Up-catchings

It is nice that some readers have missed my blogs! Yesterday was another day too full of necessary activities to have a blog ready today. Generally I write my blog the day before posting, and keep it in the word processor till posting time. (That gives me a copy for future material to dig a book out of, and in the opposite order, which the book would need.) But last night that was impossible.

Although the sky is currently a bit overcast, it seems a great day, for I slept till almost 9:30 (went to bed at almost 2:00 A. M.), and so far as I recall, have no engagements out today. I keep thinking of the family, of course, and still ache over the loss of little Johnny, and trust that all of those in the air on return flights are and will be safe. Just think, Melissa, my granddaughter-in-law, will have circled the globe by the time she gets back to Tripoli. Not only that, but little Rocco will have circled the globe before the age of one! Something to tell his grandchildren someday.

Before I arose today, the telephone beside my bed announced a toll free call. I did not take it. When I checked the message in the kitchen, I learned this call was from my publisher with its hundreds of employees—I think hundreds—who left a number for me to call back. Whatever that was, it was not the same as the number on Caller ID. Furthermore, when she spoke the number to call, one digit did not register at all. She repeated it the same way with that digit still missing. So, I called the number on the Caller ID and voiced that complaint and gave my number clearly and twice for a call back. So, that “engagement” is hovering over what should be a brain trying to concentrate on writing. I hate to be on edge about an expected call. One gets to walking around the house, with one arm elongated—by a portable phone, in my case the make of around 1995, a sensible size. The two new-fangled phones in the house, mini-sized, and loaded with extras, I detest, and really don’t use. One morning before I got up, that new-fangle beside my bed, said I had a call from “An-o-nym-ous,” with the stress on the “nym.” Funny, of course, but that’s not the phone for me. It came from Wal Mart, a store I don’t like. I’ve been inside one about three times and don’t anticipate returning there. Wal Mart did not make the phone, of course, but is guilty of selling it.

Anyway, my publisher is planning to place my first novel Death in Time in BookExpo 2010, the biggest book event in North America. It will be held at a convention center in New York, and display 5,000 books, 150 of which will be from my publisher. When you consider it publishes 5,000 books a year, and mine was chosen as one of the 150, it sounds super, right? I don’t see it that way. I think they probably chose those that did not sell big as some others did. Well, I told them at the beginning of our relationship I would not be traveling around the country signing books, and that’s what’s needed for big sales.

The people who attend this BookExpo are mainly editors, publishers, agents (both literary and Hollywood), but anyone who happens to be in town can attend. The exhibit lasts three or four days in June, I believe (that proves how excited I am, I can’t even recall the dates), and the visitors will have small catalogues showcasing the books by genre. Mine will be in a mystery catalog. I have written a new description of this and have approved their rendition of it. There are two things that prove most interesting to me. One is that mystery sells more copies than any other fiction genre. The second one is that the publisher sends out 500,000 emails advertising one’s book. I imagine one email advertises all 150 books, but they don’t say it just that way over the telephone; one gets the impression all those emails are going out just for my book. No way.

Now to scratch out some time for the second suspense novel, now in progress, with the same Private Investigator, Nate Griswald.

♥