Post-Manuscript Journal, Part 3

About two weeks ago I learned my book is already available for pre-order on Amazon.  Woo-hoo!

I asked all my friends and relatives to order.  The idea, at this point, is to keep the numbers up.  Don't know how exactly Amazon calculates that stuff, but it's supposed to be important.

I've checked back on Amazon occasionally.  Last week I noticed my bio had been added.  Not the version I wrote exactly, either.  But not bad.

Today I notice the publisher has actually posted a description of the book.  Wasn't there before.  Surprising to me, since Skyhorse has only seen the opening chunk (same as anybody else who's followed this blog).

The book description is a tad cheesy, but I like it.  Hope my book lives up to it!

I haven't yet consulted with Skyhorse's publicist at all.  But it's heartwarming to know that somebody's been secretly working behind the scenes on my behalf!

More news as it develops…

http://amzn.to/th0krx

On platforms and prisons

Since I'm writing a memoir, I try to keep up on memoirs.

Lately, I've been reading Ari Steinberg's recently released Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian . A really good read. Funny, moving, sharply observed, energetic, and ripe for a TV spinoff.

I recommend it.

I was put on to the book by a friend. This same source told me that a TV deal is brewing (it's also on Steinberg's Facebook page). Which seems a natural, since it's basically a fish-out-of-water scenario.

In brief: A recent Harvard grad from an Orthodox Jewish family ends up taking a job as librarian and English teacher in a Boston-area prison.  A true story.

It's full of characters with kooky nicknames and outsized personalities. Inmates and prison guards alike. A mix of races and types. Pimp jokes galore! And lots of wry observations about how life on the inside often resembles life on the outside, and vice versa. Except when it doesn't.

Here's the thing: It's Steinberg's first book. Before publication, he had a few clips in the Boston Globe, apparently. That's about it. No "platform," as far as I can tell. That is, no proven audience. No following. No guaranteed sales.

Once he got the book deal, however, his byline began appearing on the DailyBeast, in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and elsewhere.

So the question on my (jealous?) mind is, how did this guy get a book deal when I can't?

In fairness, this book IS well written. I concede that it may be a much easier read than mine. Yet it also seems, well, fairly unimportant … an amusing, occasionally thought-provoking entertainment … a diversion. To me, it's not especially deep. It's a small story. Unusual, to be sure, and offbeat, but ultimately pretty safe territory.

When it comes to the vagaries of publishing and personal tastes, most people would just shrug. Still, I wonder.

Despite this book's breezy sheen, it's a memoir, not a novel. Though less gritty, it reminds me a little of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, a book I liked, actually. As you might recall, that's the one that caused a controversy when it was revealed the author made up most of the supposedly true tale.

I'm not saying Running the Books is a work of fiction disguised as a memoir--though I do notice it's the same publisher as Pieces', Doubleday's Nan Talese imprint.  By the way, when I contacted the house about my memoir-in-progress a while back, I was politely told mine "would not be a good fit for our list. We publish only literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, and your memoir sounds much too mainstream…"

These things always baffle me. Doesn't "mainstream" mean that it suits a lot of people, i.e., readers? And isn't that what having a "platform" is supposed to mean, too--that you'll have lots of readers?

Speaking of readers, you should know that I've had about 50 pre-orders for my unfinished book. Which is great! Thank you, all!

But as ever, we need more to put this over. A lot more.

Maybe it's true that there's no pleasing me!

Part 3 of "Miracle Boy"

Here's the next installment of my memoir-in-progress.  Hope you like it!

***

"Today my little brother fell out of his wheelchair and dropped his fire engine."



This is what Alec writes in his first-grade composition book one spring weekend when I'm three. He writes it after Dad takes me to the Lamston's under our apartment, on York Avenue at 79th Street in New York City. It's one of my first outings in my new, shiny, green-upholstered wheelchair. Up till then much of my life experience is from the perspective of Mom's slim hip, Dad's long arms, a baby stroller or the sofa, wedged with pillows. But soon I'll be starting nursery school—at Riverside Church, the only regular nursery school in the city that will take a physically handicapped kid in 1966—so I have to get a proper wheelchair.


I like Lamston's. I've been there before. Our housekeeper / baby-nurse Inez has taken Alec and me a few times. Inez is strict. She's what I understand is called an Egro. She and other Egro baby nurses and maids meet at the Lamston's lunch counter to eat and smoke and gossip.


Today Dad says I can buy a toy at Lamston's if I'll be quiet and behave. It's not hard to choose. I want a Matchbox car. When Dad is done shopping, I remind him of his promise and he pushes me to the toy aisle. But the Matchboxes are on a high shelf. Too high for me to see well from my wheelchair. Dad undoes my seatbelt and lifts me up for a better look. He's strong and tall, and with him I feel safe and have no boundaries.


I pick a small fire engine. I don't have any in my collection, and I want one because fire engines can go anywhere. They have no boundaries.


I clutch the little hook-and-ladder in my small hand as tightly as I can.


On the walk home Dad abruptly decides on a detour. Instead of pushing me around the corner at 79th Street he makes a sharp left toward the garage under our building. "A change of scene," he says. The steep ramp down is dark and cool as we get closer. The descent begins, and I feel its pull beneath me. Dad holds tight to the handles of my wheelchair. The downward pressure intensifies. Before I know what's happening I'm tumbling out of my wheelchair onto the hard, oil-stained incline. And I keep rolling ... out of control, on my own, a rag doll without enough muscle to stop myself ... until I bump against a side wall and just lie there.


I don't remember crying. I don't remember hurting. I disappear into my brain. I remember thinking—having an acute, reflexive alertness to my surroundings and taking a kind of mental inventory of where I am and how I'm feeling. An out-of-body alertness. There is nothing else I can do. I'm too stunned to hurt or cry. I can't move anything—I never can—but I can be aware and wholly conscious, an omniscient observer. Then Dad is there, beside me, asking how I am, touching me, examining me for damage and scooping me up off the garage floor and placing me back in my chair. This time he remembers the seat belt.


He keeps asking if I'm okay. This is when I start to cry. A few heaves at first, then gushes. He rushes me upstairs, to our apartment, to Mom. I can't stop crying, though I try. I become breathless.


"There, there," says Mom, taking me into her arms. She quickly turns practical. "Stop your crying and tell me what hurts."


I can't stop bawling and haven't a chance of answering. She holds me still a moment and it feels warm and lovely. Then Mom sees a bump on my head. I mutter about my finger and try to produce my right hand. Its ring finger is swollen and rosy-purple and aching. Mom calls for ice, which Dad promptly delivers. My weeping subsides, replaced by a youch at the touch of ice to my scalp.


"You'll be fine," Mom declares.


She puts the ice to my finger and looks up at Dad with lightning bolts.


[Next installment in a day or two, whether you want it or not...]

RAMPING UP, so to speak...

My agent said to improve my platform.

It seems the publishers who expressed the most interest in publishing my book held off for one primary reason: I'm not well known. How can I reassure them my book will stand out in the already crowded shelf of memoirs?

For me, this was a new use of the word "platform." As in a platform from which to launch book sales, I guess. If not fame, then a public-speaking circuit or organization that would guarantee a certain number of bucks' coming in.

So rather than going through yet another rewrite to tantalize publishers, my mission became to boost interest in me, who I am, what my story is, and what I've got to say.

The best way for someone like me to do this is to write. And write, and write. I could pretend one of my kids had gone up in a balloon, but that'd send the wrong message. Right?

The Internet makes self-promotion easy and inexpensive. I already had a Web site to serve as a sort of portfolio of published work. The idea being, when I approach magazines with story ideas I don't have to enclose photocopies of clips and tear sheets, as in the old days. I can pitch ideas by e-mail, with a link to my site, which in turn is linked to my writing samples.

I already had a Facebook account, for no better reason than everybody does.

I had thought for some time about blogging but couldn't see the point. If my writing is going to go out to the public, I want it to be for pay. After all, I'm a pro.

Nevertheless, I did have some columns that never sold and probably never would. So I put them on a blog. As I kept writing columns and sending them out, I amassed even more blog material.  Sure, some got published, but the rest got blogged. Gradually, I thought of more and more things that seemed blog appropriate. Nothing worth polishing for print or pitching to an editor. Just stuff I found interesting.

For this most recent NPR piece, my editor asked if I wanted to refer listeners to my blog. This never came up before, my last NPR Commentary being four years ago, when the blogosphere was young. I didn't think much of the blog I had, but why not? Sure enough, some NPR listeners did go to my blog. And they liked it. (At this point, you're probably wondering why...)

Then a friend suggested I link my Facebook page to my blog, to increase traffic. Brilliant! (Thank you, Steve.)

The result: In the five days since my most recent NPR Commentary aired , the number of people who signed on to follow this blog jumped from 1 to 27 and counting. I've added 30 names to my e-mail list of people to notify about future columns, so it's now near 125. I have many new Facebook friends. And a whopping 875 people have visited my Web site!  That's 175 a day, a new record for me, by far.

So, bottom line: Hooray!  I'm encouraged. I'll keep writing essays in hopes of making those numbers even bigger. And then we'll tell publishers, If this many people respond to short essays, imagine how many my book can generate!