BOOKS IN BLOOM ET AL

Radine Trees Nehring and Velda Brotherton at Books in Bloom

Photo by John Nehring

The past week has been a busy one for us. I ran out of copies of my book, The Boston Mountains: Lost in the Ozarks, and had to conduct a book signing without them. Everyone ordered books and I delivered them this morning to the library where we met. Everyone happily said they didn’t mind coming back and picking them up. The books arrived at 3 o’clock that same afternoon.

Thursday night we drove to Ft. Smith to have a signing and talk at the Miller Branch of the Ft. Smith Library system. Anita Paddock is the librarian there, and a good friend from the old days when we all were struggling to begin our writing career. She always does a bang up job. When I arrived she showed me a chocolate cake one of the women had baked from my grandmother’s recipe for her wedding cake, which my grandmother baked herself. She served it to all in attendance, even though my cookbooks where the recipe appears still haven’t arrived. It was delicious.

Early Friday morning we left for Branson and an all day signing at T. Charleston in the Grand Village next to the Grand Palace on the strip. It rained all day so signing outside on their lovely patio was out. We met some nice people from all over the country who braved the rain to come out and shop.

Saturday morning we attended Ozark Writer’s League and had a wonderful time. It’s super to see old friends. The fun part of the day was the auction led by Dusty Richards and Cotton and I’ve forgotten Cotton’s last name. Both auctioned off all the goodies donated by the same people who turned around and bought “stuff.” They set a new record in earnings that will be used to bring more terrific and informative speakers to the meetings in the future.

I pitched my women’s fiction novel, Jeremiah’s Legacy, to an editor from St. Martin’s Press and had good response, so off the manuscript will go to New York. Though I have two books out this year, I haven’t been with a New York publisher in a while. Somehow, it seems important to me to keep trying because I so enjoy writing fiction along with the nonfiction books and articles. If they take the book I will write character interviews, chapter excerpts and the like on my blogs and website. Early promotion is a must to build a buzz.

I hope you consider early promotion of your work a necessary part of your writing career.