing to get ready, and even if I know what things I should be doing, will I know how to do them?

When the book I co-authored, Blue Collar Women, came out in 1994 I don’t remember doing anything to market the book. My co-author had done the research so she did a few radio interviews and that was it. She used the book in her college classes, but other than that, sales were poor. I certainly don’t want to have a repeat of that poor success. With that book I didn’t even get fifteen minutes of fame.

So far in preparation for my new book’s launch I’ve actively participated in Facebook – I have a friend page, I have a fan page, I joined two poetry groups, I joined a group of other parents who had an adult child die, and I regularly comment on pages related to my book’s subject – most notably The Compassionate Friends. And I’m on all of these pages every day in one way or another.

I also have a Twitter account though instead of using Twitter directly I have my blog and fan page posts appear on Twitter. Perhaps I need to change that, and comment on Twitter a few times a day as well.

I also have a blog that I post to at least three times of week. Usually my posts relate to my book, but once in a while I like to share about my family and post the photos I take when I walk along the ocean.

And, that’s not the end of it – at least for the short term.

We need to finish the Book Trailer.

I need to create a Press Kit that I’m happy to say, my friend with PR experience has offered to do for me.

I need to follow up with the Easy Reader local newspaper about the article they promised to do for me. And that reminds me there a couple of other publications to contact about getting articles in them as well.

And, right at this moment I need to start planning my first booksigning event. I’m going to do a little research. I’m going to attend a couple of other signings going on at the Pages bookstore to find out how other authors do these things. I imagine I have a lot to learn out there.

Plus, my husband says he’s going to plan a launch party to be held at our home on Mother’s Day – launch day. I hope he’ll invite all of you to come.

First booksigning - May 12, 2011

I have scheduled my first booksigning at a wonderful one-year-old independent bookstore in my hometown, Pages! 


I hope you'll attend. The venue is great and the refreshments hosted by Dinah Alcon will be delish!


To RSVP please call Pages at 310-318-0900 or go to my event page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=189497844418284 and click away.

Time	Thursday, May 12 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Location	Pages Bookstore 904 Manhattan Ave.
Created By	Lucky Press, LLC
More Info	310-318-0900 info@pagesabookstore.com (email) www.pagesabookstore.com (website)www.luckypress.com/madelinesharples.html (book information)

Pre-release jitters

As the days get closer to the release of my memoir, I seem to be getting more and more anxious. Though I got my first endorsement yesterday from one of the reviewers and it was absolutely terrific, I keep thinking what facts did I get wrong, what people did I offend by writing too much or too little about them, and how will I be able to handle the books signings and interviews that will surely be on my calendar in the weeks after its release.

I wonder if these are common thoughts for authors – especially of memoir. I took a class a while back from Maureen Murdock who calls memoir “unreliable truth” – that it, it is my truth versus anyone elses. For instance my husband has been reading a review copy and he is sure that the snowstorm that I write about didn’t happen in New York City when I say it happened. Well, I definitely stand by my memory, but it makes me wonder how many other things will he think I’m just flat-out wrong about. Besides having these about-to-be-released jitters I have a lot of things left to do on my plate before publication date. Here’s my list so far – though I’m sure this list won’t mean much to you, it’s very important to me and my marketing effort.

• Develop list of celebrities, authors, educators who might offer an endorsement and find out how to contact them (my cousin is helping me with this)
• Arrange book signing at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services
• Get friends and family to arrange book signings (my sister is working on Powell’s)
• Develop list of blogs where I could post about the book as a guest (WOW is in the works, though not certain yet)
• Follow through with Martha re blurb on her blog Out on a Limb
• Contact UCLA Writer’s Program about getting publicized through them 
• Give blurb about book to Shalom for Ellen Bass’ monthly newsletter
• Ditto for Winning Writers
• Follow up about Easy Reader Interview
• Arrange for Beach Reporter interview
• Send out Evites re book signings at Pages, our local independent bookstore
• Keep posting about book signing at Pages on Facebook
• Keep on urging people to Like my author page and read my blogs

Writing this all down here helps. I’m sure I’ll think of more to do, but for the time being it is quite enough.

And of course the most important thing I need to do is Keep Calm. I really need to keep pinching myself as a reminder that this is all happening to me.

Look for my book out two months from today!