Naming a character in Jambalaya Justice

Someone won the naming of one of my characters in the upcoming Jambalaya Justice in the Ebay auction by the First Amendment Project. They also won a signed copy of the book when it is available, early 2011, and either a phone call or a night drinking with me and the real life Big Who, a character from the book, at my bar in the metro New Orleans area. The price ended up being $102.50, and received three bids.

I have never participated in anything like this before, and at first I was worried that no one would bid on mine. There were some well-known writers, and the bids weren't extravagantly high for their auctions, so I was wondering if anyone would even bid on mine. Once I got the first bid, I relaxed, because at least one person was bidding. Earlier today it was still only the one bid, but I was okay with that. Then I saw that someone else bid after that, and it ended with 3 bids total.

I don't know the procedure from here, but I am assuming the First Amendment Project will put me in touch with the winning bidder so we can work out the particulars. It was pretty exciting, although I'm not sure if my nerves could take another auction. I can't wait to see who was willing to pay $102.50 to name one of my characters, and sincerely hope it wasn't my mother!

On another note, I am thinking about posting a bridge between Gumbo Justice and Jambalaya Justice, just to let everyone know what to prepare for when Jambalaya comes out.

First Amendment Project Auction

The First Amendment Project is an organization that, among other things, provides legal representation for reporters dealing with First Amendment issues. As a writer, the First Amendment is important to me, because I don't want to be censored, I don't want my children to be told they can't read certain books, and I don't want our newspapers and t.v. news to feel they can't reveal the whole truth to us for fear of going to jail or being sued. Freedom of speech has a lot of nuances, and if we take it for granted, it is only because someone once fought for us to have the right. The fight is ongoing, though, and the FAP is one group that continues to fight it.

In one of their fundraising efforts, the FAP is hosting an Ebay auction where writers are auctioning off a name in their next book. All of the proceeds go to the FAP.

I am auctioning off the naming of a character in Jambalaya Justice, which will be out in 2011, and have provided three female characters and three male characters from which the bidder can choose.

I am also auctioning off a signed copy of the book, and either a phone call, or within a year, a night of free drinks at my bar in the metropolitan New Orleans area with me and the real-life Big Who, one of the characters from Gumbo Justice and Jambalaya Justice.

The bids are not cheap, starting at $100.00, but this is really a worthwhile cause. One writer is auctioning not only naming the character in his graphic novel, but drawing the bidder as the character. The Showtime Series "Weeds," is also auctioning off the naming of a character for the t.v. show.

The writers do not make any money off of this, but I still hope every writer makes the sale, because it is such a good cause to support for writers.

Today I have a very special guest, Barb Tarn, who lives in Italy. Her life seems so fascinating and extraordinary to me, and she mentions things like visiting the Louvre as if they happen every day. Below, she blogs about her inspiration for a historical novel she is planning on writing that may be as relevant today as in the 12th century she is setting it in.

Historical Research Frenzy
by Barbara G.Tarn

I always had a wild imagination, and when I finished high school I didn't go to university. I loved the middle ages (probably because of the illustrations of my childhood fairy tales and classics such as Robin Hood) and started writing fantasy because, well, it was FANTASY, so I didn't have to bother with research. Yeah, I know, I was very lazy (and still am today most of the time).


Then I read "The lady and the unicorn" by Tracy Chevalier. I knew the tapestries well (I go to check them every now and then when I'm in Paris), but knew nothing of their history, and I enjoyed the novel take on that part of history. Hence I started researching, and discovered the Middle Ages lasted 1000 years, with lots of changes between Charlemagne and Cristoforo Colombo (sorry, I'm Italian, I'll use his real name. The end of the Middle Ages is officially 1492, so you know who it is). I had to find a more specific time if I wanted to tell a story.

At first I started going to museums. Me, the museum-hater, went to the Louvre galleries of 12th to 15th century painters, and did the same at the National Gallery in London AND the British Museum. I'm the castle-lady (each and every medieval castle open to the public must be seen by me), I'm starting to appreciate Gothic cathedrals, but museums... Cluny was really an exception, because the unicorn is my animal, and those tapestries are gorgeous! ;-)

Anyway, I was looking for a portrait of some anonymous (or not too famous) sitter to inspire me (although I didn't read "The girl with the pearl earring" you understand why I was doing it). Unfortunately there aren't many paintings left of the early Middle Ages (read: none at all. Statues and some manuscripts only).

Then I saw "Kingdom of Heaven" after reading a book about crusades and was appalled by the historical inaccuracy of the movie (check Balian of Ibelin on Wikipedia if you don't believe me). Now, I wasn't going to rewrite that story, but my mum is also a Middle Ages lover, and knows everything on the Arthur cycle and Tristan and Iseult, etc. And all those were started by Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century. I was already playing with the idea of the minstrels and the crusades - Christianity vs. Islam being a theme still very heartfelt today.


I even found the picture of a 12th century statue called "Return of the Crusader" with this very intriguing caption: Return of the Crusader - Hugues de Vaudémont, who left in 1147, goes back to his wife - legend says he went on crusade and she waited for him faithfully for 14 or 16 years... That's the Second Crusade (1145–1149), and I'm following the third (1189–1192), but you get the point!

So I decided to write the life of a knight at the beginning of chivalry, when minstrels sang of long lost past, tournaments were melees and heraldic was barely starting. I settled for the end of the 12th century - Third Crusade, Richard Lionheart - and started researching more. I intended to close the story with the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.

At the time I had just started writing in English, and I was writing screenplays as the form (the prose) was simpler for me. I started writing my story and by page 120 (in screenwriting one page equals one minute on screen, new writers are not allowed to exceed 120pages) the knight had barely started off for the Holy Land. I could either make it a TV mini-series (but I don't watch TV, nor have History Channel to check how they do it), or cut it to make it more of a movie. So I "cut" the story to nine years (knighthood, crusade, return) and sent it to a coverage service.

Reading some of the objections by the poor reader, who obviously hadn't spent two years reading ancient medieval chronicles in Old French and Latin or English 19th century translations, I gave up the project and put it in a drawer - OK, I'll admit my thought was "Those Americans have no sense of history whatsoever". I apologize.

Then I gave up screenwriting altogether and tried prose in English. My main genre is still fantasy, but in these two years I've earned enough confidence that my prose will sustain an historical novel. The narrator is slightly more omniscient than in any other genre, and I can start when the hero is two and end shortly after his death like I originally intended (his son will sign the Magna Carta for him) without bothering of being misunderstood by some Hollywood reader.

So next year I'll brush up my notes and my screenplays, will do a little more research on topics such as clothes (that would be the costume designer duty on a movie set - my job if I write a novel, sigh) and write my story. Then I will send it to a few agents and see if I can publish it traditionally (the fantasy will be self-pubbed e-books).

I hope to make those years (1166-1215) come alive for readers, trying to be more historically precise than Sir Walter Scott and other 19th century "historical" novelists. I have learned to love my research when I found little gems that I could incorporate into my story when reading those old chronicles. I'll probably try to interview some reenactors as well, because even if I own two medieval costumes that I use for medieval dinners, and a sword, I never really used them, while I know there are people out there who reenact tournaments and other medieval events and are even more passionate than me about that time.

It's a story of love, friendship, faith and betrayal that hopefully will be appreciated everywhere, even if it's set between France, England and the Holy Land. I know I will write more historical novels in the future, but I still have to pick up another time period (Italian Renaissance? Mumble mumble...). I jotted down people and/or events in my "history" notebook for future use, but we'll see. I look forward to next year and my brand new adventure.

Barbara G.Tarn is a writer, artist and world-creator. She hopes to reveal the might of her world, Silvery Earth, as soon as technology allows her. Or maybe she'll turn into an historical writer, who knows. In the meantime she writes, draws, ignores her day job and blogs at http://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/

Today I talked about promotion as a guest blogger on Creative Barbwire, my friend Barb's website. Barb is also a writer, and in a few days will guest blog here about her latest work. Until then, stop at http://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/ and pick up some tips from yours truly. While I have a lot left to learn about promoting, why reinvent the wheel yourself if you can benefit from my experiences?

Holli

Blog Jog Day Book Drawing Winner

Joylene Butler was the winner of signed copies of Gumbo Justice and Jambalaya Justice.

Joylene, if you could e-mail me at hollicastillo@cox.net with your address, I'll put Gumbo Justice in the mail after Thanksgiving.

Thanks everyone for joining me on Blog Jog Day, and hope to hear from you again!

Holli Castillo

BLOG JOG DAY and Gumbo Justice and Jambalaya Justice Giveaway

Thank you for stopping by my Blog! Please explore all this Blog has to offer, then jog on over to http://authorcharmainegordon.xanga.com/.

If you would like to visit a different Blog in the jog, go to http://blogjogday.blogspot.com.

Anyone who like to be entered in a giveaway, please leave a comment. You'll be entered in a giveaway for Gumbo Justice, the first in the Crescent City Mystery series, as well as the soon-to-be-released second in the series, Jambalaya Justice. I will do a random drawing from all comments left, and will immediately mail Gumbo Justice to the winner, and will forward Jambalaya Justice as soon as I have a copy in my hands.

Thanks for stopping by!

Promotion in Increments

Like most writers, I have to do my own promotion. I am published by an independent press, Oak Tree Press, and am happy that everything worked out the way it did. When I first started out, I thought I wanted a big New York house that would put me on the Bestseller's List. When that didn't work out, I looked for an agent. I also queried publishers, not really understanding the difference between publishers and agents at the time, and lucked out by getting a contract with Oak Tree, which has worked out extremely well for me.

When I was querying big houses, I didn't realize that the big houses don't keep books in print indefinitely, and that if you don't sell big from the beginning, they may pull your books. I also didn't realize that the front shelves of the Barnes and Noble are reserved for already best-selling authors, and there was no way on earth any big New York publisher was going to spend big money putting a no-name like me at the front of the book store. I was also unaware that the big New York houses wouldn't spend their hard earned money promoting me, and I would do a lot of promotion on my own if I was published by one of them.

So it turned out I signed with an indie house and as I started exploring the murky waters of promotion, I learned a lot. I was lucky enough to have a promotion mentor, Sunny Frazier, another Oak Tree Press writer, who guided me along the way, (along with other newbies she refers to as her posse)and explained the industry to me. I was a complete novice, and although I knew enough to have a website, a blog and a Facebook account, I wasn't sure about anything else, or what to do with these now that I had them. So Sunny helped me out.

One thing she didn't explain to me, probably because she figured it was self-explanatory and I should have realized it already, is that promotion is incremental. By this, I mean you have to think of new things to do constantly.

It's easy to keep waiting for that one big hit, that one thing you just know will send hundreds of thousands of people to your website or to Amazon to purchase your book. I wonder, how do I get Brad Pitt to walk around holding a copy of Gumbo Justice? He lives in New Orleans part time, so if I really wanted to find him, I bet I could. My husband was an extra in the Green Lantern movie that shot down here, and at the end of shooting he gave the director a signed copy of my novel. I just knew that I was going to hear back from him wanting the movie rights, but so far, I'm still waiting. Or maybe I'll do an interview on a website that Oprah happens to come across... You get my drift.

The more promotion I do the more I realize that promotion is like training for a marathon that never happens. I have to come up with ways to get my name and my book out there every month, and then I have to try to do it again the next month, and the next month, and the next month. If I can book an interview this month, find a new website to either list my book, post a blog, or at least make a comment, I am taking a step in the right direction. I also try to blog on my own blog, and then post about it on Facebook and Twitter at least once a month. I try not to overdo it. After all, many of my Facebook friends and Twitter buddies already know about my book, and although they may want to read an interesting blog I've written, they don't want everything I write to be Gumbo Justice or my experiences as a writer.

I have found that when I do get my name out there, whether in an online interview, or my college alumni magazine, I make a few book sales. I don't make mega sales each time, maybe one or two a day for a few days. But if I do this a few times a month, I sell more books.

Then comes next month, and I have to find something new. This is where it comes in handy to have friends and a mentor in the field. They pass on new websites, new places to post, other writers looking for someone to guest blog. I try to get to a few of these each month.

Of course, as I've mentioned, the marathon never actually happens. All of the training doesn't culminate in one big event--my book hadn't made the Bestseller's List and hasn't been optioned for a screenplay or cable t.v. series. But I do sell a few books, I do get emails from strangers asking when the next one will be out, and I do feel like my work is being read and enjoyed, which is probably the most important thing to me.

So while my incremental promotional tactics may not result in millions of dollars of sales, more of my books do get sold, and more importantly, read, than if I wasn't self-promoting. And with my second novel, Jambalaya Justice, coming out soon, the promotion I've done for Gumbo Justice should pay off double.