Promoting my book, business cards.

Well today I gave out a total of 1 card about my book information. I had plenty of opportunity at church and at the coffee shop to pass out my cards and promote my book but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I wouldn’t have given out this one card if the person hadn’t said to me, “I heard you wrote a book.” Stepping out of the comfort zone of my family and friends was a little harder than I anticipated. Even though my friends make comments about my book they will be there for me and will buy a copy. Their comments prepared me a bit for future rejection. Even the friend who said, “Who the *#****## wants to read a book about Lal.” He said about a month ago I’ll buy a book but I’m not going to any wine and cheese book signing. I don’t like wine.” I’m sure he will be there. I still have some time to change his mind.
I have never liked being the center of attention. I belonged to organizations and worked on many committees and had great ideas and suggestions but I always avoided the speaking and such and stayed in the background.
I got other people to pass out my cards. Again I managed to stay in the background. My mother in law and sister in law came over for a visit and I gave each of them a pile to pass out. Then I called my daughter and gave her a pile to pass out. All the cards are gone.I think I will work on a flyer and hang it in the post office and the coffee shop and where ever. I’m not ready for this one on one promoting outside of my family and friends.

Promoting my book.

Well I decided to get serious about promoting my book while I wait for my cover to be completed. I am stepping way out of my comfort zone! I have never liked to sell things and ask people if they wanted to buy something. When my kids sold things for fund raisers I bought their share instead of having them bother friends and relatives. I have eaten more fund raising pop corn, candy bars, and nuts than I care to mention. I have tons of wrapping paper, Christmas cards, and I could light a candle everyday for the next twenty years.
It took 6 months of Tom encouraging me to finally start this Blog. According to recent reports this is suppose to be the new and upcoming way to promote your book.
My family and all of our relatives that I have talked about the book with support me. But some of our close friends are a different story. For the last year I have been asking our very close friends of many years if they would buy a book I was writing and some of their reactions were: “Who the *#***## wants to read a book about Lal?” “What could you possibly write a book about?” “Why do you want to write a book?” “Who cares about what you did.” “How long is the book going to be? I don’t like to read big books.” These are the comments from the people who love me. What are the people going to say who don’t really know me? For awhile I was crushed but now I am a little better at accepting rejection.
A while back when I sent articles to magazines, I told a friend of mine when we were shopping at the book store. Later she pointed to a book and said, “You better buy this book.” The title was “How to Accept Rejection” The magazines sent back my articles with a note saying this isn’t what we are looking for.Tom made business cards with my book title and information about my web page and Blog. I will give these to friends and acquaintances when I run into them.

Cover count down

Well, I’m counting days again. It has been 1 week and 3 days since they started working on my cover. They said it would take 3 to 5 weeks to complete my cover. A part of me is expecting an E-mail from them saying my pictures for the cover are a little harsh on Tom and I should chose a picture that showed some of his charm. I should have informed them in advance that Tom picked out one of the pictures for the cover. In fact when I was writing the book, Tom reminded me about some stories that I had forgotten about. All of the stories in my book have his sign of approval.

It’s all about the Name or is it?

This is my birth name Elizabeth Jane Wolfe. I was named after my grandmothers. I have grandma Eiler’s middle name Elizabeth and grandma Wolfe’s middle name Jane. I cringe at the thought of mom naming me their first names instead of their middle names. I would have been named Hilda Cora Wolfe. Anyway, when I married I became Elizabeth Jane Lally.
I have been practicing writing my name for my book signing. I have it down to two forms of my name and I am pondering over which name to put on my book cover. I thought Liz Lally would be catchy and it kind of flows when I write it. However Elizabeth Jane Lally has a hint of sophistication. But I never heard anyone ever describe me as being sophisticated. Should I add a little sophistication to my personality and be Elizabeth or should I be my humorous self and be Liz? My name and personality has gone through stages of change and development and I want my author name to illustrate this new part of my life.
I have been called a lot of names in my lifetime and not all of them I care to mention. However I am mostly called Betty. When I was a child everyone in my neighborhood called me Betty Jane and they still do to this day. When I was in the sixth grade my friends and I decided to change our names so I became Bess. Around this time the boys started to get a little obnoxious and tease us girls and since my last name was Wolfe they would howl like a wolf to get my attention. In ninth grade we decided we needed another name change so I became Bet. Then we thought it would be cool to call each other by our initials so I became BJ. In our senior year we decided we needed one more name change so I became Liz. At work and at Penn State I was called Elizabeth. After I married Tom some of our friends called me Lal.
When I started to write my book I felt like Liz should be my name but now that my book is almost finished I’m not sure how I want my name on the cover of my book.
Now which name should I put on the cover of my book?
Elizabeth Jane Lally or Liz Lally.

Does color really make a difference?

Today I am wondering about what colors they will use to make my cover. Will they suggest colors or will I pick out the colors I like? What color makes a best selling book?
My book is a humorous book. Is there a color used for humor? What about romance novels, murder mysteries, religious books, or how to books is there a color for each or do they just randomly pick a color. Does it really make a difference?
Some people have spent much time studying colors and how they affect people. Tom was telling me just the other day about an article he read about the different colors and what mood they were suppose to put you in. But I have my doubts about this theory because when I’m happy, angry, sad, disgusted, ambitious or lazy color has nothing to do with my mood. I could go in and out of all the colors in the rainbow and still be happy, angry, sad, disgusted, ambitious or lazy. Many other factors enter into my mood and color is not one of them. Especially when I’m in my romantic mood it’s usually dark and I have my glasses off so I couldn’t see a color even if I had too. However, if anyone has a tip on a color that will put people in a mood to buy my book; let me know. I’m open for suggestions. Just what color could that be?

Cover Copy Polish

I sent my manuscript in for the third time and the next step for it is to be proofread before publication. Now they are working on the cover of my book. This should take three to five weeks. I sent in two pictures and hope they can convert them into cartoons and put them on the cover. Tom picked out one picture and I picked out another one. Hopefully they will accomplish what I envision. Tom has approved everything I have written and does all the technical part of my preparation for publishing. I don’t know why the editors have commented; “Does Tom know you wrote this?” everyone seems concerned about poor Tom. What about me? The person that lives with this cartoon character and his Lally Logic.

The line edit is complete!

While I was typing my blog on Tuesday my publisher was sending me my edited manuscript. It took exactly two weeks and two days for my line edit. When I took a close look at the manuscript and all the instructions to go to the words view, toolbar, review, tools, track, changes, accept, or reject I became a little overwhelmed. My whole low-tech being immediately went into overload and shut down. I have never clicked on these words before. They are at the top of the screen. I only used tools before to check my spelling.
It took me a whole day to settle down. Every page was filled with red lines pointing out grammar mistakes. I did not even know that I was so grammatically ignorant! I started to wonder if I was the only one who was lacking in this area so every time I came upon a friend I questioned them about their knowledge of dangling participles, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and past perfect tense. And in my circle of friends not one knew what I was talking about. They just gave me a blank look and said, “What?” I guess out there somewhere people will be bothered by my dangling participles along with my editors so I will make the corrections. Especially when my book is a best seller and I’m a famous author I guess I want to be grammatically correct. I just hope they don’t want me to be correct in other areas. I thank it’s a little late for me to go to charm school.
This editor also felt that I was a little harsh on Tom and wanted me to portray him as a little more charming. I already sprinkled the book with some of Tom’s charm when the evaluation made this same suggestion, but apparently not enough. So this was the hold up of my editing and getting back to my blog I was painstakingly trying to sprinkle some of Tom’s charm throughout the book again. They don’t understand that finding Tom’s charm is like finding a needle in a haystack!
Tom said I could push one button and accept the changes instead of addressing one at a time after I addressed the comments by the line editor. Thank goodness!
Today I am grateful that Tom has a room full of the latest high-tech gadgets. He has the latest technology in computers and knows how to use all the programs. I devoted a whole chapter to Tom and his gadgets in my book. Technology is another area where Tom and I are complete opposites. He has to be on the cutting-edge-of-high-technology and I am as low as I can go in technology.
To anyone out there reading my blog who cares about dangling participles and the such, I apologize! I am overwhelmed in the grammatically correct area. I tried but there are too many rules! I will leave that to my editors.

Liz is conquering Grammar!

Liz is defeated by Grammar!
Liz has left the building!