I can’t even get my best friends to review my book! I have to beg them lol oh yeah it’s so hard! You are the best book reviewer out there. I have always done it for free because I love it.
Nothing about writing, or being seen, comes easy. But if you stay the course, stretch beyond the comfort zone, and lead with truth, the right people notice. My book may have reached only a small circle so far, but the depth of connection it’s sparked tells me it was worth every word. I’ve had people read it who hadn’t picked up a book in years. Others found themselves moved by something far outside their usual comfort zone and that’s all I could have ever hoped for, and more. The number of doors that shut when I sought professional reviews was countless. But honestly? I don’t write for gatekeepers. I care about real connection, with real people. I poured everything into this book and not for attention, but because I felt compelled to. And I believe that simply putting something true into the world raises the frequency and it sends out a quiet signal that draws the right audience in, in its own time. For anyone curious, it’s called Chasing Footnotes: Where the story of your past meets the power of your True Self.
I've been writing for a long time now. The writing is fun. The getting-read is more like slipping into an icy, mountain lake, slow and painful. The trick used to be wriggling to the top of the "slush pile." With self-publishing, that's now a slush mountain. It's a good thing the writing part is still so much fun.
No matter how many times i tell people (who are not writers) how important these reviews and stars are, the needle still doesn't move. And I get it. People are shy (yes, they are!) and think that their input doesn't matter. So yeah, getting readers to comment is damn hard. As to professional reviewers, the dice are loaded by the marketing machines. My crime book comes out in August from an indie publisher. The cover and ARC are in the works, nowhere near the 3-6 months drum roll required by industry insiders. So forget it, it's not like we live in different time zones, we're on a different planet. Considering that, we make do, keep fighting...
Thanks for the advice. I have a unique situation. I wrote a book that exposes the corruption in our education system, which is the root cause for why we’re in the mess we’re in today that no publisher would publish since no one knows or believes it yet. I say yet because I’m a teacher and teachers don’t give up on their students.
I didn’t bother to approach publishers knowing I first needed the book to blow open the truth.
I figured I’d have to be creative like the Kardashians, although no one would want to see a sex tape of a teacher.
I’ve gotten some excellent editorial reviews. My hope was the content would get a publisher to publish it once it caught on. I’m ambivalent about spending money advertising at these editorial review sites. I need to use the money I have carefully since saving democracy is too important and I need to succeed to do that. Any ideas?
Once we get a leader to read my memoir about my teaching days, A Graver Danger, so they’ll know how democracy fell apart - fascists hijacking our schools as part of the Reagan regime - we will be able to restore it.
In the meantime we the people must get the word out to run for school boards in groups of four on a democracy platform so we can plant our flag all over the country while we wait for that wise leader.
Our real problem is how awful we are as a nation when it comes to cover ups. It took thirty years of hard work for the victims of priest abuse to be heard. It took almost that long for Harvey Weinstein’s victims to be heard. It’s now thirty years since I started exposing the biggest cover-up ever - our schools having been seized by self-serving fascists, ordering our teachers to act in democracy-destroying ways so the public would lose respect for them, which silenced them.
I know this is true since WhiteChalkCrime.com and EndTeacherAbuse.org have shouted this truth that we’ll lose democracy with these schools since 2002, to deaf ears.
Trust me, when I taught, everyone around me knew our administrators were lawless idiots. They secretly agreed we needed to do something about it but all but one got into the fetal position and did nothing to help me when I stood up to these thieves who I knew would end democracy. My colleagues and the union who helped fire me stayed employed while my beloved career ended. Meanwhile we see the union president all over TV pretending to care about democracy because that’s what you do to keep power.
Sound familiar? I was the Liz Cheney of education; almost everyone else folded. The only good thing about living through that evil is I see clearly how Trump happened and what to do about it.
The roadmap for our schools to become authentic is in my book. The hero who uses it will be able to restore democracy because they will have exposed the deep state of corruption that’s had so many turned off. They will have cleaned up the actual swamp.
Trump was right we have a deep state and a swamp and he used it to grab power with no intention of changing anything for the better.
Both parties let this happen and let democracy fail. Between our dysfunctional schools that produced morons rather than citizens and our government’s failure to do something about the education corruption, we lost our way.
You don’t have to just take this from me, a dedicated teacher. Abraham Lincoln had warned, "The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next."
It absolutely is! It’s all about who has the power. If you help the whistleblowing teachers gain power, we the people will gain power.
In the end, it was easier for my colleagues to keep their mouths shut and easier for our senators and representatives to do the same, but for those of us who have souls, the only way is by doing to others what we want them to do to us. And the only way we’ll get back to a worthy nation is when our leader is one of us - a person with a soul who’ll know you don’t steal education from the people or stand by knowing it’s been stolen and pretend it’s a democracy.
Of course, if you like what Trump is doing to this country then you’re not likely to help. Since more than half of us prefer democracy, even some Trump supporters, I’m hoping you’ll help me.
Nothing about writing, or being seen, comes easy. But if you stay the course, stretch beyond the comfort zone, and lead with truth, the right people notice. My book may have reached only a small circle so far, but the depth of connection it’s sparked tells me it was worth every word. I’ve had people read it who hadn’t picked up a book in years. Others found themselves moved by something far outside their usual comfort zone and that’s all I could have ever hoped for, and more. The number of doors that shut when I sought professional reviews was countless. But honestly? I don’t write for gatekeepers. I care about real connection, with real people. I poured everything into this book and not for attention, but because I felt compelled to. And I believe that simply putting something true into the world raises the frequency and it sends out a quiet signal that draws the right audience in, in its own time. For anyone curious, it’s called Chasing Footnotes: Where the story of your past meets the power of your True Self.
This year I won the Kenneth Patchen Award for the Innovative Novel for 'Out of Competition', coming out JEF Books October 1, 2024. Shall I send my novel to you? Ah, you will say, I am told what to review. In 2021/2022 a novelist asked me for a review to go in the American Book Review. I said yes. It's a good review. Woody Allen is wrong: Writers don't hate writers, well, not all. So if it isn't all writers who hate all writers, who really hates all writers? The reader?
It seems like such a waste of effort to make those lists and then throw them away. Why not publish them here under Honorable Mentions? Or a category like Second Chances for books that are no longer "fresh" but deserve a look because they flew under the radar? Maybe something for self-published books? No need for full reviews, just shine a light on them by putting them in a list and posting it here. Doesn't have to be the full lists, either. Top ten, top twenty... random fifty... as long as people understand what the lists mean, that's all that matters.
The real question is, Where was Paul Tremblay to tutor me in math when I was in high school? And don't give me this "we're basically the same age so he was busy with his own studies" stuff.
Seriously though, I absolutely admire what you're doing and the way you bring the balance to what you pick, and thank you for still swinging for the indies, even if those of us on that side of the divide know we're going to be left out, 9 times out of 10.
I can’t even get my best friends to review my book! I have to beg them lol oh yeah it’s so hard! You are the best book reviewer out there. I have always done it for free because I love it.
Nothing about writing, or being seen, comes easy. But if you stay the course, stretch beyond the comfort zone, and lead with truth, the right people notice. My book may have reached only a small circle so far, but the depth of connection it’s sparked tells me it was worth every word. I’ve had people read it who hadn’t picked up a book in years. Others found themselves moved by something far outside their usual comfort zone and that’s all I could have ever hoped for, and more. The number of doors that shut when I sought professional reviews was countless. But honestly? I don’t write for gatekeepers. I care about real connection, with real people. I poured everything into this book and not for attention, but because I felt compelled to. And I believe that simply putting something true into the world raises the frequency and it sends out a quiet signal that draws the right audience in, in its own time. For anyone curious, it’s called Chasing Footnotes: Where the story of your past meets the power of your True Self.
You sound like me! I’m going to check out your book.
I've been writing for a long time now. The writing is fun. The getting-read is more like slipping into an icy, mountain lake, slow and painful. The trick used to be wriggling to the top of the "slush pile." With self-publishing, that's now a slush mountain. It's a good thing the writing part is still so much fun.
No matter how many times i tell people (who are not writers) how important these reviews and stars are, the needle still doesn't move. And I get it. People are shy (yes, they are!) and think that their input doesn't matter. So yeah, getting readers to comment is damn hard. As to professional reviewers, the dice are loaded by the marketing machines. My crime book comes out in August from an indie publisher. The cover and ARC are in the works, nowhere near the 3-6 months drum roll required by industry insiders. So forget it, it's not like we live in different time zones, we're on a different planet. Considering that, we make do, keep fighting...
Thanks for the advice. I have a unique situation. I wrote a book that exposes the corruption in our education system, which is the root cause for why we’re in the mess we’re in today that no publisher would publish since no one knows or believes it yet. I say yet because I’m a teacher and teachers don’t give up on their students.
I didn’t bother to approach publishers knowing I first needed the book to blow open the truth.
I figured I’d have to be creative like the Kardashians, although no one would want to see a sex tape of a teacher.
I’ve gotten some excellent editorial reviews. My hope was the content would get a publisher to publish it once it caught on. I’m ambivalent about spending money advertising at these editorial review sites. I need to use the money I have carefully since saving democracy is too important and I need to succeed to do that. Any ideas?
Once we get a leader to read my memoir about my teaching days, A Graver Danger, so they’ll know how democracy fell apart - fascists hijacking our schools as part of the Reagan regime - we will be able to restore it.
In the meantime we the people must get the word out to run for school boards in groups of four on a democracy platform so we can plant our flag all over the country while we wait for that wise leader.
Our real problem is how awful we are as a nation when it comes to cover ups. It took thirty years of hard work for the victims of priest abuse to be heard. It took almost that long for Harvey Weinstein’s victims to be heard. It’s now thirty years since I started exposing the biggest cover-up ever - our schools having been seized by self-serving fascists, ordering our teachers to act in democracy-destroying ways so the public would lose respect for them, which silenced them.
I know this is true since WhiteChalkCrime.com and EndTeacherAbuse.org have shouted this truth that we’ll lose democracy with these schools since 2002, to deaf ears.
Trust me, when I taught, everyone around me knew our administrators were lawless idiots. They secretly agreed we needed to do something about it but all but one got into the fetal position and did nothing to help me when I stood up to these thieves who I knew would end democracy. My colleagues and the union who helped fire me stayed employed while my beloved career ended. Meanwhile we see the union president all over TV pretending to care about democracy because that’s what you do to keep power.
Sound familiar? I was the Liz Cheney of education; almost everyone else folded. The only good thing about living through that evil is I see clearly how Trump happened and what to do about it.
The roadmap for our schools to become authentic is in my book. The hero who uses it will be able to restore democracy because they will have exposed the deep state of corruption that’s had so many turned off. They will have cleaned up the actual swamp.
Trump was right we have a deep state and a swamp and he used it to grab power with no intention of changing anything for the better.
Both parties let this happen and let democracy fail. Between our dysfunctional schools that produced morons rather than citizens and our government’s failure to do something about the education corruption, we lost our way.
You don’t have to just take this from me, a dedicated teacher. Abraham Lincoln had warned, "The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next."
It absolutely is! It’s all about who has the power. If you help the whistleblowing teachers gain power, we the people will gain power.
In the end, it was easier for my colleagues to keep their mouths shut and easier for our senators and representatives to do the same, but for those of us who have souls, the only way is by doing to others what we want them to do to us. And the only way we’ll get back to a worthy nation is when our leader is one of us - a person with a soul who’ll know you don’t steal education from the people or stand by knowing it’s been stolen and pretend it’s a democracy.
Of course, if you like what Trump is doing to this country then you’re not likely to help. Since more than half of us prefer democracy, even some Trump supporters, I’m hoping you’ll help me.
Nothing about writing, or being seen, comes easy. But if you stay the course, stretch beyond the comfort zone, and lead with truth, the right people notice. My book may have reached only a small circle so far, but the depth of connection it’s sparked tells me it was worth every word. I’ve had people read it who hadn’t picked up a book in years. Others found themselves moved by something far outside their usual comfort zone and that’s all I could have ever hoped for, and more. The number of doors that shut when I sought professional reviews was countless. But honestly? I don’t write for gatekeepers. I care about real connection, with real people. I poured everything into this book and not for attention, but because I felt compelled to. And I believe that simply putting something true into the world raises the frequency and it sends out a quiet signal that draws the right audience in, in its own time. For anyone curious, it’s called Chasing Footnotes: Where the story of your past meets the power of your True Self.
This year I won the Kenneth Patchen Award for the Innovative Novel for 'Out of Competition', coming out JEF Books October 1, 2024. Shall I send my novel to you? Ah, you will say, I am told what to review. In 2021/2022 a novelist asked me for a review to go in the American Book Review. I said yes. It's a good review. Woody Allen is wrong: Writers don't hate writers, well, not all. So if it isn't all writers who hate all writers, who really hates all writers? The reader?
Thank you for a look at this unfortunately harsh reality. (Sigh)
It seems like such a waste of effort to make those lists and then throw them away. Why not publish them here under Honorable Mentions? Or a category like Second Chances for books that are no longer "fresh" but deserve a look because they flew under the radar? Maybe something for self-published books? No need for full reviews, just shine a light on them by putting them in a list and posting it here. Doesn't have to be the full lists, either. Top ten, top twenty... random fifty... as long as people understand what the lists mean, that's all that matters.
Thank you for sharing this information!
Thank you for sharing this information!
Thank you for sharing this information!
Thank you for sharing this information!
The real question is, Where was Paul Tremblay to tutor me in math when I was in high school? And don't give me this "we're basically the same age so he was busy with his own studies" stuff.
Seriously though, I absolutely admire what you're doing and the way you bring the balance to what you pick, and thank you for still swinging for the indies, even if those of us on that side of the divide know we're going to be left out, 9 times out of 10.
Always appreciate your honesty!
Good information to know. Thank you!