October 21, 2012

• Bookies – Pimping /-Our G-Spot Is Harder To Find

  I am going to defend myself and everyone else who, a couple of years back, new zero about Self Publishing; and; “Oh Baby; We Mean Nothing,” but we had been given strokes for years by professors who read our work, and that counted, for it took them a long time to become professorial and to be held to the standard that they would become tenured professors from within as well as outside of our very large pond – The waters separating our planet, but they were a lot like many of us, for they loved language, words, and most of all to see the written word put together in the form most accepted as special — a book, and when they were good at their job;  They were very good.

  Among the most illustrious places I have ever sat were the rooms in the old McMicken Hall of The University of Cincinnati, for it was there where I could leave this fragile world and find myself immersed in what I had believed a college should feel like — An older building, the ivy growing along the brick walls here and there, and where either the windows were opened with the breezes of springtime coming on or the old radiators were huffing and puffing, spitting, now and then, as if a fine cup of tea was brewing just ready to take the chill off the winter’s day.  I felt loved there, loved in the most basic sense, for I was always comfortable and either in the early morning or mid-day, I could find my favorite place to take my notes to mark in my books and to see what, come the time for a paper to be written that I was going to sort out and leave a professor looking for more of what I could do.  I had to have my seat, just the right place where the light was bent and all of my sesnses were working on overtime to see what my next ploy would be to make it so exciting, xo compelling, that my instructors, before the course had ended, wound up calling me in to their office just wondering how in the heck I came up with whatever my big plan would be to wow them before the term was over.

  Probably, the day I realized something was making me really sick back in old Middle Tennessee State University Days was when I albeit failed a lit class, and that was a dozen years before The University of Cincinnnati, but I wasn’t called in;  No, I just got this paper with a horrible grade, never having anything but the finest of jewels given to me for what I could do with literature;  Something was wrong, and I would later learn that a foolish old Dr. was giving me medications which would have kept an elephant asleep through a coital encounter, and I had no rights when he was giving them to me, the dispicable bastard, but I will not go in to that why or how all of that happened.  I did finally bring it up all these years later when I decided that the novel was never going to get done, for among the other things which shamed me most was getting that one bad grade.

  That was the breaking point though, for when that happened I knew that something was not right, and I was not going to stay in that place and be broken, trashed by guys who just wanted a girl that wasn’t a home girl, or to be led to believe by older fellows that they loved me in some noble way when there was invisible ink over their bedroom doors with the names of the girls by the day, the week, and for the most shocking — The hours.  I was way too decent for all of this, and I was not going to be cured from what the world had done to me on the stroke of luck that was my breath of chilled air around me when Mama pushed me out to be born on that January day in 1949.  Oh my poor Mama; “Why did you make our lives so impossible,” for we would needed shown then and early that you were to be loved.

  You told me of your suffering that morning and of the hungry kids outside, my brothers and sisters wanting me to be taken back by the stork that brought me;  For they were hungry, and the mountain cold could not be eased, and I could not be soothed, for I did not tolerate your milk well — something no one knew much about, but you said that I cried, ate and cried, and I would feel some ease of pain now just to think they cleaned us both up and that you got to sleep that day.  I know that the house would have filled with people, for it was like that in the country, but you were so worn out, and the food was just not there to feed a bunch of folks, and every body wanted to see the new baby, and I feel like a monster, for I know how badly you needed to rest.  Winter on a mountain is bone chilling, for there is less of a forest to act as wind breaks, and when I grew older and was there during the cold, then I did not know how people stood it on Sand Mountain.  You are resting now, Mama, and at the end of days, then maybe that is what counts that we have all let you go, and you and Daddy are a big part of the understanding which made, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” my book need to thrive and move to higher places.

  It is your redemption, for I was able to go in and remove the spiders, the webs, and all of the vermon which haunted you, because no one taught you to love.  “Taught to love,” that seems like an oxymoron as I say it, but you cannot love or beloved without some teaching.  It is a fundamental truth, just as a child is not predispositioned to be evil unless there is a miseravle illness hiding in the family closet; a child is the cleanest, sweetest, molding of earth’s elements that it can be taught early on to love or to hate.  But I wanted to get this book out there for those who remembered to understand that we have not thrown you away, that you are now our rubbish, but you were so incredibly unloved, and you labeled yourself as not being worthy of redemption.  “Pinkhoneysuckle,” tells all of them that we know what and whom made you walk in darkness until your children started bringing the lamp’s light home, and you could both step higher, and reach further, for we were there to pick you up.  Daddy would mark on every page, for he never could imagine that in our own age, we were going to bring the reality forward that he was a worthy man, and his bride trembled with thoughts of her own diminished sense of self worth.

  “Pinkhoneysuckle,” was the vehicle by which the word would get out that your worth, and the worth of those like you was not to be disavowed.

  I keep seeing notes where book writers are writing really ugly words about themselves, so I wanted to put in one special place, so I am going to use this  blog to tell this world and especially the people of America that book writers deserve more than what they are getting now, for as my physician and I spoke as friends this week; we were recalling when, to write a book, was among the most noble thinks a person could do in their life time.Lately I have wanted to grab writters by the shoulders and scream at them, for when they get a book on the market they use terms like, “Pimping My Own Book,” and every one of us knows that a pimp uses other people for their own reward, and I want you to cut it out now my bookie friends;  Just cut it out, and do not associate promoting your own books the only way you begin to know how to sell those books as if these books are any less noble, because you had to go forward: Without monetary resources, without encouragment from those who should have held you through the whole process; For people’s first thought is; “And how does this impact, “Me.”  They are not interested in truth, and they are not interested in the vindication of a group of people who were genuinely, Pimped,”  used for less than honorable purposes, but the ever lasting, “Me,”  It comes out like a boil on the genitalia of those whose physical contact picked up something impure that got imprisoned under the skin and became a manufacturing place for the impurity.  By stating that you are, “Pimping your own book,” Then you have put yourself in line with the old boils of syphallus, or when herpes was the open symbol of impure relationships with people you embraced.  The early days of AIDS, if a person knowingly had it and spread it along was like knifing someone in the back, for theere was no cure.

  And you dare say of something wonderful you did in writing a book and getting the news out there, That you are, “Pimping your own book;”  Please, the cost to advertise any of these books is far beyond the budget of the ordinary person.  Amazon boasts, “A Million Books,” and someone is going to find out about yours; “How?”  I know; Lord, I know that we have more, “How To,” classes than we have underwear changes, and some of you will be disciplined enough to follow page for page and word for word, the, “How Tos,” and some of you may find fame that way.  Unfortunately, a lot of the, “How to do Anything,” starts looking very boring, but I do not discourage you from taking them, listening to them, and follow their plans; But I want you to make very certain that that same person who has published the, “How To,” has had one or more books on the market which have made it beyond that category of book.

  The G-Spot comes in to play here, something which I came up with on my own, and G also is among the deadly sins, and it is pure greed.  There is greed on the part of many of the self publishing companies, for that big packet you put together on the end is going to mean once again, that YOU are going to take all of this information down and YOU now have the 500 pages you need to work through to get your name on the market.  Greed is witholding what you know and whom you know from people who might can be of help to others, for we need our own resources.   Look up what it is going to take to have one real ad campaign on Google, or see if you can be featured on Amazon for a day; Try Yahoo, get your own publicist, and try a major add campaign in a newspaper! Corporate Greed comes in here, for the truth is that most of us are going to look at these prices, and then we are going to go back to our blogs and wear our readers out, because we just do not have the kind of money which can make a difference in getting our names out there.  How about The New York Times best seller list, and if there is one list which I would love to make; Then that is the one, for every book club I have ever belonged to drags out the list of the top ten, and the year’s reading is chosen from that and from a few private requests among the group.  I would like to have a full page add in The New York Times for Christmas, so does anyone mind if I get a mortgage on our house, get tricycles for us to ride, for we fall over on bikes, and I will throw in our lifetime insurance policies to settle the rest of the deal this all comes to.  Naturally, it is not the average peerson’s thing to get an add for your book in The New York Times, for we cannot afford it people.  Maybe since newspapers are harder to sell as paper these days that we could possibly ask the times to  give us tiny little adds just with our name, the name of our book and one sentence about it undera category, and charge is one hundred dollars from all over this country to help people know where some of us are coming from.  It is only paper, and of course our friends would buy it, and just let us send a hundred dollars a week and see if we get any takers, so would that not be a selfless, merciful, and grace filled thing for The New York Times to do, and it would show the world that Ebooks have not knocked off another American industryif we sold our books, because someone gave us a break.  Greed, sadly holds sway in every market, even corporations, for the goal is to consistently make money off of you, not to promote your work.  We cannot even have a gallery opening for our books, though I’m repeating here; I was told by one of the officials in Sonoma that, were there a contest for book covers. “Pinkhoneysuckle,” would win hands down.  I used two old picturees of my mother and father, and it is patented; so sorry; but please do not take my cover.  But if something worked for you;  pass it on, for that friend needing help next time just may be you.  G – Spot is among my most meaningful subjects, for our parents raised us to give and give until we had no more.  I ached, because my mother would try to give us her last new towel or bathrobe, but poor people do have bleeding hearts.  It is in their nature.

  Bookie Friends, I wish that I had something to give you to help you along, but we — You and I together never saw it coming.  The Titanic was coming in the port, and a vision was out there of Ebooks.  You could write them, have them published, get them in a book store, or sell them at home.  We need to begin looking at the corporations again, for if books are to succeed, then we need people like Proctor and Gamble who would sponsor some authors for writing love stories which was the heart of their television ads with soap operas all of those years.  How about wild and crazy automibile and truck businesses sponsoring authors who will use their big naughty trucks, or  their fanciest cars for murder mysteries?  I am talking sweet soft cover books or books you can have as library pieces; the poets would get the perfume, and adult love novels would be such additions to the chocolate makers. We who have lived for a long time know that love for a book is an incredible thing, and a book written in love can change the course of history and politics.

  Right now, one gets this sinking feeling that we are getting ready to jump on the big Titanic with all of our pretty books. Unless you have money to spend, or you have a book in you like the one that was in me as such your life will not be complete until it is out there on a shelf somewhere, then book writers may need to slow down for a while. We need more sponsors, and we need money behind us, not waiting until we finish to see what we can sell I will presume still that sleeping with people in higher office and giving graphic details, being an movie star, and saving some secrets for the written word; Real life crime and punishment, cook books and children’s books. All of these and coffee table books galore are going to continue to have a place, but the book from the heart is going to be a hard sale, especially if you are going the way on your own.

  I know that my book is a film which needs to be made. Too many Americans are fully ignorant about the Diaspora of the Southern Appalachians, and folks think we are all the same from Sand Mountain, our tip, all the way through the coal mining country in Pennsylvania where we are different as night and day. People would be interested in how we whites and blacks actally got along when we were pulling cotton sacks together, and that in the area of the country where the Bible was the one book guaranteed to be in a house that child and female abuse went on regularly. No one knows that we created not ratting out your neighbors just to be safe, and that moonshine was made long after prohibition. Young people even in the early 1960s in my world were old unmarrieds at the age of 20 in many families, and welfare was a poison pill until everyone caught the disease, so I took all of this and I wrote, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” the harsh, hilarious book with the beautiful title and cover, but you must know before you write your book that right now few of the books will have any staying power. Most will be lucky to make back what you have in it; so love that book dear friend, and be proud of it, and for those who calling selling your book through your own efforts, “Pimping your,/ mine/our book,” Then please stop it.

  My father and my mother instilled in us that, “We,” had to reach for something, that we had to feel pride in what we had done.  I will not demean their precious names by saying that I am pimping their lives. We wrote books at the worst time in American History to do so. We love our book,or none of us would have let it go to a market, so I beg you to take credit for the fact that you have the courage to continue to market that book when all else tells you that it does not have a chance. The next to look for on the shelves is the put your own book together kit, and choose to publish it or not. We have no way to stop progress, but what we can do is give our credit for the work that we have done, for it is still noble, and it will have the capacity to be loved by the generations who lived it.

  Barbara Everett Heintz, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle, Create Space, Kindle 5 Languages

   

  • 5:48 am
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