Oprah Loved the Story, Part II

Here's more of the back-story about the magic memoir that never happened, Angel at the Fence ...

In that case Ms. Winfrey was in part trusting the credibility of Mr. Frey’s publisher, an imprint of Random House, when she anointed “A Million Little Pieces” as a selection of her book club and propelled it to best seller status. But in the case of Mr. Rosenblat it was Ms. Winfrey who gave his story a mass hearing long before he ever secured a book deal.

According to the prologue in a galley copy of “Angel at the Fence,” Mr. Rosenblat entered a contest in The New York Post for the “best love story sent in by a reader.”

“On a whim, I wrote a couple of paragraphs and mailed them in,” he wrote. He won the 1995 contest, he said, and he and his wife received a candlelit dinner overlooking Central Park and a trip to Broadway and were featured in the newspaper. As a result of that media exposure, Mr. Rosenblat wrote, Ms. Winfrey invited him on the show.

Mr. and Mrs. Rosenblat appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1996, telling their story of meeting as children while Mr. Rosenblat was a prisoner at a subcamp of the infamous Buchenwald. Eleven years later the couple returned to Ms. Winfrey’s show, and Mr. Rosenblat got down on his knees to give his wife a new ring. Ms. Winfrey called it “the single greatest love story, in 22 years of doing this show, we’ve ever told on the air.”

• Read the full story in the New York Times

Members in print or published

Summer may be coming to a close, but our members will never stop! Here's this week's list of triumphs.

Carter


Ruth Douillette

I've had some luck with essays recently. Kind of nice!

An essay of mine entitled "Unfolding as it Should" will be published this October by Chicken Soup For the Empty Nester's Soul. The book, originally slated to come out in July, was delayed when Chicken Soup transitioned to Simon & Schuster as their new publisher.

Another essay, called "Hope Springs Eternal," will be published in Chicken Soup For the Soul--Resolutions, which will be published on December 23, just in time for making New Year's resolutions, although the book encompasses resolutions of *any* kind. The deadline to submit a resolution essay is September 15. Still time!

Cup of Comfort For Military Families accepted two essays: "Alone in a Crowd" and "One Veteran's Story."


Karna Converse

My article "Cornfields and Concertos" appears in the August/September issue of Our Iowa. In addition, our two local newspapers have reprinted it. NFiction members may remember offering suggestions about it this past May.

I mentioned my involvement with this magazine in the past but I still think this fact is incredible: The magazine's coming up on its one-year anniversary and already has 37,000 paid subscribers. Their idea to recruit one "field editor" from each of Iowa's 99 counties to serve as their eyes and ears (and submit story and photo ideas) is working. And the best part for me is that a few people have called with ideas they think I should write about!


Dawn Goldsmith

My article "What Would Summer Be Without the County Fair" is up at Christian Science Monitor and my article "Galaxies Yet to Discover," about Ohio Star quilting design variations is in the Oct. 2008 issue of Quilter's World magazine. Not online, but it is 'tickled' on their website


Kathy Highcove

I've been writing restaurant reviews for a local paper, Valley Scene, for the past few months. This time (Aug. 22 - Sept. 4) I have two articles in the same issue.


Kristen Howe

HI everyone. Two weeks ago, I sent out my $4 check to receive my copy of the spring/summer 08 issue of Love's Chance. Today I received it in the mail. Yahoo! Hooray! As I said earlier, no website.


Jassy Mackenzie

Just a quick note with the exciting news that my novel Random Violence is now out - I spent yesterday going round to nine different bookshops in Johannesburg together with Umuzi's sales director, and signing every copy I could get my hands on. It was a great day and it has really made me view the bookstores and the booksellers in a different light. Also, I had no idea there were so many book clubs in this city. Apparently the manager of Exclusive Books Sandton Square has a huge lever-arch file filled with details on the various book clubs who buy from her store.

For anyone who doesn't know, I subbed the first part of this book on the Novels list during 2007 and the feedback I received was invaluable.

The book is only available in South Africa at present but if anyone would like to order it, it's very easy - you can go to www.kalahari.net - our version of Amazon.com - or to www.exclusivebooks.com - as far as I know they both post books outside SA.

My author website is also up and running and I'd love comments on it... it is at www.jassymackenzie.com


Julie McGuire

On August 2nd I attended the release party for Breaking Dawn, the last in a young adult vampire series by Stephenie Meyer. Young adult novels and vampires are not usually my thing, but I've fallen in love with the series.

I invite you to check out The Internet Review of Books blog where I describe my experience at the release party.

While you are there, check out the August issue of The Internet Review of Books (if you haven't already), and please be sure to tell your friends and family about the site.


Jayne Pupek

I'm behind on email, but want to thank everyone who sent congratulations and good wishes on my last reviews.

My first interview is up at Blogcritics:

And Ann Hite reviewed Tomato Girl at The Feminist Review:

Thank you, Ann!


Wayne Scheer

A story I began in Practice-w, "Blind Date, Circa 1969," has been accepted by Sniplits. They hire a professional actor to read the story and sell them as auditory recordings. It's a kick hearing my stories read aloud. They also pay.

Another story that began in Practice, "It's about Time," will appear in the new issue of Wild Violet.

And then there's Pen Pricks back from vacation. They accepted a 55 worder, "War."

Thanks to everyone at IWW.


Harriette Spanabel

Once again I have been notified that another of my short pieces will be published in the November issue of PenPricks.


Joanna M. Weston

My poem "The Cadence of Earth" is up at Cynic Online magazine, in 'Cafe del Soul' (scroll down past 'features').

Two poems from my book A Summer Father up at 7 Beats. Definitely a happy day!
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A New Way to Promote a Book

• from Galleycat

Want to Find New Readers? Try Changing Your Tune ...

... a novelist contracts for an animated trailer.

God Is an African-American Woman Named "Papa"

The New York Times yesterday printed an article about another writer who found success because readers loved the story that sprang from his imagination.

Snippets from the article ...

• Thousands of readers like Mr. Nowak, a regular churchgoer, have helped propel The Shack, written by William P. Young, a former office manager and hotel night clerk in Gresham, Ore., and privately published by a pair of former pastors near Los Angeles, into a surprise best seller. It is the most compelling recent example of how a word-of-mouth phenomenon can explode into a blockbuster when the momentum hits chain bookstores, and the marketing and distribution power of a major commercial publisher is thrown behind it.
• In 2005 Mr. Young, now 53, started writing the book to show how he had healed by forging a new relationship with God. He chose to make God an African-American woman, he said, because he wanted to alter religious preconceptions. “It was just a way of saying: ‘You know what? I don’t believe that God is Gandalf with an attitude or Zeus who wants to blast you with any imperfection that you exhibit,’ ” Mr. Young said.
• He gave 15 copies to his children and a few friends. When the friends wanted to send copies to other friends, Mr. Young wondered if he might have something suited for a wider audience.
• So Mr. Cummings, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Young invested about $15,000 of their own money to print and distribute the book. All three began sending copies to influential Christian friends, and orders started rolling into Windblown’s Web site.

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Read the complete article here.

A Kid May Read Your Book but Not a Teen

An IWW member passed along an interesting report regarding the reading habits of youngsters in this age of text-messaging and video games.

It begins ...

"A new report released today from Scholastic corroborates the findings of the company’s 2006 report on children’s reading habits, finding that pleasure reading in children begins to decline at age eight and continues to do so into the teen years."

The report comes from Scholastic, the Potter publisher, and concludes ...

"As to the influence of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, of the children who had read the books, almost three-quarters said the series had made them interested in reading other books. Some, however, would be happy simply to have more Harry in their lives: 31% of children don’t believe the series is over."

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• Read THE 2008 KIDS AND FAMILY READING REPORT™ CONDUCTED BY YANKELOVICH AND SCHOLASTIC here.
• Read The Publishers Weekly article here.

Would you spend $359 to read 130,000 books?

Simon & Schuster to Add 5,000 eBook Titles for Amazon Kindle

We writers depend on readers. Without them, why write? Our words would fall into the same forest where the tree falls unnoticed.

Simon and Shuster announced the addition of 5,000 books they will make available for the Kindle, an e-reader that already has 125, 000 titles on it's list of offerings that includes newspapers, blogs and magazines.

“Kindle is re-igniting a love of reading — after purchasing a Kindle, customers purchase, on average, just as many physical books, and their total book purchases on Amazon increase by 2.6x. ... This commitment from Simon & Schuster moves us closer to our vision for Kindle, which is to make any book, ever printed, in any language available in less than 60 seconds.”

Is this good news for writers who might anticipate that increased interest in reading would result in increased publications, and therefor greater chance for their own book to be published? It's certainly good news for the Kindle folk who still await an explosion of readers who as of yet seem reluctant to read anything that doesn't require turning actual pages.

"Launched on November 19, 2007, Amazon Kindle is Amazon’s revolutionary portable reader that wirelessly downloads books, blogs, magazines, newspapers and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight. More than 125,000 books are now available in the Kindle Store, including New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases, which are $9.99, unless marked otherwise. Kindle is available today for $359 at http://amazon.com/kindle."

You're Reading This Because You're Online

... and that may be why the publishing industry is moving toward eliminating the printed catalogs.

In an Associated Press story by Hillel Italie, AP National Writer, it's noted that "HarperCollins announced Monday that it was planning to make their listings of upcoming releases available only online, calling the current system both economically and environmentally indefensible."

"Entirely logical," Mr Spock might say.

After all, it takes only a couple of mouse clicks to immerse yourself in what's upcoming from publishers like ...

• The Penguin Group
• Hachette Book Group USA
• Random House

Print? Or Internet?

There was an interesting article in the New York Times yesterday that asked that particular question.

It may be a niche publisher, but the International Data Group has been working out the answers to some big mainstream questions. The biggest one: Can print media survive the transition to the Internet?

It's an interesting piece, devoted mostly to news and information rather than short stories and novels. It notes that information must be delivered in small doses, with the accompanying advantage of following quick-breaking stories immediately rather than adhering to a print schedule.

• Read the full article here.

Amazon, Self-Publishing, and the Rest of Us

From Publisher's Weekly ...

BookSurge, Amazon’s print-on-demand subsidiary, is making an offer that most publishers would like to refuse, but don’t feel they can. According to talks with several pod houses, BookSurge has told them that unless their titles are printed by BookSurge, the buy buttons on Amazon for their titles will be disabled. A detailed explanation of her how the new program was explained to her is provided by BookLocker.com co-owner Angela Hoy on her writersweekly.com blog.

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Angela Hoy at Writer's Weekly on the subject, plus more links

All about Amazon from the New York Times