books | Bertram's Blog

I Had an Epiphany Today!

October 5, 2009 — Pat Bertram

For the past six to eight months, I’ve been trying to figure out how to sell books online. I’ve been roaming the internet, experimenting with various social networking sites, but everywhere I went I ended up in a writers’ community. Not that it’s a problem — I’ve met many fine authors, found some good books, learned much about writing. Still, I want my novels to find a readership, so I roamed further afield, signed up for some author/reader sites. And guess what — there I found those same authors. Finally I decided to spend my time on Goodreads and other book sites and have found mostly . . . yep. Authors.

I’m exaggerating here. Of course I’ve met readers, voracious readers. The problem many readers are struggling with is that they already have stacks of books to read, or they read constantly and can’t afford to buy all the books they want to read so they haunt libraries and used bookstores, or else they set up books blogs and do reviews and get so many free books they don’t need to buy any. Readers also tend to stick with a single genre and the authors they’ve already read. Many, of course, are adventuresome, and will try new books by new authors, but these readers are so overwhelmed by the incredible number of books available, that the chances of them finding your book are zero to zilch.

So, what do we poor authors do? Ah, here’s where I had my epiphany. Promote to non-readers! Sounds silly, doesn’t it? Think about it though. We all talk about there being so few readers in the world, yet DB has sold zillions of books. Who is he selling the books to? It has to be people who seldom read. Somehow, someone convinced those non-readers that they had to read his books, and they rushed out to buy the novels.

How does one reach these non-reading readers? If I knew that, my name would be as well known as Dan Brown’s.

Daughter Am I, my young woman/old gangsters coming of age adventure, will be available from Second Wind Publishing in two weeks!

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, life, writing. Tags: book promotion, Dan Brown, Facebook, Goodreads, non-readers, readers. 11 Comments »

Daughter Am I Is Finished!

October 3, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I received my final proof copy of Daughter Am I, my young woman/old-time gangsters coming of age adventure, and I’ve reluctantly agreed to let it go to the printer. There is always that moment when you realize this is it — you have to live with any mistakes that end up in the book. If there are any, though, it will be sheer accident. The novel went through several good editings, including a final scrubbing by Deborah J Ledford, fellow Second Wind author and editor extraordinaire. It was also scrupulously copyedited by Donna Russell, (creativemuse1(at)aol(dot)com) a treasure I found on Facebook. So my reluctance is more imaginary than real — the book is as perfect as I can get it.

When I received the final copy edits from Donna, she enclosed a note:

Thank you for the opportunity to edit your book, Daughter Am I. You certainly put a lot of time and effort into researching all of the historical elements, and did a good job incorporating them into the plot without overwhelming it. I learned several new things — Hegelian dialect, terms such as “lamster,” and a lot about guns, cars, and the Mafia. I personally enjoy it when an author sends me to the dictionary or encyclopedia (or Google). There were also many excellent lines in the book. I thought these were especially good:

“The loss of something that never was can be as devastating as any other loss.”

“They thought they could rule by fear, but when fear is around every corner, people lose their fear of the fear.”

“They worked in silence, their excitement so great it seemed to shimmer in the air like a heat mirage.”

“It’s odd—I never used to be aware of old people as real persons. I’m not stupid. I know they weren’t born old, but it didn’t occur to me that heroes and villains, killers and great lovers could be hidden in those feeble bodies.”

I also enjoyed your use of humor, and the way you developed the characters. It was nice to see Mary grow into a more confident woman, see her influence on the old gangsters, and the way she and they came to genuinely care for one another. You made me care about the characters. Have you considered a possible sequel? I can see the potential for more “adventures.” Anyway, just a thought.

Hmmm. A sequel. Could be interesting, but first I have to sell the original. Luckily, it will be released soon — maybe in two weeks. Sounds like a good excuse for a party!

Daughter Am I will be available soon (!) from Second Wind Publishing, LLC

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Posted in books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: coming of age novel, copy-editing, Daughter Am I, Deborah J. Ledford, Donna Russell, editing, Mafia, old-time gangsters. 12 Comments »

Researching Gangster Lore for Daughter Am I

September 30, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I have notebooks full of gangster lore that I collected when I researched Daughter Am I, my young woman/old gangsters coming of age novel. (I keep calling it that, but it’s so much more — a murder mystery, a treasure hunt, a romp through the middle of the United States with a young woman and a busload of irrepressible octogenarian rogues. “Snow White and the Seven Old Farts” as one of the villains called them.) As usual, I am digressing. Someday, perhaps, I will learn that just because I use parenthesis, it doesn’t give me the right to meander off topic. Or maybe it does.

Anyway, the point is, I was able to use only an iota of my notes. So many real-life characters never even got to be reborn in the person of one of my “elders.” (There’s a topic for discussion — what does one call a busload of aged men and women? I despise the term “senior citizens,” I have no fondness for “old folks” — the term, that is — and “golden- agers” is too nauseating. So I settled for “elders” with its nuance of wisdom.)

One such character I never used for my book was Jake “The Barber” Factor, who stole millions from people through stock market swindles and investment fraud. He worked as a bootblack when he was a boy, shining shoes outside of a barbershop. The price of a shine was two cents, but he’d tell unwary customers that he’d give them a “steamboat shine” for one cent. If the customer agreed, he’d polish one shoe until it gleamed, then he’d say, “There’s your steamboat shine, Mister. For a dime, I’ll shine the other shoe.”

Oscar Wilde once said, ” The Americans are certainly great hero worshippers, and always take heros from the criminal classes.” Well, perhaps not always, but most of us bear a grudging admiration for con men and women, mostly because they seem so much smarter than the rest of us. Or maybe they just have fewer scruples.

Daughter Am I will be released by Second Wind Publishing in the middle of October.

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Posted in books, culture, life, writing. Tags: "steamboat shine", con men, Daughter Am I, gangsters, history/myth, Jake "The Barber" Factor, Oscar Wilde. 2 Comments »

When Did the Realization “I Am an Author” Hit?

September 28, 2009 — Pat Bertram

A few months ago, another Second Wind author posted a question on a discussion group: When did the realization “I am a writer” hit?

I responded (incidentally, the answer still holds true): The realization that I am a writer hasn’t hit, and I’m not sure it will. I’m very involved with writing — I belong to various groups; I talk a lot about writing; and even when I’m not writing creatively, I’m writing: blogs and articles, comments and emails. But I don’t define myself as a writer. When you consider all that being a published writer entails — promotion, engendering good will, etc — writing is a small very small part of the whole.

If you were to ask the question: When did the realization “I am an author” hit? I can tell you exactly when it hit. It hit this afternoon.

The realization has nothing to do with a feel-good, puffed-chest, now-I-belong-in-the-ranks-of-the-published jubilation, and everything to do with . . . work.

Yep. Work. I’ve been spending most of the past week querying book bloggers to see if they would host my Daughter Am I virtual book tour, setting up a schedule for the few who responded, figuring out enough exciting (or at least undull) activities for the tour, planning my online book launch party, filling out an author interview, preparing articles about writing for a new ezine, checking the final proof copy of Daughter Am I, waiting for the edits of Light Bringer my fourth novel so I can turn it in, helping plan a celebration for the latest releases from my publisher (sorry, Daughter Am I isn’t included in this batch). And, oh yeah, trying to keep up with my blog, my discussion groups, and my emails.

Now, that makes me feel like an author — doing so much authory work. Too bad there’s no time for writing. But I’ll start again soon. After my tour, perhaps.

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Posted in blogging, books, internet, life, writing. Tags: "I am an author", blog tour, Daughter Am I, Second Wind Publishing, virtual book tour. 9 Comments »

My Fruitful Summer

September 25, 2009 — Pat Bertram

We are now officially into autumn, and where are the words I planned to write? Not in my head, not on paper. A Facebook friend emailed me the other day and asked if he could be part of the blog tour for my new book. All of a sudden it dawned on me that I have done no promotion for Daughter Am I, my young woman/old gangster coming of age tale. I’ve been so caught up in the edits, in making the book as perfect as possible, that I conveniently forgot that the finish line for one heat of the race is the starting line for another. To my dismay, I’ve discovered that getting published does not end the querying — I’ve spent the past few days trying to find bloggers willing to host my tour, and at the rate I’m going it will take many more days of querying to find enough hosts to make the tour interesting.

I did have a fruitful summer, though — I went to a u-pick cherry farm a mile down the road, (took pictures, have a great title for the photo essay, but the words to said essay are buried in the back cabinet of my brain with the rest of the words I’m not writing). I also picked plums — greengages — just a few yards from my house. Now that particular photo essay I managed to do while I was procrastinating on writing this discussion: Plum Tuckered.

Bear with me. There is a writing discussion in this.

All that fruit picking made me think that once upon a time food was free for the picking. Literally. That realization helped put me in my hero’s frame of mind — he is going to be living in the wild when I finally get back to my WIP. It also gave me a totem or token or symbol for the second part of the book (the token in the first part was a specific type of candy). And finally, it made me wonder about the use of fruit in stories. The only thing I remember about a certain book I read when young was a mention of greengages. “The children were sick from eating too many greengages.” That’s it. I don’t remember anything else — not the title, not the author, not the story.

So, has any fictional fruit made an impression on you? Eve’s apple, of course. Snow White’s apple. Apple sellers in the Depression era. Oranges in Victorian Christmas stories.

Has fruit ever played a part in anything you’ve written? Did you have a fruitful summer in any meaning of the word? What are you working on? How was your writing week? Did you accomplish what you wanted? Did you make any interesting discoveries? Did you have fun or was it a chore?

Let’s talk.

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Posted in blogging, books, culture, life, writing. Tags: apples in literature, book promotion, Daughter Am I, greengages, writing discussion. 5 Comments »

Research: When Good Books Go Bad

September 23, 2009 — Pat Bertram

Many good books go bad when the authors refuse to let go of any of their hard-won research and so dump it all in the novel, making the story drag. I have a tendency to put in a lot of information — though I don’t use all my research, not even most of it. In A Spark of Heavenly Fire, I talk (or rather my characters do) about biological weapons, biowarfare, bioengineered organisms because I thought the reality was more frightening than my fiction. For example, The World Health Organization spent years and a heap of money to eradicate smallpox, yet smallpox in ever more virulent forms is stockpiled in labs all around the world. Spooks the heck out of me!

But I digress. Daughter Am I, which will be released in October, was conceived as a way to combine two of my interests at that time — early gangster history and the mythic journey. (You might not recognize the similarity between Daughter Am I and Star Wars or The Wizard of Oz, but all three are based on the same mythic journey template.) In 2007, I entered the book into the first ABNA (Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award) contest, and my prize for being a semi-finalist was a review from Publishers Weekly. After giving a summary of the plot, the reviewer ended with:

While the author certainly researched the history of the Mafia, too many of the numerous historical asides — and subplots — are tacked on under the guise of story time, making the story drag with detail abut Wyatt Earp, the JFK assassination and bootleggers. But underneath the relentless bouts of story time is a delightful treasure-hunting tale of finding one’s self in a most unlikely way.

Too many historical asides? Eek! That was the whole point of the book! I tightened up the story, got rid of the asides that didn’t go directly to character or plot, but still felt a bit uncomfortable with the situation. When I mentioned my concern about the “info dumps” to fellow author Malcolm Campbell, he responded:

Your book is wonderful. Looking into one’s past is powerful stuff, but getting tangled up with a lot of lovable scam artists is a really fresh approach. Your wonderful characterizations—that’s another thing for discussion. It’s a challenge having lots of characters while keeping them from all sounding like oneself.

The “info dumps” as you call them add a lot of depth to the book and are informative and entertaining in their own right. They support the character telling the story. But also, they provided periods of “calm” in what is a frenetic quest that zooms from one unexpected thing to another without pause. We’ve seen “these gangsters” in dozens of movies, and for me, the archetypes are those of the 1940s films my generation grew up on—and that’s appropriate since these guys are elders. They’re a much different breed of cat than we see on modern, street-wise TV shows like, say, DARK BLUE which takes us undercover right into the worst of today’s gangs and thugs.

Whew!

(The first chapters of my books are included in the mystery sampler available as a free download from Second Wind Publishing. Click here: Free Downloads.)

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Posted in books, writing. Tags: 1940s gangsters, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, archetypes, Daughter Am I, free download, gangsters, Malcolm Campbell, Publishers Weekly, Second Wind Publishing, Star Wars, Wizard of Oz. 8 Comments »

Jock Stewart and The Missing Sea of Fire — Part I

September 21, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I added part one after the title because I know this is not going to be the only time I write about Jock Stewart. What a wonderful character! I hope you get to know him well.

I often talk about how jaded I am when it comes to reading. Apparently I am only jaded when it comes to the homogenized books published by the major publishers — I’m finding that many gems lurk in small independent presses. (Do gems lurk? Well, perhaps I should say gleam.) Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire by Malcolm R. Campbell is one such gem released by Vanilla Heart Publishing.

So much fun! Campbell staffs his books with characters such as Jimmy Exlibris who never takes his nose out of a book, and the reverend Cotton Mouth from the Church of the Painful Now. Even better, Campbell writes delicious puns. “While Monique’s dress was still in his closet, Monique was not present. He straightened the dress on the hangar and pulled up the zipper but found no closure.”

And I haven’t guessed yet what happened to the missing Sea of Fire.

Though Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire is thrilling enough to be a page turner, I am trying not to read too quickly because I want to savor every word. Which makes me wonder — is “page turner” really a compliment? Wouldn’t “page stayer” make an author feel proud that readers hated turning the page because they (the readers) knew that page is gone forever? Of course, the page is not gone forever. I am missing enough of Campbell’s slyness that I will have to read the book a second time to make sure I get every nuance.

Much as I enjoy spending time with you all, I’ve got a book I want to continue reading. Wishing you the same.

I almost forgot — Jock Stewart has his own blog: Morning Satirical News.

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Posted in blogging, books, writing. Tags: Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, Malcolm R. Campbell, page stayer, page-turner, thriller, Vanilla Heart Publishing. 2 Comments »

Okay, I Admit It. I’m Jealous.

September 18, 2009 — Pat Bertram

Jealous of whom? Need you ask? I bet if they were honest, most authors would also admit they were jealous of Dan Brown. Whatever one thinks of the man himself, the man as a story steller, the man as a wordsmith, the fact is, he wrote a book that is dazzling the world.

I only read The DaVinci Code because I was curious as to what captured people’s attention when it came to books. Though his prose is supposedly the worst thing since moldy bread, what I noticed were the internal inconsistencies — if the villain was so smart as to stay one step ahead of Robert and Sophie, if he was so smart as to figure out where they were going next and kill the person they wanted to contact, why wasn’t he smart enough just to kill the two of them and put us out of our misery? I don’t like books where the body count rises just to show how smart the hero is to stay alive. Cheap thrills, but apparently they work.

The internal inconsistencies were bad enough, but what drove me nuts were the external inconsistencies — though the cathedrals in France do hide a code, the code predates the cathedrals, predates Christianity even. The cathedrals were all built on ancient mystical sites, as was the Vatican itself. If the cathedrals themselves do contain a code, it is a manifestation of the prehistoric meaning. And then there was Sophie as the direct descendent of Jesus. Puh-leeze. A family tree is exactly that — an everspreading, ever thinning genetic branching. Even if Sophie was a direct descendent, her Jesus genes would be so minuscule as to be indistinguishable from yours or mine. (Go back twenty generations, and we’re all related.) I won’t even mention the possibility that Mary Magdalene never existed as a flesh and blood woman but, together with the other two Marys, was a manifestation of the mother goddess. And then, of course, I kept hearing echoes of a previous book I’d read — Holy Blood, Holy Grail — the book that he didn’t credit for his research.

Still, with all that, he captured the world’s attention, and now with his new book, for whatever reason, he is dazzling the world again. I wonder what that would be like? Must be nice.

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Posted in books, culture, life, writing. Tags: Dan Brown, Holy Blood Holy Grail, Mary Magdalene, The DaVinci Code, The Lost Symbol. 3 Comments »

Aaaarrrgggghhhh!!!!! Now I Have to Write a Review!

September 16, 2009 — Pat Bertram

While most of the world is talking about the new Dan Brown bestseller, Second Wind Publishing, LLC has quietly released a thriller of its own — Staccato by Deborah J Ledford. You won’t find all the elements that have become Brown’s hallmarks: cartoonish characters, amateurish prose, tin-ear for dialogue, internal inconsistencies. What you will find is a well-written, well-constructed story that will keep you enthralled.

The product description on Amazon says it better than I could: Performed against the backdrop of the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, Staccato transports readers to a behind-the-scenes glimpse of professional musicians, the psychological twists and turns of its characters, and in the end, retribution that crashes in a crescendo of notes played at the literary pace of a maestro’s staccato. The only drawback to Staccato is that it doesn’t come with a soundtrack — each meticulously chosen piece of music enhances the mood of the scene it accompanies, and unless you are much more informed about music than I am, you will miss some of the brilliance of this composition.

Readers are in for a treat, and me? Aaaarrrggghhhh!!! I have to write another review! Well, I don’t have to, but the book deserves all the attention it can get. So, I will add it to the stack of other books I’ve promised to review, yet haven’t:

Lacey Took a Holiday by Lazarus Barnhill
The Medicine People by Lazarus Barnhill
Steel Waters by Ken Coffman
Toxic Shock Syndrome by Ken Coffman
Mazurka by Aaron Lazar
Heart of Hythea by Suzanne Francis
and now, Staccato by Deborah J Ledford

Although all these books are much more literate, readable, and enjoyable than Dan Brown’s pap, the best I can come up with as a review for each of these deserving novels right now is, “Good book. I liked it and you will, too.”

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Posted in books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: Aaron Lazar, book reviews, Dan Brown, Deborah J. Ledford, Heart of Hythea, Ken Coffman, Lacey Took a Holiday. Lazarus Barnhill, Mazurka, Second Wind Publishing, Staccato, Steel Waters, Suzanne Francis, the Medicine People, Toxic Shock Syndrome. 4 Comments »

How Do You Choose the Books You Want to Read?

September 14, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I took an informal poll to find out how people discover new authors. (Hmmmm. Wonder why I’m interested in that!) I posted the following on discussion boards on both Goodreads and Facebook:

It seems as if there are as many ways of discovering books as there are readers, but I’m curious as to how you choose the books you want to read. Do you go by reviews? By recommendations from friends? Because you’re familiar with other works by the author? Do you ever read a book because of an ad you saw? Because of a blog article? Because of a mention on a website such as Goodreads? Do you cruise book stores, libraries, or online sites like Amazon? Do you find them some way I haven’t mentioned, such as gifts, perhaps?

Admittedly, the questions were loaded, but I still got an interesting and probably quite accurate overview:

Favorite authors or previously read authors: 36
Word of mouth: 26
Blog reviews/Book websites: 26
Goodreads/Shelfari: 24
Local bookstores: 21
Amazon/B&N/other online stores: 15
Library: 13
Publisher sites/newsletters: 5
Social networking sites like Facebook: 5
Book Clubs: 5
Author appearances/writing conferences: 5
NY Times bestseller list: 5
Offline reviews: 5
Yard sales/second hand bookstores: 4
Advertising: 3
Saw the movie: 3
Oprah: 1
Free downloads: 1
Gifts: 1

I’m not sure exactly what this means in terms of promotion, except that ideally you want to become everyone’s favorite author and have them recommend you.

How do you discover the books you want to read? Or rather where. (A lot of people said they found books to read by the front cover or the blurb on the back, but I’m more curious as to where they saw the cover.)