Well we all survived the DAR luncheon yesterday. It was a nice afternoon. I took pictures as a good historian does and started to send off pictures to our newsletter editor. Now it's time for a break.

Walter Mosley just came out with a book on writing, and an excerpt was in Writer's magazine. He suggested writing for two hours each day in order to get your book finished within a year, as well as to keep on top of the story so you don't lose your perspective. It's interesting how much of myself I saw in that, since with the latest Lydia Proctor installment I have done neither. I don't know if my life is any busier than when I wrote the first, second or third books. Maybe it's how much one readily identifies with the plot. The current one actually should be taking place in the 1830's to 1850's, but then I am torn with my readers identifying with something a little later like the turn of the last century.  Plus from a genealogists perspective finding evidence really is a whole lot easier the later it is. But how easy do I want to make it for Lydia and crew?

So we will see how this book goes. It may be my last...who knows, or maybe I just need something to really spur me on and the spur just hasn't hit me yet.

Well I bailed out of the book minute tonight.  Have you ever had one of those really bad days (weeks...lives...you get my point) where just one more thing is going to make you burst? Well I had one of those today.  I am between a rock and a hard place with my job. Although I am totally qualified to do certain things - currently not within my job description - the powers that be will not reclassify me, nor will they fly the position so I can at least apply and take my chances at getting it permanently.  This has been a 4 year battle, which I am coming to the end of my rope on.  All I get to do is put prices into the computer for our book collection (Oh yeah, I can also add copies of books already existing in the collection). Can you imagine doing that for 8 hours straight every day?  It is totally mind numbing. I have no brain cells left.  All that analytical thinking is on idle. But I guess it's not totally bad because of that frustration I am back to my writing again - my therapy - in the evenings.  I just wish I had more time to do it in.

So back to the book minute.  I was so tired and just out of sorts, the last thing I wanted to do was stand up and promote myself.  At least if you're going to do it you should do it with aplomb, or finesse or at least confidence in yourself.  Tonight I had none whatsoever.  I hadn't had dinner and I really wanted to be anywhere else but there. There were some disappointed people...and to those of you who are reading this...I apologize.  Last week I would have been all over it.  What a difference a week makes!

And so many people tonight too, told me they want to read it, but don't have the time to go online and buy it.  So I guess what I will have to do is bite the bullet and order about 10-15 copies to sell.  Right now is really not the time for me to do this financially since the powers that be also decided (right before Christmas) that they didn't want to pay me anything extra to do the work of two people.  So I will take pre-orders and then order just that number (praying that no one forgets).  I get royalties irregardless of whether Joe Shmoe orders it or I do...so I guess that's what I will do.

Promotion...that will be my next topic.  The self-pity party is over....for now.

So I have wasted about $2.00 or more on return postcards. The first batch I sent out I got back about 1/4th. Last time I got three back, this time only one, but then I only mailed six (that's all the stamps I had left)

One of the things I did was search the bookstores online to be sure that they had some sort of address verification, either via a recent directory or a website. I'm also expanding my horizons into other states - of which I will never visit for a book signing, but would still be honored to have them stock my book.

I still need to make a list of local libraries, but at 29 cents per postcard it starts to add up, so I can only send a few at a time. I've sold about 20 books so far, not a fantastic showing, but not horrible either considering it only came out two months ago and I don't have the resources to spend hundreds of dollars on advertising.

So my trip to Salt Lake in April will be a combination of genealogy (probably land records) and research for book four. I don't know why I am so scattered lately, but yesterday was the first day I picked up the latest story to work on. It just seems there is so much to do when I get home and on the weekends it is too hard to set time aside to write. That in itself is incredibly frustrating. But then I still have two other titles waiting in the wings to be printed, and no agent or publishing house breathing down my neck for a finished product either. Maybe it's God's way of telling me to slow down some.

Right!

Okay, I need to do this before my DAR meeting and my computer was acting like a butt, and then I had to re-start it...UGH!

As I was surfing the net I came accross a scathing blog (I think that's what it was) or an editorial on the horrible grammar and punctuation found in POD publications. It was so mean spirited that I had to address it since I decided to print through a Print on Demand publisher.

I can't tell you how many times I have found glaring errors in books that are published by "legitimate" companies and by what we consider famous authors. Punctuation, dropped letters and in some cases sentences that should have been separated and weren't. I personally cannot condem these people since they had editors who were supposed to have edited their work and so did I (I had mine read by 5 different people - including a editor - and stuff still got missed!) 

Much of what happens is - in this age of word processing products - we rely a great deal on the computer helping to catch errors. Time constraints to publication also make editing an issue. There isn't a six month window when a person is dealing with hundreds of books...Also errors in any endeavor happen, whether it's writing, working, at home or in any other profession. We are human and stuff happens. In the grand scheme of life is a period instead of a comma, or a dropped letter in a word really going to make or break the story? I think not.

The person who wrote this piece blamed it on the POD authors for not "hiring" a professional editor. Does this person have any idea how much a "professional" editor costs? And as in my previous example, the people who do it daily for a living - and considered professionals - miss stuff too.

And why dump the entire thing on POD, just because there are more titles under POD on the market now  than the "legitimate" publishers we are familiar with; the ones that always seem to be the top 10 on the NY Times booklist. How many of us will ever see that spot? It's kind of like running for President. Unless you have a billion dollars, there is absolutely no way you would ever be able to run for that office (no matter how qualified you were), and without a ton of money there is no way in this life you would ever be able to compete with the big guns we know as the publishing industry.

So yes, I committed the horrible sin of having some punctuation errors. I promise that there will not be any (there has to be at least one :) in my next book. Everything in life is a learning experience, and for me this has been a mighty one. But if we don't take a chance to just put it out there, then there will never be anything other than the big guns to read.

So there!

The opening to this entry may seem a bit odd, but it makes total sense...once I explain it anyway. The South Bay Cities Genealogical Society does a book minute monthly, and the board decided it would be nice to have one of the board members feature An Old Fashioned Murder as the book of choice. My friend Pam who is currently the Membership Chair was chosen to do it, but she is so swamped with PTA stuff she hasn't had time to even sit down and read her copy. So they asked me to do the minute, after I assured them that I had read the book. LOL (yes, my children are rubbing off on me).

So my goal between now and next Wednesday is to think of a clever way to introduce the book without looking like it's a promotion (which I guess deep down it really is). So keep good thoughts for me as I prepare my own "Book Minute!"

Well no one is beating down my door for a book signing, and until my royalty statement arrives I have no idea if any bookstores have ordered it, or not. It is sort of frustrating because I would like to know who might be interested, or if anyone at all is. I have another batch of postcards to print and send. I guess I should make bookmarks too, something that I can pass out.

On the bright side I will be doing a book signing at El Camino College in May during their book sale. There will be at least three of us available to sell and sign. I am going to Salt Lake City for a genealogy trip in April, and then the Festival of Books is at the end of April. My oldest Lessa will be finishing up her last quarter at UCLA when we are there. She is applying to two colleges for their Masters of Information Science degree for the fall. I guess being in the middle of books is a genetic thing for us. Her fiancee just sold one of his stories to a journal, and my niece has sold two poetry pieces as well. It's kind of nice to keep all that writing in the family.

Oh yeah, the fourth book is titled A Steamboat to Murder. I decided to make it later in time, and flatboats were out of favor by then (1901). I guess I need to brush up on steam boat travel...just something else to add to the ol' brain like patent medicines, asylums and the Underground Railroad (and yes, those are all clues to the first three books!)