Authors Electric

Sooner or later we all need to learn how to STUFF IT properly. Stuff a package or a query or an email, on which your world depends, with not just words but little touches of your exceptional soul.  Above you see the stuffing used to get my little book into the hands I need to reach.  1) A pack of 9 colorful rolls of  masking tape. 2) One of many 6x9" envelopes. 3) One sheet of envelope seals  4) Front and back sides of the card accompanying each package 5) One gift bag containing two copies of the book 6) Two promotional post cards inserted in each book Now let's break the stuffing down into stages. I. Artfully stuffing the gift bag . Bag quality was critical. And the size had to be right for two copies of my 55-page book while promising a worthy gift. Inside each book I'd enclose two soft-sell promotional post cards. 2. Artfully sealing the gift bag. Now for the masking tape. The gift bag had perfect side fitting, but I was left with a flap to fold over and this tor...

  Oh, They have a long list of reasons why the book that's your baby belongs in the casket they've already made. It's too short/long/purple/plain/commercial/literary/off-the-wall/common...or to put it simply: I've spent the past year on a project that had Too-Too all over it before I'd even started. And yet I continued with some trepidation. But, as I continued, I grew more defiant. I also grew more confident that there was a market for my project: seven radical renditions of poems by one lesser-known Roman poet--'inspired-by covers ' instead of conventional translations. I envisioned a book totaling maybe 50 pages, including commentaries that I hoped would be half of the fun. Since nothing like this book exists, it might have a fighting chance if I remembered E. Lynne Harris.   Harris was a bisexual black author who self-published this first book in 1991. Like other authors in those pre-Web days, Harris drove around in a car loaded with copies. But unlike o...