If you heard about Mark Zuckerberg's "Metaverse" and thought, "Yeah, I'd rather just read a book..." you've come to the right place.
Quote of the Month
"I've gone over it again and again in my head
and I still can't make sense of it. He's a three-star general. He works at the Pentagon. Why would he charge us for free snacks?
-Quote from the movie Don't Look Up
Update on Harry Trumfio and Dena Ackerman's
New Children's Book
This week, we're printing hardcover and softcover versions of Dad, Our Candy Man via Blurb. We'll take the books over to Harry to sign and then make the books available either for pickup or shipping. We're aiming for books in readers' hands between April 15th and April 20th.
You can order a Hardcover copy here for $25 or Softcover here for $15.
Writing Exercise to Try
Love this ongoing bit from the Netflix film, Don't Look Up. Jennifer Lawrence's character (Kate Dibiasky) -- a brilliant scientist and mathematician -- can't calculate why the 3-star general would rip them off, charging for free snacks at the White House. Other characters forget about this minor offense, but it keeps bugging Kate, gnawing at her throughout the whole movie.
As an audience, it's more satisfying to see the general's greediness/con-manship/overall greasiness through this scene vs. being told, "He's slimy." Or whatever other description might show up in dialogue. It's always better to let the reader/audience see character traits in action.
Try this out - Go over your draft and any time you see something like: He's a shifty character. She's easy-going. Turn this into a scene.
If you're at the idea/outline stage, this is a great way to come up with scene ideas. On one side list out character traits. On the other list out locations. Then randomly match the two. What does an easy-going person look like on a rollercoaster? What does the shifty character do at a Burger King? Write it to find out!
Authors, Be More Like Batman. Why "Only in Theaters" Still Works (and how you can kind of copy this with your book)
Movie theaters are dead, right? From now on, everything's just gonna be streamed in the Metaverse?
Eh, Batman would argue differently. The latest film decided to open "only in theaters" and is now approaching a successful $700 million worldwide box office. Check out our new blog post where we advocate for authors to create an "only in theaters" like approach -- advocating for physical books instead of eBooks, in-person launch parties instead of links on social media, and getting the book into local bookstores vs. only on Amazon.
Speaking of Getting Your Book into Local Bookstores...
Hey, that book looks familiar! Shoutout to our author, T.C. Pendragon, whose novel Martin Blackbriar and the Necronomicon is on the shelf at Happy Owl Bookshop in Manistee, Michigan.
An Unlikely Pairing: Books and... TikTok?
Feel like we're doing a lot of social media and Amazon bashing in this newsletter. Which makes this story a change of pace. Here's an interesting article from MarketingBrew. A look at how "BookTokers" are driving up book sales and how these influencers on TikTok can generate awareness for books. Yes, physical books. Didn't see this pairing coming!
Another Writing Exercise: April Fool's Day
No pranks from us. But we came up with this idea literally while writing the newsletter.
Writing Prompt (primarily for fiction writing) - Pick one of your characters and imagine what they do on April Fool's Day. Are they the one who gets pranked? Or are they the prankster? Small-scale pranks? Big, elaborate, borderline illegal pranks? See where it takes your character and maybe this becomes a scene worthy of your book. Feel free to send us your scene too, we'll put it up on the site! (email - library@longoverduestories.com)
March Madness is Almost Over.
But This Cinderella Story Is Still Going Strong! 😉
Hey, how'd your March Madness bracket turn out? Did you pick St. Peter's going to the Elite 8?
If you start experiencing NCAA Tournament withdrawals in April, and you want to cheer on another underdog story, might we suggest rooting for the ultimate David vs. Goliath: Long Overdue Books pulling the upset over Amazon?
"Let me try one of these writing exercises. The character is a happy dog. And it's a beautiful sunny day. Grab the leash and let's make that scene happen!"
- Crash, Team Dog
Keeping up with Long Overdue
Best place to keep up with all things Long Overdue is a tie between our monthly newsletter and our Instagram page (shoutout to Annie Cerovich!). If you enjoy this newsletter and know someone who might enjoy it as well, let us know, we'll make sure to add them to our subscriber list.
And check out our website - Long Overdue Books. Long Overdue Books is a community for creating books. It's a place for authors, readers, editors, artists, and designers to come together and move their stories from ideas to finished books.
Next newsletter - Aiming for mid-April range. In the meantime if you have any questions, ideas, stories to tell, you can reach Cal the Librarian at - library@longoverduestories.com
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