Jeana Gartshore-Thompson: Twelve Question Tuesday

Today I am excited to welcome Jeana Gartshore-Thompson to Twelve Question Tuesday.  I have changed some of the questions a bit for Jeana since she is on the promotion side of things at Oak Tree Press. 

1.  Please tell me the three most important things people should know about you.
I try to turn everything that happens to me into a humorous situation. Laughing is the best medicine in any situation! I am always trying to bring a smile to someone’s day, you just never know when someone really needs that! Life is an adventure, mine just happens to be a crazy adventure!

I am very determined to provide for my family, I have four part-time jobs. Besides being the public relations manager for Oak Tree Press, you can find me in bright pink coveralls and an orange safety vest doing patrol at one of our local schools and am a recess teacher too! As well as transporting a small group of kids to a local daycare after school. Most days I don’t know if I am coming or going. But I Love each and every one of my jobs, they are all rewarding in their own way.

There is nothing I won’t try or give help with. This still amazes my boyfriend, Steven Lomprez! I am not a girly girl, I will be out helping fix a vehicle or digging dirt what ever needs done I am there doing it! But I am the worlds biggest Clutz! I can fall over literally nothing! 

Once, I went to get a hand saw that was hanging to high up in the garage, I decided to get a broom to get it down, the saw slipped down the handle on the broom and cut my hand. The same day Steve asked me to put a ear of corn on the squirrel feeder, I pushed it on and the screw went into my hand. What did Steve do? He laughed at me! Bad things happen, you can’t stop that but you just need to find the humor in it!

2.  Are you a dog person or a cat person? 
I am both, we actually have a dachshund named Dashin (that is how I pronounced a dachshund). We also have 2 older female cats, Nibbles and Sassy (Sassy is a blue tip Siamese) We also have two Big Oscar fish and a pet squirrel, Roo that I rescued as a baby. I am a huge animal lover!

3.  Tea or coffee? 
Definitely Tea! I love the smell of coffee but hate the taste! I am a huge fan of hot chocolate in the winter too! Especially when I am on the crosswalk, crossing kids!

4.  Boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs, or commando? (Either what you prefer or what you prefer on others.)
I like boxer briefs on guys! However anyone that read Billie, my boss’s interview would 
know that my guy prefers commando! 

5.  If you could be anyone else for one day, who would it be and why? (You can’t be Mrs. Channing Tatum because I have claimed that one already.) 
Believe it or not I wouldn’t want to be anyone else, I am very comfortable in my own skin! Many of my friends think I am a fruit loop in a world of Cheerios!   I am a little wild and crazy but I do my own thing and enjoy this wonderful thing we call life everyday. I simply dance to the beat of my own drum!

6.  How did you end up at Oak Tree Press?
Well this is quite a long story, however I will try to give the shortest version possible. I had actually gone through my second divorce. I had not worked in 9 years. I sat here wondering how I was going to provide for my children, my father had called me and told me about an ad he read in our local paper. I immediately sent a letter to Billie Johnson, the publisher of Oak Tree Press. We met for lunch and she hired me on the spot. We actually hit it off so well that we are very good friends, I seriously miss her since her move back to California.

7.  What is your favorite book of all time and why?
I would have to say “The Scarlet Letter”  I am not sure exactly why but the story had always stuck with me. 

8.  What is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you?
Probably the huge spider I just witnessed staring at me on my floor! I hate spiders!

9.  If you won the lottery, would you share the wealth or change your name and go into hiding?
I think I would share my wealth, I really like brightening some ones day, and giving gifts!


10.  Would you be food or fighter if the zombie apocalypse were to happen? 
I would definitely be a fighter! I can be very stubborn, I hear. I am do not give up easily at all! I certainly do not go down without a good fight!

11.  What is the most daring thing you have ever done?
Laughing at my boyfriend, Steve when I paid my children to smash raw eggs on his bald head! Was so funny I could not help myself! If you know him you know he is over 6 foot tall, I am a mere 5 foot. I would say that qualifies as the most daring thing I have done.

12.  Would you rather be rich or famous--and you could only have one-- and why?  The fame would be based on something good, not something like being the best serial killer or anything like that. 
Rich! Who in their right mind would not want to be rich? I would more than likely share my wealth though!
MY BIO:

Jeana Gartshore-Thompson is a life long resident of Taylorville, Illinois. and a single mother to three beautiful children, April (26), Jesse (16)and Benjamin(10). Jeana has a step-daughter from her previous marriage, Brittany who is attending SIUE, studying to be a special education teacher. Jeana and her children were blessed to have her wonderful boyfriend, Steven Lomprez enter their lives in 2011. He has two children Travis and Kim that add to the large family. Jeana is also a caregiver to her oldest , April, who has Cerebral Palsy.  Before coming onto Oak Tree Press' staff , she ran and operated her own in-home Daycare for 10+ years. When Jeana is not dedicating herself to Oak Tree or her children, she loves to enjoy the outdoors with her boyfriend Steve. Jeana and Steve 'adopted' many plants from Billie Johnson's garden during OTP's re-location to California, and they report the bloomers are thriving.

My websites

You can visit our website at  www.oaktreebooks.com

Or visit our blog at  http://otpblog.blogspot.com/

I am on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/jeana.thompson.12
 
Oak Tree Press Authors at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Oak-Tree-Press-Authors/210979042259140

Oak Tree Press on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/oaktreebooks

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.

GUMBO JUSTICE Tour

My publisher, Billie Johnson, was in town for the Epicon conference, which is an e-publishing conference. Oak Tree Press has books on Kindle as well as in print, and with the e-market expanding, it was a good conference to attend. Oak Tree also had two writers up for awards, Mike Orenduff and Marilyn Meredith, so there was more than one reason to attend. (Mike Orenduff won for his Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras. Go Mike!)

While Billie was here in town, I gave her the Gumbo Justice New Orleans Tour. Julio (my husband) and I showed her around the locations that are in the novel, including the courthouse, the district attorney's office and The Hole, the bar owned by Ryan's brother where Ryan drowns her sorrows. I also showed her a few spots that are going to be featured in Jambalaya Justice, coming out this summer.

We did the traditional down town French Quarter jaunt, but because Billie is the adventurous type who knows very little fear, we took her to the ninth ward. For those who don't know, the ninth ward is the area of New Orleans the most decimated by Katrina, the place where Brad Pitt is building houses and where the Musician's Village is located.

The ninth ward is showing some progress, but it's amazing how little work has actually been done since the storm. As you leave downtown and head toward the ninth ward, the damage to the buildings becomes more prevalent and the neighborhood becomes questionable. Some of the buildings have not yet been gutted. And then you cross the canal and see grass and dirt, an area that was once a thriving suburban neighborhood now dotted with only an occasional new construction.

This goes on for miles. There's a small section with a handful of new houses, all raised on platforms, and all brightly colored as if to make up for the depressing landscape. It's clear that a lot has been lost here, and it takes gumption for the people who stayed to rebuild to do it. The isolation, going on five years later, is haunting.

Some houses still have "X" spray painted on them, with numbers in each segment. The numbers tell a story, how many people were found in the house dead, if the workers who investigated saw pets that needed rescuing, the date the house was checked, all a constant reminder to the people who have returned that many still will not.

And on top of everything, crime has returned full force, murders and robberies easier to commit with fewer witnesses around and the National Guard gone.

But Billie Johnson braved the tour with us, and while out there, we saw other groups touring the ruins, the canal, taking pictures of the new construction. Perhaps next time she comes in town, we'll have more progress to show.