Podcast!

Last year, when I started seriously getting back into writing, I started listening to podcasts.

Now I've been a podcast fan for some time - I love the variety of topics out there, definitely something for every interest. But up until last summer, I hadn't thought about writing podcasts. I started in with one called The Worried Writer, and expanded from there. Podcasts on craft, style, technique, marketing, and other tips, tricks and knowledge I still don't have a use for, but find interesting anyway.

The thing about podcasts over books or articles on writing is that you're listening to real people - like yourself - talk about writing, and it makes it all seem doable. Which I always knew that it was, I just got away from it for a few years, and it was starting to bubble under the surface again.

One of the many podcasts I listen to is Wayne Kelly's Joined Up Writing Podcast. I responded to a couple of questions he'd posed on a show, and we got to emailing, and when I mentioned that my book was coming out in November, we arranged to record an episode together that aired on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

I think we were on the phone for over an hour, so he did a really nice job in cutting my blathering down to a solid twenty or so minutes, but I had a lot of fun talking with him, and I hope that my story is inspiring to someone who needs to hear a "real person" talking about how they got somewhere.

You can have a listen here, if you're so inclined.

What a rush

So I did it. I survived reading my book live on Facebook. It still feels a little surreal - first the fact that on Saturday afternoon, while I was pacing the living room and muttering under my breath, the UPS guy bangs on the front door and throws a big box on the front step.

I run out, ready to yell at him because he's always delivering my neighbor's packages (she's also named Karen, and I guess it's just easier to deliver all mail to one address), but the box was from Ingram Spark, and contained 24 copies of my book.

Twenty-four. That needed to be spelled out.

Twenty-four books with my name on them. With my picture inside. With words from my mind written down on paper, words that make sense and tell a story and expose large pieces of my heart and mind that I've kept hidden for years.

If you want to read my book, you can find it here: books2read.com/tudorsongbird, which will get you to any online retailer that carries it. Songbird is available in ebook and paperback as of now, with an audio book to follow shortly. More about that later.

I know from Facebook and Twitter and other messages that I've received that some of you have already downloaded Songbird and have started reading. This is simultaneously thrilling, gratifying and terrifying.

For everyone who has already purchased, or who intends to, thank you. Your support really does mean the world, and if you watch the video to the end (yikes), I say that it takes a village these days to make a book. Thanks for being a part of mine.

Facebook Live

So here it is. I'll be doing a live reading of Chapter One of Songbird on Facebook this Saturday evening, at 7:00 p.m. eastern.

The e-book will drop at midnight, and pre-orders for the paperback are open now, as well, which means it should arrive pretty quickly thereafter. Since I'm with a small press, they do print-on-demand through a company called Ingram Spark, which means no one - publisher, bookstore or writer - gets stuck with a pile of books they possibly can't sell. (Not that I want that to happen, but none of us have money to burn, so I love this option). POD books happen just about as quickly as regular books, and if you're an Amazon Prime member, as most of us seem to be (free shipping or Prime Video, they get us coming and going), you'll get free shipping as well.

Tune in if you can. Or if you can't, check out the video on my Facebook page later. It'll stay there, for posterity, or until I can't take it anymore.

One more thing off the list

So I needed an author photo - for Facebook, for Twitter, for the publisher and all the promo stuff we'll be doing (in addition to my actual BOOK, y'all).

I hate my picture taken. I'm self-conscious about my teeth, and my glasses reflect, and I've got circles under my eyes and and and...

My friend Dianne is a pretty good photographer (she was the only friend who was allowed to take pictures at our wedding, because I didn't want to spend the day flinching at cameras), so I asked her last week if she'd take a few pictures. She agreed, but she's away this week, so...

Here you have a writer in her bathroom with a smartphone.

I took about 60 pictures, got 4-5 that I actually didn't dislike, and then futzed with them in my photo editing software. I didn't do much, really - I am what I am, so I didn't do anything to my actual face beyond smoothing out the lines in my neck and a few uneven patches in my skin. The rest is 55 year old me, happy that I'm going to be published, happy that one more item on the to-do list is checked off, happy that I don't have to wait a week for photos that I probably wouldn't like any better, and at least when it was just me, the phone and my new shower curtain, I could mutter all I wanted about bad angles and just how many colors is my hair right now?

Anyway, that's done. Exhale.