Barbara Gerber
  • Blog
  • Author
  • Book
  • Excerpts
  • Praise
  • Appearances & Press
  • TerraNovaBooks.com
  • Contact

My First Novel Left Home Today!

7/1/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
After eight years of writing, nurturing, and fussing over my first novel, primping it and reminding it to behave, today it enters the big wide world. I’m incredibly proud of this grown-up book and I’m getting a little teary-eyed watching it leave home.

One might expect that today, its official release date, would be its birthday, but it doesn’t feel that way. The book was conceived in 2007 with a germ of an idea, born in late 2014 when the first advance reader copies were released, and today it flies. It has its own life now and I can’t protect it any more.

What’s even more terrifying, though, is that I’m in charge of promoting it. Whose idea was this, anyway? Oh yeah, mine.

Could this task have fallen to a more unlikely person?

I was telling my sister Madeline the other day how I have a booksigning at COAS Books in Las Cruces, NM, on July 25. Before I could say another word, she said, “Wear a statement necklace, something large and unforgettable, and a plain black dress. Wear that necklace at all your signings. You’ll need an obvious image that people associate with you.”

When I mentioned to my niece Theadora that today was the release date, she said, “Come with me—you need a photo. Wear this. Sit there. Hold the books this way. Are you happy about the book? Then show it.” Click, click, done.

A few nights ago, while celebrating the book’s imminent release with old friends, all of whom bought a copy, Eileen called out across the bar, “My friend here just wrote a book!” People raised their glasses and the bartender bought me a beer. I slinked away to the rest room. When I returned, Deirdre handed me $30 and said,  “Those people over there just bought two books!” No more sold for the rest of the night because, you know, I was in charge.

Clearly my family and friends are more natural marketers than I am. And clearly, this needs to change.

Some time ago while cleaning my house, I discovered a spider living under a potted plant. “What is your problem?” I scolded as it scuttled away from the sudden light. “How do you expect to make a living here? You expect a mosquito to crawl under this thing and snare itself in your web? You expect a volunteer fly to zip by? Haven’t you ever heard of market positioning?” It wasn’t interested.

I’m trying really hard not to be that stupid spider, but it’s hard going against your own nature. Being an extrovert isn’t the same as tooting your own horn. And most writers tend to be observers—we might be chatty, but we generally like to hang back some; schmoozing too much interferes with that. The famously reclusive J.D. Salinger had no Pinterest boards, we all know that Jonathan Franzen hates the internet, and I assume that my heroes Annie Proulx and Toni Morrison employ their own crack publicists. But last time I checked, I’m not quite as well known as those folks.

But this is serious. The book I’m launching today, Love and Death in a Perfect World, must succeed, or why would I bother writing it? You don’t send a kid to college just so she can hole up in a dorm room and sleep for four years. It’s time for this book to make its way in the world. So here goes.

Love and Death in a Perfect World is available today on Amazon. It’s a great book, a book that will make you wonder why you think what you think and feel what you feel. A book that, through an authentic portrait of a woman named Rosemary, explores the baffling gift of life, the mystery of love, and the burden of death. It will make you laugh and cry.

But don’t take my word for it. Buy it. Request it at your local bookstore—it’s available to them through Ingram—or buy it on Amazon.

And let me know what you think!

0 Comments
    Picture

    Barbara Gerber

    Barbara Gerber is a writer and English teacher in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Love and Death in a Perfect World is her first novel.


    Pick up a copy of Love and Death in a Perfect World at Collected Works Bookstore and Coffeehouse, in downtown Santa Fe!

    Find Me Online
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    June 2017
    June 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014

    Categories

    All
    Across The Universe
    Advance Reader
    Advance Review
    Affordable Care Act
    Aging
    Allegory Of The Cave
    Amazon
    Amnesia
    Annie Proulx
    Bad Experience
    Beetles
    Benny Goodman
    Big Data
    Book About Mom
    Book Launch
    Book Promotion
    Booksigning
    Bo Ramsey
    Bowery Boys
    Bras
    Brother
    Bugs Bunny
    Characters
    Cholla Cactus
    COAS Books
    Collected Works
    Comfort Women
    Creative
    Creative Exercise
    Daughter
    Derek Jeter
    Designer
    Destroyer Of Worlds
    Dick Estell
    DNR
    Dr. Death
    Editor
    Ernest Hemingway
    Ezra Pound
    Facebook
    Family History
    Family Memories
    Family Photos
    F-bomb
    Felony
    Fiction
    First Novel
    Forgotten
    Francis Bacon
    Frat
    Free Association
    Garrison Keillor
    George Costanza
    Glenn Stenson
    Goodreads
    Google
    Greg Brown
    Highway Of Life
    Hospitalist
    I Give Thanks To Guru Dev
    Imperial Japan
    Internet
    Jai Guru Deva Om
    J.D. Salinger
    Joe DiMaggio
    John Lennon
    Jonathan Frazen
    Jones Beach
    Journal
    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
    Kayak
    Kindred Readers
    Loch Ness
    Long Island
    Love And Death In A Perfect World
    Luddite
    Madeline Abbene
    Medical Crisis
    Memory
    Mice
    Middle-aged Women
    Narrative
    New Author
    New Book
    New Mexico
    New Year
    New York
    Oklahoma City
    On The Pleasure Of Hating
    Opposite-day Narnia
    Packrats
    Personal Story
    Pin
    Pinoccio
    Pinterest
    Plato
    Political Speeches
    Post
    Prairie Home Companion
    Publish
    Radio Reader
    Rape
    Review
    Robert Moses
    Rolling Stone
    Sabrina Rubin Erdely
    Sandy Wood
    Santa Fe
    Santa Fe Mom
    Saturday Night Live
    Scanning Old Photos
    Seaford
    Sheri Sinclair
    Shopping
    Siblings
    Silver City
    Simpsons
    Southwest Festival Of The Written Word
    Spiders
    Spiral
    Statement Necklace
    St. Francis Auditorium
    Tackapausha
    Test Of Time
    The Indispensable Opposition
    Toni Morrison
    Tumbleweeds
    Twitter
    Umberto Eco
    UVA
    Walter Lippman
    Wantagh Lanes
    Weed Whacker
    William Hazlitt
    Women's Bodies
    Wondering
    Write
    Yard Work

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.