November 30, 2012

• Time For A Morality Check

  Dear Friends,

  I wish that I was a brilliant computer person who could get the word out that people are getting deeply hurt in this time of self publishing, and I have been way luckier than most, for shall I repeat that my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” took me all the way to Hollywood  where in a most joyful moment, in a room full of promises, for everyone you meet is even nicer than the last person, and there is star power in that room.  You are told that people who write books are kind that way;  They want to share and to help each other, and by the end of the evening, something inside of you is almost whispering, “Poems, Prayers, and Promises,” from the old hopeful John Denver song, but the message is still pertinent that, for the most part, that is the essence of what the evening was about.

  It was beautiful, and you feel as if the sky is the limit, for always; “Someone knows someone else in the business, and you feel as if you have broken the iron Holllywood and LA curtain.  I would not have traded the moment, but I am hurting you brothers and sisters with a pen in hand ready to get on with that great novel everyone has suggested that you write; That after the gathering, you are apt to be on your own again, and the small advertising change which you may have left over is going to give you three sticks of bubble gum and a paper bag to place over your head, for you have just been in the ball park, got kicked around for a while, and anything which happens next is apt to be a pink slip form management underscoring, “You have just begun,” and we will see you in two or three years to see how the story of you — marketing your book, just came out.”

  Everywhere I look now there are these offers; We will publish your book for $199.00, but whoever you are and wherever you are; “Will you get the picture,” that you are about to give your book away for nothing!  Whatsoever you do, with one brain in your head; so help me God, for this is from my heart; Please believe that you are worth more than that.  Remember when it was so exciting and new when we could finally make a Christmas calendar with pictures from your last and happy twelve months, and people thought; “How Clever!”  It cost you a little, but you knew exactly how many copies you needed, and no matter what you did — Somewhere down the pike you will hear it whispered that you had some gall, thinking that your life was so important people wanted to look at your face for the next twelve months!  You are shocked into disbelief that anyone could be that cruel, that your heart can be broken in an hour and not in days, because you believed no one could shatter anyone that much outside of monsters!

  Now the book publishing world is here, the low lifes have moved in, and sharks have their bibs on as they sit and droll over your exquisite generosity with your money, and you could not go through the twelve pages of fine print, now could you?  We can go with Amazon, as I chose, pay a lot more, but it is relatively on the level.  You can do KDP only, and you will feel so excited; Your book on Kindle.  I opted for a hardcover, paper cover, for Kindle ready, for every thing which I could, for in this nation and world, then someone is apt to be tempted to purchase such a book which has reviews from some brilliant people, which has won awards in the big cities, and I told a story which is from what I know as the first general rule of a good writer, “Write what you know about.”  I believed that people actually wanted a real store, of a real third world which Americans on the back roads have been living while the rest of this country sat back on their Fat Cat laurels and pretended as if — Thank  God we do not have that kind of stuff going on in America.

  It is a beautiful book, a powerful book, and it will turn upside down any notions you ever had about calling folks from my area; “Rednecks and Hillbillies.”  These are derogatory terms for human beings who were born challenged to get past the names and the notions you have about what it is to be born in to a poor family in the southern United States. You are speaking of people who live in third world situations far too often, and whose children may not have the stomach to get past the front, much less the back gate of their universe, and they think of all beyond them as being a bunch of starched shirt low downs who continue to steal from the least of them, to screw their daughters, leave them high, dry, and pregnant, so young grandmothers say such fruitless words as, “I just do not know where we went wrong, for she had all that she needed.”  What she did not have is instruction about what, “Love,” is and is not, and what it is not is some Hulk sticking their tongues down your throat until you cannot breath, jerking open your under clothes and giving you what they think is one great big, “Poke,” leaving the seeds of the next generation of, “Have nots,” and no one told that girl that she could get pregnant without a stitch of love touching her body.  “Oh God,”  when will you spare my people, and when will there be a chance for these girls to know abiding love, that kind which last over the ages. I wrote, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” for I longed for it to be read from coast to coast, for if not now; When?  When will someone tell the truth about the American roads less traveled and our impoverishment?

  I have worked so hard; Dear God, I have worked so hard to find my audience, to make people open doors, and I paid hughe dollars to Amazon, dollars which I am not to get back unless the movie industry picks this up and runs with it.  I need my 60 Minutes of fame for the world to come to the southern Appalachians. I will be satisfied just to know that people are reading the free parts, sending me notes that they want to hear more, for I will be alright to lose the money invested.

  Others believe that if they are published, get it on the internet, and lay down their cash that fame is at hand.  Please, I beg you to understand that I can count the customers from Xanga on two hands, for this is not a site for selling a book.  Worse, if you go with Amazon and Google looking for advertising, then if I cannot afford it; Most of you cannot either.  All writers need to just cut it out, save your money, and recognize that all falls on deaf ears, and what is being downloaded on those Kindles are the classics, the latest series of books which have become movies, and some wacked out special effects for everyone junkie’s idea of a book.  There is little in the way of serious literature;  so people — Save your heart from being broken, much less your banking account, for if a USA presidential vote costs somewhere under four dollars each, then what kind of advertising do you think will sell your book?  The answer is that our books are not going to sell, and it would be nice if we could support each other with purchases;  That would be really nice and ideal, but it is just too irresistable to read about Generals who could not resist unzipping their pants for some socialite, and that woman will become famouts?  Why the heck did we all not get out and spend our youth flicking looks at our undies to the politicians who had a little promise, for down the road, we would be something worth reading about.

  You are good writers, so many of you, and I am a pretty damned good writer, but we are not apt to get our photograph across Time magazine even if Time still existed at an airport kiosk.  The only prayer you have for gaining anything from publishing is if you are satisfied to point at a book and to say that is mine, for that is about the best you can ever expect.  Please do not publish if you have the least fantasy that you are going to be sitting on a pile of cash, because you cannot afford the grief that publishing is a dime a dozen right now.  Do you want to hear the truth from me, or do you want to give it a shot to become that one in a million?  What do you expect from publication, for if it is to have 20 books to give your family for Christmas or whatever your Holiday tradition is, for if it is that rational, then you are the perfect candidate for making the sacrifice to share your wonderful work.

  Have I given up on, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” by Barbara Everett Heintz,” published by Create Space, great reviews from great people, and only I can tell you that I have not, for I will work until I drop, because I have a bigger purpose — to expose the poverty which I lived, to show you what it means to be labeled, “Hillbilly,” and I want to take, not this country, but even more so the world, that we are not a perfect people, and it is in the nature of human beings to always have a class of people who will fall for your, “Poems, Prayers, and Promises,” for we are, so many of us — Desparate to believe that something is sacred and good about our relationship with book publishers; But for now I have to share the news that you might just write some beautiful letters to those you love, for that may be as close to fame as you will ever experience, and it is not your writing which is lost.  It is an entire world of books and the book interest which has fallen for the champion and still king of all monsters in any industry, that downfallen zealot called, “Greed.”

  It is so hard, so very hard to know that you have been thrown to the sharks, and they just are not willing to share the bite they are taking.

  Blessings, Barbara Everett Heintz, Author, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle Ready — KDP in much of Europe and Japan as well as The United States of America

  • 8:32 pm
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