11 November

Maria’s Lesson: The Signing Table

by Jon Katz
Signing Table
Signing Table

When I suggested that Maria and I both sign pre-ordered copies of “Second Chance Dog,” (or all copies of the book ordered through Battenkill), she thought perhaps a dozen or so people might want her signature. EVERYBODY wants her signature, as I suspected they would, so she is now neck-deep in books at the special signing table Connie Brooks set up in the front of the store. Maria and I will be spending a lot of time there in the coming weeks, my new book sale target is 1,000 copies sold through Battenkill in November, many more by Christmas.

Maria was just shocked at how many books people want her to sign, I told her she is becoming a celebrity in her own right, she does not believe it. She will soon enough. I love signing books with her, we both recognize so many names. Better get a small cushion, i told  her, we are going to be at this table a good long while. Red seems to grasp this, he has found his chair.

11 November

Pre-orders for “Second Chance Dog:” Heading for 600. Thanks.

by Jon Katz
Heading for 600.
Heading for 600.

Maria and I got to the Battenkill Bookstore at 3:45 p.m. and it was a war zone in there – cartons and stacks of books everywhere, Connie, Marilyn, Kate all exhausted, trying to pretend they could smile and mean it. Within a few minutes the 500th pre-order for “Second Chance Dog” came in, they were pouring in by phone and e-mail, from just about every state in the union. The bookstore staff is unflaggingly patient and courteous, but they were definitely looking shell-shocked. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing, the e-mails haven’t stopped coming all day. This is a potent and focused community and they got a taste of it. Maria and I signed books for two hours, and Connie’s first shipment supply ran out – hundreds more are coming this week, and she set aside some for my talk and reading tomorrow night at the bookstore.

Maria and I had a blast recognizing the names on the order forms, connecting them to e-mail and Facebook posts and Open House visits. A bunch of people called me at the store to say hello.

I thank you all for pre-ordering the book, it is a wonderful launch for a book about love and second chances, it gives great strength and support to a worth independent bookstore, it supports the spirit of buying loyal and many of you will get photos, dog food or books for free. We’re looking a ways to expand the give-a-way program past tomorrow’s publication date. I am not as tired as Connie and her staff are – they were all on the phone all day – but I am tired. This is a wonderful kick-off to my new kind of book tour, conducted in some bookstores and mostly online. The pre-order offers are good until midnight and we will offer some new things to people who buy the book after it’s official publication date tomorrow. You can order the book online or e-mail Connie at [email protected].

This was the first goal of my new kind of book tour – 500 pre-orders for Connie, and it looks like that number will be up to 600 by tomorrow. I mean to keep it going, that is if people like the book (I have to remember the book in all of this marketing!). This first phase has been so successful we are thinking of ways to keep it going past tomorrow. Maria and I will continue to sign and personalize any books bought through Battenkill, we will come up with some other incentives too. Maria and I have sore hands, they will get a lot sorer – 400 additional books are headed to Battenkill from Random House.

I don’t know about you but this is so empowering for me, I feel I am taking control of my own creative destiny, making the transition from one kind of publishing to another. This is really just about me, you and the blog and Facebook pages. I am on my own here, figuring it out as I go along. There is no official manual or handbook, but I know where my readers are and I am coming after them. I mean to stay relevant as a writer. E-books did not change publishing, the future changed publishing, and I intend to be a part of the future, not the past.

We are moving head-on, tomorrow is the pub date, a whole other story. This is where I want to be, not looking back. The book tour, online and off, will run to Christmas, there will be give-a-ways, photos,  blog posts, essays, discussions, podcasts, videos and related topics on Facebook. Hang on, we are just getting started and thank you so much for helping to show the meaning of buying local, being independent, supporting individuality and showing that contrary to many published reports, reading and story-telling are alive and well in the world and booming. In times of change, the creative get moving.

11 November

Zelda Settling

by Jon Katz
Zelda Settling
Zelda Settling

I’ve noticed Zelda settling in the last few months, she seems less vigilant, less on guard, less anxious. Perhaps the Bedlam Farm atmosphere – calm animals easy with people – is working it’s magic on her. She still keeps an eye on Red, but seems to have stepped back from her role as vigilant leader and defender of the ewes, when Tess fell ill Zelda wanted no part of it, she stayed well away from the vet and the sick ewe.

She shows no interest in running over or through me, she no longer stomps her feet at Red or tries to run him over. Or perhaps she’s just getting a bit older, age does settle intense spirits down. I came up to her with the camera today and she barely gave me a second look. Something is different.

11 November

Days Of Meaning. Heading For Battenkill Books. Call Me And Maria.

by Jon Katz
Days Of Meaning
Days Of Meaning: The Love Dog

I just got off the phone with Mark Herzel of WVXU Cinncinnati, an NPR station, and we talked about “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story” for nearly an hour, there were great calls from some of you blog-readers and other dog lovers and great questions from Mark. You can hear it here.  I miss sitting down with people like Mark as happens on a traditional book tour, but I am committed to trying to make this new kind of tour work, and it is off to a promising start. The book is in it’s second printing, and Connie Brooks is badgering me to get over to Battenkill Books and begin signing the more than 400 books stacked in boxes waiting for me (and in many cases, Maria) to sign.

We will be there awhile. The first phase of my new book tour is getting at least 500 pre-orders for my book to Battenkill Books, and I think  by the time I get to the bookstore we will hit 500, perhaps more, and I thank all of you good people for that. This book tour is being run through my blog and not much else, we are making some publishing history. Maria and I will be signing for a good few hours and I will report back on the status of things, as always. I appreciate this community very much, this is a Day Of Meaning for me, and I place great stock in Days Of Meaning, they acknowledge the crisis and mystery and wonder of life.

You can pre-order the book right here, Connie take Paypal and ships anywhere in the world. Or you can call at 518 677-2515. If you call in the next few hours, Maria and I will be there – maybe I can say hello, I’ll try. We’ll be there at 3:15 p.m. EDT, I want to sell 500 books for Connie and for this quite wonderful bookstore, my hometown bookstore. This is something we will not lose in our community.

Publication is tomorrow, the book will be available everywhere books are sold, in paper and digital form. Frieda, Maria and I will be launching the book at Battenkill at 7 p.m. – talk, reading, signing, discussion. Frieda does not wish to meet your dogs, thanks.

 

 

11 November

Inside A Tedx Talk

by Jon Katz
Inside The Ted Talk
Inside The Ted Talk

Ted Talks are one of the more interesting things to bubble up out of Silicon Valley and the potpourri of new and digital media increasingly drawing people away from the nasty and fossilized idea of news as present by conventional news organization. There are good reasons for people to abandon newspapers and cable television, they are almost uniformly dull, disturbing, and irrelevant to our lives. Ted Talks are non-profit presentations of ideas worth sharing – they are presented on radio and mostly online. When Ted Talks go viral, as they sometimes do, lives and ideas are transformed.

Mainstream journalism has not seemed to notice that Ted Talk are wildly popular because they are about ideas, and not about arguments. TT groups around the country look for interesting ideas and subjects and invite speakers to present them at televised forums in bursts of about 15 minutes. I turned down my Ted Talk invitation, then re-thought that and accepted it. I chose “Creative Aging” as my talk for a day-long forum on eating, playing and living well. Talks centered on food, nutrition, childhood obesity, the power of bowling, nutrition warriors and their work to get people to eat well.

We went to Montclair State University for a Friday night rehearsal, and then for presentations of our talks to 300 people who had paid $50 a piece to come and hear all of us. I was nervous. I never get nervous speaking in public, but this was a new environment for me, different, more produced and not really connected to my books. I was also returning to Montclair, where I loved for 25 years before I moved to the country and got divorced. I think that rattled me more than the talk. Maria came with me, she loves to take out her sketch pad and drawn the scene. It is so important for me to look up at her and see her sitting there.

I saw right away that I was different from everyone else talking. I am among the older speakers and I was by farm the biggest and most rumpled. Most of the speakers were women – they were almost all attractive, very thin and fit. They were well dressed, poised and prepared – they had memorized their talks, had slick Power-Point presentations. The Ted Talk organizers were also hip, lean, sharp-looking. Before I entered the auditorium, Maria helped me pull bits of hay out of my jacket (I had fed the donkeys Friday morning.) I felt a bit like Jed Clampett going to one of those fancy Hollywood dinners. Nobody looked like me, or was like me, but that is not necessarily a bad thing, it just reminded me that I live in a different world. I suppose of you are giving talks on food and nutrition, you need to look lean and fit.

I had no Power-Point presentation, I declined to do that, I printed out parts of my talk and send about a dozen of my photos to use as screen backdrops. Simon was the biggest hit by far. There were a lot of students in the crowd, and I was stunned to be surrounded by many after the talk. They were eager for messages of hope, discouraged by the grim news pouring into their tablets and smarphones, they had no positive models of aging to study and think about it. I hope I can live up to being one.

The Tedx Talks have lots of rules about speeches (I ignored almost all of them) and ask the speakers to hang around all day to hear one another’s talks. I loved this forum – I am all about ideas, and I am all about a new medium that promotes thinking rather than confrontation and argument. This is the new media, and so am I, in many ways. So even though there were some social and cultural differences between me and the other speakers, I felt it was an important forum to bring my message of hope, self-determination and independence as we move through life. it was well worth the trip, as strange as it sometimes felt.

I do not expect my talk to go viral any more than I expect my new book to sell millions of copies, the “big score” is one of those things creative people need to get out of their heads in the new world of fragmented media. It can happen, it rarely does. I went there with a passion to bring my voice and my message to a place I had lived for so long and which represents the other part of my life, good and bad. I did what I set out to do, and happily returned to my world, the place I now belong, and expect to live out my life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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