Since this book's setting is Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1948, I have been researching ways to market the book in my hometown. I have submitted an author's perspective video to the Kalamazoo Public Library The two-minute review video has been posted under the "Local Author's" section of KPL website.
I will be visiting bookstores in Kalamazoo County. I hope they will also feature the book as a local author on their shelves. I have also spoken with the Library Director of the Ludington Public Library. I believe he is willing to carry all six of my novels for loaning. I am also working on giving people access to the novel via Libby and Overdrive using the eReader version of the novel. I am already starting to think about my next two novels. See the preliminary book covers below.
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My latest book is finished. I have sent the novel to five first readers for comments. Every author must think their latest book is their best effort to date and I am no exception.
I outlined the entire plot of this book before I began writing. Characters were described including foibles and backgrounds. As with every historical fiction research is exhaustive, and this book follows that rule as well. With the Internet, much can be gleaned. Yet, the mid years of the nineteenth century in the central and western areas of the New Mexico Territory were truly an untouched frontier. In many instances, historical gaps and fact mixed with legends needed to be sorted. I believe I have been true to the events and characters of the times while maintaining the excitement and adventure of my story. I am currently sending queries to agents and publishers of historical and western fiction. I'll let you know my next steps soon. I may not be the bestselling author on the planet among the millions of would-be authors that publish through Amazon but compared to my desire and ability to actually market my own books, I am a disaster.
Margretta, my wife, has well over twice the number of friends on Facebook as myself. I notice many Facebook afficianados who have thousands of friends. Most of my Facebook "friends" are direct relatives and close friends. Additional Facebook posts from occasional acquaintances do not clutter my life. This proves I am a delinquent marketer. Likewise, I am not the constant blogger I should be. On the other hand, In the five years I have been authoring books I have not run into the infamous “writer’s block” I hear so much about in movies and on TV. I am never at a loss for the next word or idea. Unfortunately, the blog is just not something I am passionate about, and thus procrastination is the name of the game for my blog posting. Two years ago I declared myself a bona fide writer. I have authored six legitimate full-length novels. Since my retirement from information technology, I write a lot. No more apologies for part time writing or lack of sales. My passion is the story, dreaming it up, researching the background, and typing. In addition, designing and creating the cover of my novels excites me. I don’t mind editing my work with the help of editing software and red marks from my personal editors, (family and close friends.) I try to polish my work to the best of my ability and patience. It is the marketing of the novels that defies my patience in the extreme. I have a blog, a survey at the end of each novel, a website page to display my artwork, covers, and houses I have designed and built. Since I am horrific at marketing I have literally no one visiting my web page, reading my blog, following my feeble efforts, or posting a review of my novels on-line or sent to me in emails. The less than a handful of reviews I have received have been nuggets of gold I will cherish the rest of my days. The one interesting piece of advice I have gleaned from all of my self-marketing research is this: People will not be that interested in my novel if it is the first, and only book I have produced. This is no longer an issue. I have written five books at this point. The sixth is on the way. My strategy, therefore, simply stated, is to keep doing what I am passionate about, writing stories, designing the cover, and polishing and publishing novels on Amazon. Call it a hobby, but I rise every day way before dawn to continue to write. In June 2021 I will travel to Florida on the 9th – 14th for a memorial for my eldest brother and ardent fan of my books. I plan on running a free Kindle promotion for those days. After that, I will continue writing my next book: Fear of The Gun. Read an e-book.
Gain perspective on the seriousness of Covid-19. Read a novella about a Saskatchewan family that endures the hardships of homesteading along with the horror of World War I and the Spanish Influenza in 1917-18. During this Stay Home – Stay Safe era I am offering an e-book section of my novel Five Boys Sliding Into Men – The Gardener for free the next five days. After five days I will discount the e-book from $2.99 to $0.99. Five Boys Sliding Into Men is a five generation, family saga that examines what “Country” means to the farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, adventurers, and soldiers living in the vast corners of the United States or Canada. Five Boys Sliding Into Men tells of the dreams and sweat, the loves and the losses, the inevitability of growing up, and the responsibilities men embrace in providing for the next generation. This is a Kindle e-book found on Amazon in the Kindle Store section. Search for the complete title; Five Boys Sliding Into Men. Look for the cover depicting a cemetery. Download it during the five-day free period. Loan it to friends. Readers are available for Apple, Google, PC and Mac devices. Please share this post! Read an e-book.
Gain perspective on the seriousness of Covid-19. Read a novella about a Saskatchewan family that endures the hardships of homesteading in Saskatchewan along with the horror of World War I and the Spanish Influenza in 1917-18. During this Stay Home – Stay Safe era I am offering an e-book section of my novel Five Boys Sliding Into Men – The Gardener for free the next five days. After five days I will discount the e-book from $2.99 to $0.99. Five Boys Sliding Into Men is a five generation, family saga that examines what “Country” means to the farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, adventurers, and soldiers living in the vast corners of the United States or Canada. Five Boys Sliding Into Men tells of the dreams and sweat, the loves and the losses, the inevitability of growing up, and the responsibilities men embrace in providing for the next generation. This is a Kindle e-book found on Amazon in the Kindle Store section. Search for the complete title; Five Boys Sliding Into Men. Look for the cover depicting a cemetery. Download it during the five-day free period. Loan it to friends. Readers are available for Apple, Google, PC and Mac devices. Please share this post! In November of 2018 I couldn't wait any longer. I began writing a second novel. I learned a lot about writing a novel from the experience of writing Five Boys Sliding Into Men. I listened to the advice of our writer's group in town. I read everything I could find on book promotion and marketable stories.
I listened as well to the many readers that gave me feedback on my first book. On my first attempt at writing a novel I didn't even know if I could write 30 pages let alone the over 600 pages that eventually turned into Five Boys Sliding Into Men. I listened to friends say they wouldn't even try my book because it was so long. I heard that some wouldn't try it because it was too heavy to hold in bed. I set a goal for my second novel to stay under 400 pages. On advice from my biggest fan, my dear wife, I decided to write a story about a female protagonist. The result is White Wolf Crossing. I will not self publish this book on Amazon. Rather I am querying literary agents to promote the book to publishers. Here's the thing. I like to write. I love to dream up scenes, characters, locations and plots. I like to shot gun my thoughts overnight in my sleep. Starting at 6:00am each day I put them down into the computer. Thank God for word Processing and spell check. The next day I always review and edit my work as I go. To be honest after two edit read throughs and a couple of proof reads from my supportive readers I am ready to return to writing. I have ideas for two sequels to White Wolf Crossing and I am eager to start on book number three; number two in the White Wolf series. Today I'll be sliding over to Lincoln Hills Country Club in Ludington, Michigan. The event is the Mistletoe Market sponsored by the Ludington Daily News. I have been asked to man the author's table at the Book Mark bookstore booth between 12:00noon and 3:00pm.
I have prepared a flyer to hand out with an excerpt from The Handler section of Five Boys Sliding Into Men. I will also hand out my business cards directing the public to this website. I have a receipt book ready for recording sales, paper clips to attach the business cards to the flyers, and copies of the book. I'll take my tablet in case anyone wants to order the book on Amazon rather than waiting for Book Mark's inventory to arrive next week. The Mistletoe Market is a one day event in Ludington providing "Amazing Gift Ideas at Amazing Prices;" according to the Mistletoe Market posters around town. I wouldn't imagine too many book buyers to be wandering amongst the booths, but stranger things... I used to attend trade shows for the special equipment manufacture I worked for back in the late seventies. I manned a booth at McCormick Place exhibition hall in Chicago. The company did a brisk business with reps from Pratt and Whitney, Bell Helicopters, General Motors and many other large corporations. Back in that day it was a chance to get out of the office, stay in a fancy hotel, eat great Chicago fare, and hob knob with big time executives. As a software and systems consultant in the late eighties I worked a lot of Greenhouse Growers shows at the same venue. As President of JGC and Associates I handed out flyers and provided demos of Veri-cell, Greenery Production Software, which my company had developed. I don't recall those shows ever producing a bonafide customer. I garnered all of my clients via word of mouth recommendations from other greenhouses using my software across the United States and reaching as far as England, Scotland, and New Zealand. Thus I am now preparing to slide into another trade show as an author. I hope to see you there. As a teen, living on Sage Street in Kalamazoo, I was given the chore of waxing the maple hardwood floor. The Grade "A" clear 2-3/4" wide strip flooring covered the foyer, dining room and hallway floors surrounding our staircase to the bedrooms. The dining area was small, 9' x 12' and the foyer hall was 3-1/2' by 20'. The turn to the kitchen was another 3-1/2' by 10'.
I wasn't looking forward to the chore Dad described. 1. Remove all furniture to the carpeted living room. 2. Vacuum the floor really well. 3. Lightly mop the floor and dry it with a towel. 4. Lay down the SC Johnson paste wax in the yellow can on a 3' square area. 5. Buff out the area until the floor shined. 6. Proceed to the next 3' square. 7. Reposition the furniture in the dining room I predicted the task would take up my whole Saturday. The first three steps were easy, of course, compared to steps 4 and 5. Step 4 wasn't too bad either, but step 5, buffing that 3' x 3' square was a nightmare. My right wrist was in pain after two squares and my left hand was painful after the third square. Time to try a new technique. I retrieved a clean towel, a large towel that I could step on with stockinged feet spread apart. I attempted to slide across the waxed area. At first that was difficult as well, scrunching inch by inch. After a bit of time the sliding became easier. I continued with step 4 over the rest of the floor. Then with the help of the towel and my Slip 'N Slide technique I was able to buff the entire floor. No sore wrists; a beautiful shine. By the end of the process I could run half way across the hall, jump on the towel, and slide the rest of the way to the front door. The shine from this effort was amazing. My mother returned home; pleased with the result. "Be careful in your slippers, Mom, it's a bit slippery." A bi-monthly chore turned into fun until I left for college years later. I was sliding in my stocking feet in the house twenty years before Tom Cruise thought of it in "Risky Business." BLOG: a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.
This is a new experience for me. I'm a bit green. Time to start down the slide. I hope to generate interest in my novel FIVE BOYS SLIDING INTO MEN, (FBSIM). Yes, I'll be learning the "INS" and "OUTS" of blogging, the hard way, by experimentation. I will attempt to keep this website as professional as I possibly can during the learning curve. In my lifetime I have been gently labeled "workaholic," "do over contractor," "naïve," and "crazy." As I ponder these labels now I will admit to the truth in all of them. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of few, the labels never changed my direction. Once you gather momentum on a slide it is difficult to put on the brakes. I find adventure in everything I try to accomplish no matter how difficult. Perhaps the drive to push ahead began in Canada on a five hundred-mile, seventeen-day survival canoe trip when I was seventeen. There was no turning back up there. No calling up Dad for help. Hungry to the point of eating bits of chewing gum slowly. Tired to the point of "lie down and give up" exhaustion. Shivering at times uncontrollably like I would never be warm again. But oh, finally breaking through the “Canadian Bush,” dropping the pack and the canoe, dripping sweat through my hat, jacket and jeans at the next beautiful lake; that was like experiencing freedom for the first time on each and every shore. With me, sliding into an adventure just sort of happens. I get a notion. I come up with a sequence, plan, material list. I research. Actually, I research a lot before I begin. Then I put one boot in front of the other and start my slide, hopefully reaching my goal. Of course, not every adventure turns out to be enjoyable or worthwhile or rewarding. At the end of the slide, momentum might turn an adventure into a tumble or a scuffed knee. Writing FIVE BOYS SLIDING INTO MEN has been a marvelous experience. An epic slide. Yes, I wrote a novel the hard way. Stay tuned to read about the mistakes and missteps, the misplaced dreams that keep me picking up my left foot and putting it down in front of the right one. It is very hard to climb up a slippery slide and start over. Learning from an experience before climbing the ladder again; that's the ticket. Am I off base? |
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