Last month, I sent the October newsletter on November 1st and put "September" in the subject line.
Today, I'm sending November's five days into December. Really putting the "overdue" in Long Overdue.
I tell ya, it's been a busy season around here. I feel like the guy who set the treadmill too high and doesn’t know how to hop off. When you see an email from me next week on December 12th and wonder, "Didn't I just hear from him?" here are three things to remember:
It's not a butt-dial or repeat newsletter
It's the start of the "12 Days of Bookmas" Christmas catalog
We have two brand new action-packed novels for any Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, or Stephen King fans on your Christmas list.
Rick Tabor is a first-time author out of Crystal Lake, Illinois. T.C. Pendragon lives in Michigan and is onto his 3rd (!) published book in three years. Excited to share more about these two novels and the 17 other books on our growing bookshelf.
But, for today, I want to talk about Texas. More specifically the Texas Book Festival in Austin.
They say everything's bigger in Texas, and that is absolutely true of this book festival. After attending Printers Row Lit Fest here in Chicago, I thought I'd never see another book fair with that many people and that much "kid in a candy shop, 90s Scholastic Book Fair" energy, but boy was I wrong.
This event is HUGE. Talk about setting the treadmill on high, the traffic of people never slowed down. There were book lovers wearing t-shirts with literary puns. I saw at least three LaVar Burton Reading Rainbow shirts. A guy stopped by our table 20 minutes in and said, "First time here? It'll be like this from 10 AM to 5 PM, both days." He was totally right. I felt like if I took a bathroom break, I'd miss 20 people.
Unlike my 6-mile Uber ride to the Printers Row Lit Fest, I was headed 1,100 miles away via airplane. Best part, my wife, Ashley, and my three-year-old son, Caleb, were coming along for the ride. Found out the booths are dog-friendly, too, so maybe next year, Crash. Fire up that RV!
Note: We don't own an RV. That was a rental. Unlike Texas, everything's smaller in Chicago. Including the parking spots.
Big question was how to get the books down there. I loaded up two suitcases and decided the 50 lb weight limit would be an "I'll deal with that at the airport" problem. I even bought some fancy book display frames. Three festivals in, I'm a seasoned vet!
Then stopped by Barrel to get some freshly signed copies of our new cookbook, Black & Caspian. Hey, Amet 👋
We arrived Friday night, and it hit me: the three of us have never really had a "let's go explore a new city" trip. We've gone to Holland, Michigan, but that was more of a nostalgic; here's where Mom and Dad met sort of thing. The RV trip was a family reunion. Trips to Traverse City and The Villages in Florida, we're also seeing family. And Disney isn't so much visiting a new city, that's a whole other planet. Turns out, it's a small world, after all.
So, Caleb, when in Rome, do as Mom and Dad do. Eat. And then eat some more.
We searched long and wide for the best fried chicken. And by long and wide, I mean two blocks away from the hotel.
Went back, set up Caleb's travel air mattress. Resisted the urge to grab a hotel lobby cookie. Fell fast asleep.
Next morning, Ashley found a great coffee shop on wheels called Desnudo, and we had some awesome breakfast tacos at a stand right next to it.
Time for the main event. I loaded up my bookstore-on-wheels and ventured a few blocks over to 8th and Congress. Caleb and I were just a couple of Midwesterners rocking khaki shorts and that "hey, it's 80 degrees in November!" excitement.
I gotta say, Caleb was locked in and totally focused. He did a great job setting up the table, and if you look closely, you can see the top of his blonde head behind all of those books.
Caleb and Ashley went off to explore the city, and I hopped on that book festival treadmill. I want to give a quick shout-out to the booth next to me. It's called "Bona Fide Bookworm," and she had a collection of shirts, hats, mugs, keychains, pins, all with great literary wordplay like "Beowoof." Over the course of those two days, she had to have sold 100 shirts, and I don't think I'm exaggerating. A few people bought shirts on Saturday, came back on Sunday, and struck a "Hey, check it out!" pose in front of her booth.
I met readers, and authors, and soon-to-be authors, and people who said, "Man, I really need to finish writing my book." I met families with kids checking out Kate Buss's children's books or Vicki's board book. Dozens of people picking up the pickleball book -- hey, honey, look, pickleball. I got to share the story of Harry Trumfio's children's book and how we connected him with Dena Ackerman, an illustrator, all the way over in Israel. Told the Safe Landing story. Talked about Adam's book. And Anna's. And T.C. Pendragon's novels. The very first sale of the day was a chef buying a copy of Amet's cookbook. And Joy, I know you're reading this newsletter all the over in England, there was Strawberry Moon, the very first Long Overdue book, displayed proudly on the table.
I got to talk about my book, Here or There, and there was one conversation in particular with a guy who's working on an incredible children's book with a great title. We talked about some of the similar themes in our books, and I'm actually chatting with him again later today over Zoom. I hope that at next year's Texas Book Festival, he's got a stack of finished books in front of him as a published author.
To all the soon-to-be-authors or still-working-on-their-idea writers who stopped by the table, it was great to talk with you, and I encourage you to keep going and finish writing that book!
Day 1 in the books. Beautiful sunset and walk back to the hotel. Just a cool feeling seeing the state capital down the street and then passing by iconic spots like the Paramount and State theaters.
Off to Moonshine to meet up with Ashley and Caleb for dinner. Ashley remembered this spot from seven or eight years ago when we were down here for my cousin Becca's wedding. She was determined to get back there. "This is still the best mac-n-cheese I've ever had." And because Ashley works at Kraft Heinz, I think that gives her mac-n-cheese expert credentials.
Great end to a great day, and as much fun as I had at the booth, it felt even better to be sitting next to my little guy.
And you know what, I was too pumped up. Caleb went to bed, and I went back out. There was a big festival-sponsored event, but when I went into that bar, first off, it was huge. I get it; everything's bigger in Texas, but there was a stand-up comedy show on one floor, and a poetry reading on another, and then like a wedding-sized reception going on, and a whole other floor. I think I lasted all of 12 minutes before my brain broke, and I went back out to the street. Landed on the Elephant Room jazz bar instead.
What a great spot that was. Perks of going out alone: I landed a seat at the bar right by the stage. Saw a musician named Michael Malone perform. He and the band put on an awesome show. Finished a couple pints of Guinness, barely stayed up to see my Jayhawks pull off an improbable upset over BYU in football (on my phone, in the room, under the covers). What a day!
I'm realizing this is becoming more of my own personal travel log than a newsletter, so if you've stuck with me and made it this far, hey, I appreciate it. I'll start wrapping things up.
Sunday was another great day at the festival. Long Overdue has a way of turning big cities into a small world and I had the chance to meet one of our author's (Vicki Sheaffer) brother. He stopped by with his family, and, of course, I had to ask for a BBQ recommendation.
Ashley and Caleb flew home in the afternoon. Festival ended around 5 PM, and I'm proud to say my luggage was a lot lighter for my Monday morning redeye flight.
Journeyed to Terry Black's BBQ, and gotta say, the Toups family recommendation did not steer me wrong. It was as packed as the book festival. Got my plate and I started sending photos and videos out to my Texas cousins, and my Kansas City BBQ-loving family, and my buddy Jenkins, who is somewhat of a pitmaster legend in Midland, Michigan for successfully cooking a brisket on his first try over a charcoal grill when he was 18 years old. I was on my phone more than a TikTok influencer and after 15 minutes or so I got the sense people were thinking, "Alright, guy, finish your food or at least move to a 2-person table."
I finished the night at the Comedy Mothership, a big comedy club that Joe Rogan owns and renovated. This was another really cool place. I didn't have tickets, but after maybe 2 minutes in the standby line, two guys said, "Hey, we're actually not really sure where our buddy is. Wanna buy his ticket?" Alright, here we go! Waited a little, put my phone in one of those locked bags so you can't record the show or be on your phone during it, and got to see 8 or 9 comedians in that night's comedy showcase.
Sixth Street, especially at 11 o'clock or whenever the show was over is a wild place. It's like Wrigleyville meets Bourbon Street, with a little bit of Vegas and a dash of Texas rodeo. I hopped on a Lime scooter, zoomed right out of there, and was in an Uber riding to the airport 6 hours later.
All of this long write-up to say, it was an awesome adventure. One I'll remember forever and I'm totally headed back next year. I was really happy with the number of books sold, too. But to be clear, that number was 60. Not 6,000. Not 600. Sixty. I remember at Printers Row an author at another table stopped by ours and said, "I've only sold 1 copy this whole time." It's hard selling books.
And that's tough, because a lot of time goes into writing and editing. And if you're self-publishing or hybrid publishing, a lot of your money goes into the production of the book. And these booths are $500+ and then you got plane tickets and hotels and meals on top of that. If you're looking at writing a book from a pure financial, return on investment perspective, it's not great.
But I think about how good Michael Malone, that jazz musician was. And how I'd never heard of him. And how funny 5 or 6 of those comedians were, and I'd never heard of them before either. And a bunch of the authors at the event. These people have been working on their craft for 10, 20, 30+ years and it's amazing to me how talented someone can be while still flying under the radar. Music, comedy, writing, the arts, people talk about these being labors of love and passion projects. And it's true. They usually need to be paired with day jobs, or other jobs, or side hustles. Livin' the dream and making a living from the dream, those two are hard to line up.
But man is it fun to be in the arena. To be living in the dream. And helping new authors each year reach that moment, whether they're physically behind the table talking about their book to a reader or joining in spirit by having their book(s) on the table. I don't know how the Long Overdue story will unfold, or what the next few years will look like, but if my future involves going to this festival each year, and Printers Row Lit Fest, and maybe add a few others like the one in Los Angeles, and New Orleans, and the national one in Washington D.C., well, you know what, that sounds like a storybook ending to me.
Where are we eating next?
Revision Stage
Less is More - What the College Football Playoff
teaches us about revising
For anyone who has finished a first draft of their book and is embarking on the hard work of the revision stage, this blog post argues for why cutting 10-20% out may be more helpful and beneficial to your work vs. only cutting 5% or adding more chapters.
Last thing, and this is a sad note to end on, but I received this heartbreaking and inspirational story in Mission Point Press's newsletter earlier this week and wanted to pass along. Here's where you can read more about this book and support Emerson's family and her work. What a great teacher who made that happen. You can also click on the image above to visit the landing page.
Best place to keep up with all things Long Overdue is a tie between our monthly newsletter and our Instagram page. 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. We also got back on Facebook recently, you can follow us here.
And check out our website - Long Overdue Books. Long Overdue Books is a community for creating books. It's a place for authors (and soon-to-be-authors), readers, editors, artists, and designers to come together and move their stories from ideas to finished books.
Also, if you have any questions, ideas, stories to tell, you can reach Cal the Librarian at - library@longoverduestories.com
Hi, Chris, wow, what an exciting time you seem to have had. I am just returned from a trip to Tenerife in the Canary islands. Will send a few photos to you. Thank you so much for displaying my book. As you know I always follow your news letters and delight in their content. I have just published a book about self harm somewhat dark: but of the moment. Mental health is a tall order right now. It is called 'Bleeds When Broken.' Stay well And a very Happy Christmas to you and yours and all the lovely followers of your group. With all good wishes Joy.