RainwaterBooks: Adventures in Publishing

Busy life

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:51:57 -0500

I know I have been super busy lately, as I am sure many of you have, too. That’s why when I received this email, I had to stop for a moment to share it with you.

Remember when—-

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms? And wore tennis shoes not $200 Nike’s!?

It took three minutes for the TV to warm up??

Nobody owned a purebred dog?

When a quarter was a decent allowance?

You’d reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?

Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?

You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn’t pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?

Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?

It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?

They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed… and they did it!

When a 57 Chevy was everyone’s dream car…to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?

No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?

Lying on your back in the grass with your friends… and saying things like, ‘That cloud looks like a… ‘??

Playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?

Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger…

And with all our progress, don’t you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the children of today.

When being sent to the principal’s office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?

Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn’t because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

And our summers were filled with bike rides, Hula Hoops, and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.

Didn’t that feel good, just to go back and say, ‘Yeah, I remember that’??

I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a Double Dog Dare to pass it on… To remember what a Double Dog Dare is, read on… And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

Send this on to someone who can still remember Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell , Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk.?

How Many Of These Do You Remember??
Candy cigarettes…

Wax Coke-shaped wax bottles with colored sugar water inside…

Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles…

Coffee shops with Table Side Jukeboxes…

Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum…

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers…

Newsreels before the movie…?

Telephone numbers with a word prefix…( Yukon 2-601). Party lines…

Peashooters…?

Hi-Fi’s & 45 RPM records…

78 RPM records…

Green Stamps…

Mimeograph paper…

The Fort Apache Play Set…

Do You Remember a Time When Decisions were made by going…?
‘eeny-meeny-miney-moe’??

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, ‘Do Over!’??

‘Race issue’ meant arguing about who ran the fastest?

Catching The Fireflies Could Happily Occupy An Entire Evening?

It wasn’t odd to have two or three ‘Best
Friends’…?

Having a Weapon in School meant being caught with a Slingshot?

Saturday morning cartoons weren’t 30-minute commercials for action figures?

‘Oly-oly-oxen-free’ made perfect sense?

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?

The Worst Embarrassment was being picked last for a team?

War was a card game?

Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant orange flavored chewable aspirin?

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

If you can remember most or all of these, Then You Have Lived!!!!!!!

im-not-ofuckingkay: rule 1) IF TUMBLR’S CREATOR COMES UP ON...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:36:23 -0500

im-not-ofuckingkay:

rule 1) IF TUMBLR’S CREATOR COMES UP ON YOUR DASH, YOU MUST REBLOG.

UGH!

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:20:39 -0400

I hate not being motivated. Luckily, I don’t suffer from writers block a lot, but what I do suffer from is lack of enthusiasm. I have lots of ideas that I want to get down on paper- need to get down on paper- but I seem to look for anything else but writing to do. I am even writing this to keep from doing my other stuff! Ugh!

On another note, I published my book a week or so ago! I’m excited, but even that excitement is muted by my own… pessimism, maybe? I don’t know. I’m not depressed. I’m not in need of mind altering medications, although at this point I might accept them. I am just lacking persistence passion.

That’s a common occurrence in my life. I get so excited and I run full force at something, then like clockwork I give out. Sometimes I even make it all the way to where I want to be and I still just throw my hands up. For instance today, all I am doing is sitting around watching real crime tv. Just so I know that there are people out there with bigger issues than I have.

As I write this, I heard an awful sound from the other side of my house. I go to the noise just to realize that it’s my washing machine. While it should be spinning it’s sitting perfectly still, but the motor is whirring away. Great, now to buy a belt. I guess clean clothes are my motivation now…

The Hot Days of Summer

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:26:54 -0400

Summer is in full swing and man am I hot! It rained for the first time in months last night and it was great, but right back into the high 90’s today. I have two readers going through Wylde, Summer looking for typos. Man, I hate typos. I wish I was one of those people who could catch them all the time, but I can’t. I drives me nuts really. ‘Cause no matter how many times I think I have read something and I have it all correct, someone will still find one or two. I do my best, and I make far less than I used too. I know, maybe I am just waiting for those two guys that go around the country looking for typographical errors to call me and tell me that I am the recipient of an ward for the most typos ever. LOL!

What do you do to ensure that your work is polished? Have a friend read it?

The cover to our newest release!

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:26:00 -0400

I’m so excited because later today the preview copies I ordered of the latest RainwaterBooks release will arrive!!!! I haven’t really told anyone what the plots about, and I need to reread it to make sure it is accurate with a few dates and such, but I hope it’s ready for release in the next week or so!

Rejected...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:07:39 -0400

Most authors that have ever submitted any piece to any publisher has had one rejection or so. Some many rejections, and the gifted few, none.

About a month ago I received a manuscript that was a re-submit from a month previous to look at and publish. This collection of really long and not very enlightened love poetry was not the best thing I had ever read. It wasn’t even the okay-est thing I had ever read. But, I took a month and had other people read it, in case my pallet for love poetry had grown cynical over the years.

Every submission guideline that I have read- my own included- states that it could take a while and it was suggested to me that 4-6 weeks is the unspoken industry standard.

I have been working on publishing three other authors, finishing my own manuscript, and now I am formatting for release another. The people, whose opinion I value, just recently got back to me with concurring views and I decided not to publish the collection. Just so happen, the author sent me an email demanding to know what was going on with her book. I sadly told her that I would be passing on the project and her response was that “I wasted her time.”

I must admit, this irked me to no end. Waste her time? What about my time in trying to edit this into something people would want to read? What about the time my friends took to read it, not liking any of it? Waste her time???? This is how I know she has never sent in anything to a main stream publisher. She may never hear from them again once a query letter is sent. At least I took my time and tried to make it marketable.

Any who… I hate that I couldn’t bring myself to publish it. I don’t want to be judgmental of anyone’s work. Authors pour so much of their life and soul into their work that it’s a big deal to let others read it, much less pass judgement on it. But as a new publisher, I have to look at everything. Being alone I have to be willing to put my heart and soul behind it, and this one I wasn’t.

I didn’t answer her angry email, and I never will. She will learn the hard way, like all of us have. Thanks for letting me vent, you can continue your adventure.

~~Mandie

On the Origins of Movies

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 16:04:05 -0400

Summer is in full swing and I’m at the movies with my daughter. We are going to see Judy Moody. A movie adapted from a great book. As I sit in the lobby I look at movie posters and can’t help but notice all of the titles that originated as a book. In the most recent past we’ve seen Romona and Beezus come to life a well as the adventure of a divorced woman in Eat, Pray, Love. And lets not forget epics such as Harry Potter and Gone With The Wind. Even the comic books and graphic novels of our youths are finding new homes on silver screens with soon the be released Green Lantern and Captain America. You know, the more I think about it the harder I find it to look at these movie posters and not see the book they were based on…

Ahhhh... Sundays

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:04:00 -0400

I love lazy Sundays. They are my guilty little pleasure. Doing a lot of work from home makes it seem like I always have something to do, but on Sunday I try not to do anything. I may read a few things or play on Facebook, but my passion for Sundays are naps!

Remember when you were younger and how you hated a nap? Never wanting to fall asleep, tossing and turning until you woke up and an hour had passed… those were the days! I set up a time to do that almost every Sunday. It comes shortly after I finish watching CBS Sunday Morning but before I get up and start the laundry or write a paper.

Sometimes I still find myself at my desk typing away. But, if I’ve had my nap it no longer feels like work, its more like I chose to do it. The difference between a job and a passion is the want.

This week I should receive a few preview copies I ordered up of the next project RainwaterBooks is putting out, my own book. I’m so excited! I also start a new poetry collection for a talented young lady here in Cape Coral and maybe help answer some questions for a talented group I would love to see in print. Not too shabby, huh? So maybe, just maybe, I deserve my Sunday breaks?

RainwaterBooks, Who Am I?

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:26:00 -0400

In life, everyone finds a path. Some stumble upon it while others set out to forge their own way, RainwaterBooks is more of an in-between.

I write in my spare time. Everyone told me that my writing was pretty good, but I didn’t always have the drive to finish a story. That’s a problem if you want to write for a living. Another problem is writing a story that you just know people want to read, but you send it out to rejection after rejection after rejection.

So, I decided while perusing other career choices that I could self-publish books and see how they did. Then a friend asked me to take a look at his stuff, I did, and we published him. Then another friend and another all asked me to help them tell their story.

Now, I find myself publishing stories for those close to me as well as new friends. I’m making magazines, books, and e-books. It’s great! I get to see the story take shape and become something that others can enjoy.

Luckily, most everything I have been asked to look at is good stuff. I don’t really want to have to tell anyone no, that will make me feel like the other guys. I want to help people tell others a story.

Soon, I will have enough people publishing with me to warrant buying a block of ISBN numbers. I never knew how much went into this book making stuff, but I’m figuring it all out. Every day is a new adventure and I love it! I may need to rethink my path choice…

Photo

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:01:22 -0400