May 14, 2008: The Power of Fan Mail

In my travels to author conferences, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard variations on this same speech: “You’ve Written Your Book. Now What?”

I can tell them “what.”

“What” is, if you’re lucky, handing over your intellectual property that you’ve spent an inordinate amount of time nurturing to some person at a publishing house whose last creative thought, mercifully, went down on the first flush of the bowl. “What” is watching others co-opt your vision and turn it into something you don’t recognize while you stand helplessly by.

“What” is, once your intellectual property is pushed out into the world, doing everything you can to ensure that you can find an audience who would love reading your story just as much as you enjoyed writing it. This might involve spending the GDP of a small nation on publicity, marketing, conferences, signage, samplers, tours, and anything else that might help you grab the attention of a population that has the attention span of a hummingbird on a Starbucks triple espresso.

For me, the ultimate high is making a connection with people through something that I created. Unfortunately, as many of us authors painfully realize, that desire gets lost in a sea of agents, editors, biannual royalty statements, the disbelief of the numbers on said royalty statements, Publishers Lunch and who’s gotten a better deal than you have, self-promotion, and, as one of my Blogging In Black colleagues said in a recent post, the voices inside of your head that you just cannot shut up, the voices of characters in the book you’d write if you could find a few minutes in the day so that the Muse may appear. In other words, more “what.”

Add this to the fact that most of the authors I know are creative people trying to navigate the soullessness expanse of Corporate America and the denizens inhabiting it. Throw a significant other, kids, and/or a pet into the mix, and soon – hypothetically speaking, of course – you’re sitting up late at night with an icy tumbler of Bacardi Select and Coke, pondering the crossroads at which you find yourself. The Dream versus Reality.

From my past posts, you know that I’ve been standing at this crossroads a lot lately, asking myself the hard questions late at night, when all is quiet. Fortunately for me, it is around that time that I also check my e-mail. At the crossroads late on April 29 of this year, I opened an e-mail entitled “Back to Life.” It went a little something like this:

Good evening Wendy,

OH MY GOODNESS... I just want to thank you for creating such a
wonderful and inspiring novel. You truly have an amazing gift. I have read my share of novels and I must say this one was incredible from the start....and I could not put it down. I literally just finished reading it and I had to Google you so I can send you this message. I hope you continue to write ...and I will happily read.

Thanks again for such an amazing story...You don’t know how your
work really touches the life of others. Thanks for restoring my faith in
happily ever afters.

M.

Fan mail like this makes both the “what” and my tenure at the aforementioned crossroads a bit bearable. Because of M. and people like her with whom I’ve made that connection, I able to think that the road leading to The Dream may just trump the rutted road of a reality that truly bites. Because of M., I am able to ponder taking the road less traveled.

April 14, 2008: Calculating ROI

Hey, y’all.

Now on to my latest rant, which is rather timely, considering that taxes are due tomorrow. If Three-6 Mafia thought it was hard out here for a pimp, they should’ve tried being mid-list authors. I’ve done so many talks about how, as an author, it was my dream to get a major book deal and get to The Show. Little did I realize that what I was doing as a self-published author was only the dress rehearsal for The Show. Two books in, it’s like I’m a self-published author, but with better distribution. It’s no secret that mainstream publishers spend hardly any money on publicity for a mid-list author. It’s the literary equivalent of throwing pasta up against the fridge and seeing if it’ll stick – without spending any money on a fridge. It’s up to you as the author to ensure that your baby, this tale that you’ve slaved over to make it just right, finds an actual audience.

To accomplish this, I’ve done some things that I never thought I’d do. I was watching the final season of HBO’s The Wire recently. One of the women in a Narcotics Anonymous-type support group said that a drug addict should never make a list of things she would never do to score drugs. Because, in the end, all you’re doing is making a list of the things you will actually do once you start fienin’. I likened that revelation to this quest to get my stories told. I’ve asked myself if what I’m doing is an addiction. After all, I’ve done some things that people who aren’t in this business think are just plain stupid. Cases in point. I’ve refinanced my house to pay for my marketing and publicity. I’ve driven from New York to Philly, selling only three books for all my trouble. I’ve traveled countless miles, in various and sundry weather events, in pursuit of this dream. I don’t even want to discuss the debt from that labor of love called The Book Squad. Every year, though, when I do my taxes, I look at what I’ve spent on marketing and PR, shake my head, and say, “Naw, that amount can’t be right!”

2008 promises a more hyped promotional juggernaut. Two literary tours (the Divine Literary and the Femme Fantastik), and at least three conventions to date – all with crazy registration fees and travel and accommodation expenses. Don’t get me wrong; I love writing. I love meeting people who love writing and reading as much as I do. I’ve met people who’ve told me that my books are on their Top Ten Favorite Books of All Time list, which does what’s left of my ego a world of good. That aside, am I less committed to my craft and to my fans if I ask myself when will I see some return on investment, or ROI? It’s got to happen eventually, right? I mean, wasn’t Jeff Bezos hemorrhaging money until the little company he’d started in his garage called Amazon.com turned the corner? John Grisham was selling A Time to Kill out of his trunk until he wrote The Firm and hit the mother lode. For God’s sake, Brad Pitt was the El Pollo Loco chicken before he hit it big. The point is, though, all of the aforementioned hit it big. They got ROI. When does it happen for an author in general and for me in particular?

This question especially troubles me now, as it is a certainty that we’re going to have layoffs at the Plantation. The price of gas hit an all-time high last week. Life is getting bleaker with every news cycle. There comes a time when one has to take her woman pill and become a realist.

That is until I get the next e-mail inviting me to the next conference, and I check my bank account to see if I can attend. That is when I really start to wonder if I am truly addicted, if I’m stupid enough to actually start making that list of things I won’t do to further this dream. Because, like Old Girl on The Wire, we know how that story ends, don’t we…?

February 17, 2008: Writer Masturbation: Not So Good For Anymore...

The year was 2002. I’d self-published Back to Life, put up a web site, and set about getting my name out there. From that moment on, I started my day with three solitary activities that brought me earth-shaking ecstasy. This, my writer masturbation, if you will, took the form of a) plugging my name into Google and seeing the number of hits I got; b) checking my rank on Amazon.com; and c) checking my rank on Barnes and Noble.com.

Oh, like I’m the only one who does this. Just like how only other people engage in that other form of auto-eroticism. Okay. Go on and take the delusory high road if you want to at my expense.

For those of you who don’t engage in the aforementioned three activities, trust me when I say it’s highly addictive. Every day, like the rat in the behaviorist experiment who presses the bar repeatedly, sometimes with an accompanying nasty shock until its food pellet shoots out, I check my Google hits and my rank on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com. When a mainstream house republished Back to Life in 2004, writer masturbation began in earnest. I’d do it three… four… sometimes five times a day… slamming on that bar… waiting for the gratification that would send the adrenaline flowing through my body on tiny electrical currents… stimulating my amygdala. Between escalating sale numbers, Google hits in the tens of thousands, and the resultant orgasmic sense of euphoria, I, heading toward carpal tunnel syndrome at full speed, asked myself, “Who needs a man?!”

Flash a head four years. The steady paycheck from The Plantation is beginning to trump the uncertainty of dreams. I’m in publishing limbo, in terms of having a new release any time soon (we discussed this in a previous monthly therapy sessions on the 17th day of the month, remember?). My Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com numbers aren’t what they used to be. Fair weather friends have come and gone. Although you have to ask yourself how what sane person would be a star***ker to a writer anyway. We’re like Dr. Pepper – so misunderstood.

But I hang on to my morning writer masturbation ritual, even though my act is starting to sound like the actual sex that my married friends have with their husbands – half-assed, perfunctory, with very little in the way of the satisfaction afterwards. I do it, because I still get a decent number of Google hits. I still have a rank that’s comparable to many of my peers out there with two books on the market. Unlike the dull married sex, thousands of people like me. They really like me. Plus what I do fulfills me. Yes, I worry about pleasing someone else, but my needs always come first. I “get mine” first. I bet my next royalty check that my married friends can’t say that. They may think it, but that’s a whole different story… mercifully one that I don’t have to tell.

For these reasons alone, come the morning (no pun intended!), you know where you’ll find me… on the computer… doing my thing. Because I know that one day, writer masturbation will be good to me again as it was that very first time. Perhaps even better…

February 4, 2007: Good Vibes All Around

I'm still on a hell of a high, after watching the Giants beat the Patriots like a rented mule to win Super Bowl 42. I've waited seventeen years for this moment. The fact that the punctured the Patriot Pomposity made it all the sweeter. Bill Belichick left skidmarks, before the game was even over, as he rushed off the field and into the Sore Loser Hall of Fame. I hope he was taping that exit. Karma is such a bee-otch!

Then today, Lori Bryant Woolridge, my good friend and fellow Fantastik Femme, forwarded me this video. It's not secret that I am a proud and practicing Democrat. I also haven't been shy about who I intend to vote for in the Virginia Democratic primaries on February 12 and on the first Tuesday in November of this year.

This video comes from Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas fame, along with a few guests. Check it out; it's amazing:

Yes, We Can/ Si, se puede.

January 24, 2008: RIP, Karibu

Imagine my complete and utter astonishment when I opened my e-mail and received this missive, date January 22, 2008:

Dear Karibu Customer,

After 15 years of service within the Washington, DC metropolitan area, Karibu Books, a Black bookstore chain will be closing its doors. We sincerely thank each and every one of you for your patronage and support. We are optimistic that our mission to empower and educate through a comprehensive selection of books by and about people of African descent will continue to resonate within the communities we proudly served.

Since 1993, we have been blessed to help thousands of local, regional and national authors share their incredible stories of faith, hope, love, peace, politics and race. We cannot begin to express our gratitude for the countless authors who have graced our six stores and enriched our customers’ lives.

On Sunday, January 27th, We will be closing our Security Square (Baltimore, MD) and Forestville locations. The remaining locations, Bowie Town Center, The Mall at Prince Georges and Iverson Mall will close on Sunday, February 10th. Our Pentagon City store is already closed.

Effective immediately, all inventory at all locations will be 50% off. All fixtures will also be available for purchase on February 10th. See individual store managers for more information.

Again, we respectfully thank you for your loyalty, laughter and love. What an honor and privilege it has been to serve our community!

Sincerely,
Simba Sana
CEO
Karibu Books

Let the bloodletting begin.

I don't know if folks understand the ramifications of this loss to the book-buying communities and to authors like myself who aren't pulling down J.K. Rowling-like numbers.

Where I can hardly find any books on issues concerning people of color, or books by authors of color in the evil chain bookstore just up the street from me, I never have a problem locating what I needed at Karibu. Where the same evil chain, less a mile from my home, requires people to special order my books, Karibu stocks my work at their six locations.

I had a signing at the Karibu store in P.G. Plaza in the fall of 2004 for my book Back to Life. I couldn't put my signature on the title pages fast enough before the books would go flying out the building. The staff was always helpful and courteous, always making me like I was more than just some lowly midlist author. Signings at a Karibu store were more like hanging out with friends and less like actual work.

The venues in the DC-area for books by people of color have been dwindling as of late. Reprints in L'Enfant Plaza shut its doors. So has Sisterspace. Now Karibu. I pray that this isn't the first note of the death knell for independent bookstores in general, and of those for folks of color in particular. As both an author and a person of color, I couldn't and wouldn't want to imagine a world so horribly deprived.

Greetings from Bootleg University

I have to share, y’all…

So, I am answering my e-mail on the first Monday of the New Year – “minding my own bidness,” as Eddie Murphy would say – when I open the following e-mail from my alma mater, Bootleg University (obvious, though apropos, not its real name; all names are withheld or changed to protect anonymity):

Dear Dr. Coakley-Thompson,
President [Name Withheld] of Bootleg University was invited to the inauguration of Robert Franklin, Jr. as the tenth president of Morehouse College in Atlanta on Friday, February 15, but… is unable to attend. Is there any chance you would be interested in attending as the University's representative?
Yours,
[Redacted]


I confess; I am both honored that they’d thought of me and curious as to why… all at the same time. After all, when I’d attended the university, I wasn’t even a mere blip on the radar screen there. I also have a love/hate relationship with the place. Never known to nurture talent, this is the same university who, rumor has it, told a certain popular action film star (hint: his ex is married to a much younger man, with whom he’s friends) to hang it up and find work in some other field. Rumor also has it that they’d told another theater student that she’d never amount to nothing. Years later, she became one of the breakout stars of a famous Black musical co-writen by Ossie Davis. I rest my case.

Nonetheless, curiosity devours me whole. I send the following missive in response:

Good evening, [Redacted].
I am honored that you are considering me to be the University's representative on such a monumental occasion. I am certainly interested in attending but remain curious at to what representing the University would entail.
Please feel free to reach me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to discuss this further.
Best,
Wendy Coakley-Thompson, Ph.D.


[Redacted] does, indeed, call, and we discuss the proposition on the table. It turns out that our chronically wrong Alumni Association has told him that I still live in Atlanta. When I tell [Redacted] that I’ve relocated back to DC, he asks if I’d consider flying down to represent the president at the graduation, at the ensuing convocation, and at the concert on graduation night. I’m thinking a free trip to the ATL, during which, after my spokes model duties, I could drop into my old haunts and sign a few books… perhaps host a reading or two. “Sure,” I say.

[Redacted] and I hang up, all simpatico. “Thanks very much for agreeing to represent Bootleg University,” he says in a subsequent e-mail, then asks for my updated contact info, which I happily give. Moreover, [Redacted] and I are now on a first-name basis now. I e-mail back promptly:


Hi there, [Redacted].
Good talking to you today.
I'm happy to represent my alma mater. I'm sure we'll be working out all of the transport and accommodation details as the time approaches… Let's talk again soon.
Best,
Wendy


Simpatico evaporates like water in the Mojave Desert, though, when I get [Redacted’s] next e-mail:

To read the rest, check out the January 17, 2008 entry on Blogging in Black...

January 1, 2008: Wishing You a Happy New Year

Just a shorty to extend peace and blessings to you for this New Year, 2008.

Keep watching this space and travel with me for what I hope will be a year of numerous successes in reaping the fruits from a field well tilled...