Delivering the goods.

This weekend has been interesting. Judy, my darling better half, and I went into Baltimore to make a couple of deliveries. The first one was to our friend Joann's house to drop off a pair of earrings I made for her from one of her daughter Hilary's old necklaces. It was received with Jo's usual dramatic enthusiasm. If you give her anything, she makes you feel like it is the greatest gift ever from anyone. She is a warm and loving person who finds something to smile about in even the worst situations. I wish I had her upbeat outlook. Her oldest daughter, Maria, was visiting her mom, and as I had not seen her in a number of years was shocked when I did. She was definitely a woman, and not the child I remembered.
The next stop was in downtown Baltimore at Attman's Delicatessen. Judy and I had worked on signs for a book signing there on November 10. This is a really big deal with local media coverage coming in many forms. Having already had a couple of articles written about me, the media has been allerted that this will be a really special event. In my book, Double Trouble on Corned Beef Row, I describe a sandwich one of the main characters concocted to bring in new customers to his deli. As part of the book signing event, Attman's is going to produce a special sandwich that follows the formula in the book. In Baltimore, this is a big deal. Attman's is one of the original shops in what once was the heart of the Jewish section of the city: the area was called Corned Beef Row. The novel is not about the area, but it is set in it, and Attman's taking an active part in promoting the book will definitely draw attention. I guess I chose the right place as a setting for my story. I can't wait to get my hands on one of those sandwiches.

Writing is only part of the process

When I finished writing my book, Double Trouble on Corned Beef Row, I thought the hard part was over. Boy, was I wrong! Writing it was the easy part. Getting it into print has consumed a good portion of my life since I finished it. Next came trying to get it published. I sent it to what was supposed to be a traditional publisher, but turned out to be a self publishing outfit that wanted up front cash to start the parade. I couldn't do that at the time because I could not come up with the money. My wife had been unemployed for eight months and we were just getting by. One of the reasons for finishing the book was to make money, something that didn't look like it was going to happen. When I told the people at the "publisher" that I had no bucks, they suggested CreateSpace. com and Lulu.com as an alternative. BTW, the "publisher" had reviewed my book, and said they thought it was probable that I could sell 2500 or more copies, if I was prepared to be active in promoting it. They had all kinds of "plans" of which I could partake, but they, too, cost me. Internet radio, a blog tutor, professional editing, et cetera. What I finally did was put the book out on CreateSpace which is part of Amazon.com in both hard copy and Kindle eBook. I have blown my own horn to get publicity, and so far, have two news articles and a book signing upcoming. I have sent out press releases, and done anything I could to promote it. Slowly, but surely, it is beginning to sell. Buy it, please, I need the money!!!

Renaissance man or Jack-of-all-trades?

I like to think of myself as a Renaissance man, but fear I fall more into the category of a Jack-of-all-trades. I am an artist who despite colorblindness has several hanging paintings in other than my livingroom. I have designed and built furniture, done block printing, silkscreen, and wood carving. I was, for twenty or so years, a hobby blacksmith. I have done home improvements in the form of tearing out walls and building new replacements, run electrical wiring and plumbed kitchens and baths. I have run a newsletter, written essays, and written a book and sop up all sorts of knowlege like astronomy and physics like a compressed sponge. I have displayed competence in all these things, but excelled in none. I fear my constant turning to the next project before the last one has been finished dooms me to the level of mediocrity, not memorability. What say ye?

A little encouragement goes a long way

Back when I started writing my book, Double Trouble on Corned Beef Row, I had the basic concept together and a few chapters finished. However, I was unsure of the caliber of my writing. I asked my cousin, Betty, to give me an opinion of what I had done to that point. The response I got back was more than what I had anticipated by a good margin. She said I should start looking for a publisher, and that it was very good. It was her response and encouragement that set me to working earnestly to complete it. I had gained a reputation in my family as one who starts a project but never finishes it. That included home renovations, hobbies, and other things. When my wife lost her job, I had to try to come up with a way of making money. Writing the book and turning it into a moneymaker was one possible avenue.
I sent Betty subsequent chapters for awhile and she made some suggestions that I took into consideration. When I finished writing it, I sent her the manuscript on a cdrom to hold for me for copyright validation which she, and husband Al, did for me. A gesture I greatly appreciated, to be sure. When the book was finally published, I signed one of the five original proofs and sent it to her. A few weeks later, I emailed her and asked what she thought of the finished product. Once again, her response was glowingly positive. She also told me she was proud of me. That in itself made the whole thing worthwhile. Thank you, Betty Lou, thank you!

Getting it right

Things are progressing faster than I thought they would. My book, Double Trouble on Corned Beef Row, has only been out a couple of weeks and I have already had a magazine article done about how and why I wrote it in Baltimore Jewish Times. I appreciate the publicity it gave me, but the young woman who wrote the article got lots of things wrong. The biggest problem was because she had not read the book before the interview, and probably had not read it afterward either. I asked if she had at the beginning of our conversation, and she said she had glanced through it (which I seriously doubt). If she had, she could not have been so far off track. She wrote it up as being a spy story instead of what it really is: the tale of identical twins separated at birth. She probably got her impression from the synopsis on the back cover. Yes, there is a lot about spies in it, but the point of it is about the families of the children involved, how they grew up, their different career paths, and how they finally re-establish their natural connections. The action in the book is incidental. The thrust of the story is about families and relationships. I hope the next interviewer will at least read a few chapters to get a sense of what it is all about. If the interviewer had read the first twenty pages, her article would have taken a direction that was closer to the real crux of the tale. From her perspective, the story she wrote probably fulfilled her boss's criteria: she interviewed a non-Jew who wrote a book about Jews and published his responses to her questions (which focused on many of the wrong things). From my perspective, she missed the point.

Wow! Things are Happening

If I thought I was busy and harried before, I was in for a surprise. Since my last posting, I have had things really start to steamroller. First, my book, Double Trouble on Corned Beef Row, has been published and is available on Amazon.com as both a dead tree version and on Kindle. It took a heap of work to get that accomplished, and I am proud of the results. The print version sports a cover of my own design, and looks professionally done. My sister, Donna, who never minces words or says something is good when it isn't, was blown away when she saw it. She said it looked every bit as good as some of the ones in the local bookstore and better than most. Donna has a wonderful sense of humor, and got a charge out of the last two sentences of the story. She had said while I was writing it that the only kind of books she liked were the ones that ended with; "and they lived happily ever after. THE END" Well, that is how I ended my book.
Being the unabashed self promoter that I am, I sent two copies of it to Mr. Neil Rubin, editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times. One was an autographed copy for him to keep and the other was for review, if he chose to do that. Mr. Rubin had been kind enough to direct me to several sources which were valuable in my research. On one hand I was trying to show my gratitude, and on the other to hope for a review. A favorable write up from his paper will be a tremendous publicity boon. I, also, sent press releases to the other local news organizations, and I am attempting to arrange for my first book signing to be at Attman's Deli the picture of which is on the front cover. I want to get media coverage for that so I will be sending out another press release whenever that can be scheduled. More on that later. Do you think I am excited? You betcha!

The Aheader I Go; the Behinder I Get

I can't believe it has been nearly a month since my last entry. I have been busy trying to get my book to market and setting up my web site. Both are really time consuming. My darling Judy keeps asking me "When are you going to finish this? You've been working on it FOREVER!" That is exactly what it seems like to me. It seems like I have hit every kind of stumbling block imaginable. Since I am putting it on CreateSpace, I have had to make tons of adjustments. I have had to resize the copy to fit book size paper, change the line spacing, change the fonts for the chapter headings and body text, reset all of the margins, and unify the book into a single file. Gadzooks, what a bunch of chores. Not having the proper software only made these things harder to do. Fortunately, I was able to come up with some suitable work-arounds that let me, finally, finish the job. Or so I thought. As it turned out, I still had to convert the files to Adobe's pdf format before uploading it. Then came doing the cover art. Another nightmare. I had to rework it five times before it was okay for their site. At long last, the ball is in their court and, if no more pitfalls occur, the book will be printed.
I was naive to think that all I would have to do is send the book to a publisher, and they would take it from there. I would get an advance, they would do all of the publicizing and advertising, and all I would have to do is appear on TV talk shows and at book signings. My little book, Double Trouble on Corned Beef Row, is not an epic. It is a little story about Jewish identical twins separated at birth. It is not the Corsican Brothers or The Man in the Iron Mask. It would have take a miracle for a major publisher to grab it up like that so I am gambling that by self publishing someone might see it. I still hold out hope that fellow Baltimorean Barry Levinson will learn about it and, maybe, take a look at it. That probably falls under the heading of "still dreaming, aren't you?" Well, if the Wright brothers felt that way, my sister, Jane, would not be working for an airline and a trip to Chicago from the East Coast would take a long ride on a train. If I stop dreaming, I may wake up and find the world really sucks. What then?