Very first draft

Bootlicker began more than a decade ago with a question.

What would anyone do if faced with the choice that confronted young Ike Washington?

There is no perfect answer, and there is no correct answer. There is, however, a novel I’ve launched today that is built on the question and the conversation I hope it will provoke.

The novel began as a short story called “Twisted Pinky.” Classmates in my graduate workshops at Johns Hopkins University encouraged me to expand the piece, one kindly offering that I was “on to something.”

“Twisted Pinky” grew into a novel built on a pivotal event that occurs in 1959. The working title was, “Hard Way Out.”

Ike is a black teenager living in a small town in the Deep South. The Civil Rights Movement is in full, wild bloom. Racial violence is rampant. One day Ike and a friend sneak off for a beer in the woods.

In the forest, they approach a clearing and hear a man pleading for mercy. Ike freezes at the sight of a Klan lynching led by the local judge. The other teen bolts.

The Klansmen catch Ike and present a startling choice: join the dead man or help the judge win black support so he can advance in state politics. The logic is beyond Ike’s grasp. The man who lynched one black man wants his help appealing to blacks statewide?

But Judge Lander McCauley knows the old ways are coming to an end. Perhaps the lynching was his exclamation point. To maintain his political ascent, he must have black support. And for that, he must have a secret liaison in the black community, someone he can personally train and control. Fate delivered the perfect young man.

Terrified, Ike agrees. An act of brutality ensures there will always be, as the judge puts it, “order in the court.”

One year turns into five, five turn into 10, 10 turn into 20. Ike becomes a power in his own right, U.S. Senator Lander McCauley’s man behind the scenes in every black enclave throughout the state.

Ike’s family has money and respect. The days of forcing him to cooperate are long gone. He and McCauley are the unlikeliest of political allies. By 1992, Ike stands poised to become the first black congressman elected in South Carolina since the Civil War.

But there is the guilt, the ever-present, all consuming guilt, and Ike’s knowledge that he rose to power on the judge’s bloody coattails, and helped the white-robed murderer rise from judge to congressman, and then to United States senator.

The saga of Ike Washington and Lander McCauley is less about race than about choices and character. The book is about guilt and the tricky path to redemption. It will take readers where TV cameras are never invited, to back rooms where decisions are made, futures are decided, and the line between right and wrong is not so easily defined. 

Now that you know the story, how do you judge Ike Washington?

How will the voters judge him when a young reporter reveals his secret just before Election Day?

Most of all, how will Ike judge himself after everyone else has spoken? Can he win the historic election and assume the role of congressman, or will he forever wear the label whispered by his critics? It was this label that became the title:

Bootlicker.

For more:

The trailer.

An early review.

The Amazon page.

So I’m minding my business at BookExpo America, the behemoth of book industry trade shows, held annually in New York City. Well, not exactly minding my business, but trying to catch the attention of every passerby who would listen to a pitch about my next novel. Suddenly I’m being pitched by a company that’s producing a documentary about self-publishing. Interesting, I’m thinking as she spoke, but not why I invested two grand in a booth at BEA. A moment later, I reconsidered.  We chatted a few minutes,  and then I agreed to do a short interview. My reward was a clip of the segment, to do with whatever I chose. My choice at the moment is to share it here, and to ask: Have you ever veered a little off your literary marketing course and received a nice bonus for your trouble?

Fun, free app

If you can tweet it in 140 characters, you can say it on camera in 15 seconds.

That’s the concept behind Viddy (www.viddy.com), a social media app out of Venice, CA billed as a “life-streaming movie studio and real-time film festival – on the go.”

That’s a bit much, but the fact is that Viddy is fun, intuitive, and a nice addition to any self-publisher’s messaging arsenal. I’ve been using it for about a month and pumped out several mini-videos from BookExpo America in NY. Here’s my Viddy page.

Some things I like:

-       It forces you to quickly get to the point;

-       Posting to Facebook and Twitter is simple;

-       You can add a music and special effects;

-       You can use a tool like Hootsuite to re-tweet viddy tweets;

-       26 million users can’t be wrong.

Mashable’s “5 Ways Brands Can Shine on Viddy” suggests: offering a behind-the-scenes look; sharing promo codes and sales; hosting a contest; creating custom filters; and creating premium partnerships.

Have you had success with Viddy or a similar app? How about using with videos in general? Has it worked? Why or why not?

Bella?

Dan?

I imagine that every author gives at least a fleeting thought to which actors Hollywood will get to play the novel’s main characters.

It’s been an honor during the past several weeks to have the Book Whore Book Club discussing Bella. Don’t let the name fool you; these some very savvy and thoughtful readers.

Each week founder Danielle Perez posts questions that club members answer online. One recent set of answers can be found here.

In a previous round, Danielle asked which actors readers would like to see play the parts of Bella, the mysterious widow, and Dan, the D.C. reporter she enlists to help reveal the truth about her husband’s death. It’s no secret that during this quest, the two learn harsh lessons about the power of temptation, the futility of revenge, and the consequences of yielding to either, even for a moment.

Actors mentioned by club members included, for Bella: Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Monica Belluci, Eva Mendes, and Zoe Saldana. For Dan, they liked: Daniel Craig, George Clooney, Sean Penn, Michael Gladis, Bruce Willis, and Richard Gere.

No one picked my top choices: Jessica Alba, and Brandon Routh.

Here’s the latest round of Q&A from Danielle and the club.

And if you have any others you’d like to see in the starring roles, let me know and I’ll pass on the names if the movie folks come knocking.

Use Storify to tell a more robust story

I know – you don’t need any more social media tools.

You’ve kind of figured out how to pound a few apps into a messaging arsenal for your book, and there’s no time (or patience) for anything else.

I suggest you take a breath and consider Storify.

Sign up for a free account at Storify.com, and you suddenly have a massive army of people producing content that you can literally pull into stories you create.

Example: I’m a self-published author headed for BookExpo America in New York next week. I want to share what I learn with other Indies as I’m promoting my novels, Bella and Bootlicker (available later this summer).

So I used Storify to pull content from Twitter, Facebook, my own blog and several other sources into one story that I called, “BookExpo America – Piacente’s Picks from the Apple.”

I will update the piece as I find new content to add. That includes photos and videos, by the way.

The curated story lives on Storify. To let folks know how to find it, I fired the link out in tweets, on Facebook, in emails and in blog posts.

This is a great tool. Give it a shot. Here’s my first Storify:

Have you tried this app or anything similar, and what was your experience?

There’s a fragile link between Indie authors and book bloggers that reminds me of comedienne Wendy Liebman. “I’ve been on so many blind dates,” Liebman says, “I should get a free dog.”

What makes this funny is her profound exasperation. We can only imagine the clumsy invitations, the awkward dates that followed, and, quite possibly, a Liebman declaration to flat out give up dating.

The authorial equivalent of the date is the review. As with dating, no one has perfected a successful process to secure a review. But there are steps you can take to boost your odds and create a favorable impression.

Some tips to consider:

Research the reviewer. Get on the Web and find out who you’re pitching. Don’t send a vampire story to a blogger who only reviews Christian literature. Most reviewers have guidelines on their sites. Read the review policy carefully.

Adjust your expectations. This isn’t Santa’s lap, so don’t expect five stars from every reviewer. Most feel a responsibility to deliver honest critiques. That’s how they build their reputations.

Do it yourself. Don’t get someone to act as an intermediary with a reviewer. Involving a third party is like a high school kid getting a friend to chat up a girl he’s too shy to approach. Reviewers want to hear directly from authors.

Let it go. Know going in that some will not like your work. By responding to negative reviews, you extend a conversation you’d rather have die a quick death.

Know thyself. Be able to explain yourself and your work quickly and clearly. Include links so that reviewers can learn more if they want. Be ready to send a digital or hard copy of your novel if one is requested.

Get back to basics.  No one owes you a review. Be polite. Send your query, but wait to be asked before sending a book. Do not suggest ways to review your book. And don’t pester about when the review will come out.

One reviewer told me that authors “need to learn to be assertive without overbearing, yet develop a backbone to take criticism.” Another said, “The only deal-breaker is calling me the wrong name. It drives me crazy.”

As for finding reviewers, do a Google search and you’ll see more than you could ever query. They’re also all over Goodreads and Twitter. The key is to remember that it isn’t a numbers game; it’s a new relationship that must be treated with respect, each time, every time.

Any tips to add here?

Full moon over Austin

My recent webinar on marketing strategies for self-published authors drew the attention of Texas-based author Laura Roberts.

Laura wrote this post for the Professional Writers of Austin.

Join me for free webinar 5/17, 7:30 p.m.

I did a lot of interviewing over a long career as a print journalist. But it was rare that I got interviewed during that time. Answering the questions, I’d learn later as an author, is a lot different than asking the questions. I think of the interview as a cousin to public speaking. With either, you’ll do better if you know your subject, drill down to a few key messages, and if you practice, practice, and practice some more.  This is important and the time to think about it is long before the interview. So Tip 1 – stop thinking like a novelist and start thinking like a reporter.

More in a free webinar Thursday, 5/17 (and repeated on 5/31) that you can sign up for at this site.

Interesting conversations can occur between writers and their characters.

Take a listen in this guest post for “Writer’s Block Party.”

Sometimes no matter hard you squeeze, the lemons will not yield lemonade. The screen goes black, the car won’t start, the camera flash won’t fire.

So it was during a recent webinar when I, fully engaged and plowing through one self-publishing tip after another, found I’d been talking to no one but myself for a good three minutes. This was a waste; I already knew the tips. More important, listeners around the country heard nothing but crickets.

A text message from the moderator clued me in. I stopped talking, and, in the quiet, thought of Aldous Huxley. “Technological progress,” Huxley said, “has merely provided us with more efficient means to for going backwards.”

The lemons having appeared, I began squeezing. The technology responded like an old engine on a snowy night. It sputtered, turned over, and then died. We were on, we were off. On, off, over and over.

For those on the other end, I apologize. We’ve done several of these and never had a problem. There were no hardware or software changes at either my or the moderator’s end.

Ultimately, I believe the Internet gods were tired, angry or in the mood for a little fun. We’ve all seen movies where the guy pulls away as his buddy tries to get in the car. Each time the friend gets close, the driver hits the gas. This is either exasperating or hysterical, depending on whether you’re the runner or the driver.

The plan is to re-do the Messaging Strategies for Authors webinar, but in the meantime, here are a few key points:

-       The good news about self-publishing is also the bad news. These days, anyone can publish. Busy readers are overwhelmed, so writing a novel is not the end. You must follow up with creative social media sites and marketing materials.

-       Leverage the power of good storytelling. If you’ve written a great novel, apply the same discipline and creative energy to your Facebook page, Twitter tweets and author pages. Don’t make the story of your life (your bio) a boring resume.

-       Mainstream newspapers don’t like Indies. Just as there has been an explosion of self-published authors, however, there’s also been a dramatic rise in the number of blogger reviewers. Find the good ones, make friends, and get some reviews.

-       While online marketing is critical, eye contact trumps a cyber shake. That means the connections you make face to face take more time, but are more powerful than the ones you make on the web. You need a combination of both – Twitter & Tee shirts.

When the date of the make-up webinar is set, I will announce it through the usual channels, assuming the Internet is working. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your failed technology story, and how you handled the sudden silence.