Category Archive for Writing/Publishing

I wish I could blog out my first week of the Men Are Easy launch, blow by blow. I’m in a new learning curve, slammed with firsts. First book launch. First book launch trip. First book signing. First licensing agreement. First trip to a Borders where no one knew me to introduce myself and sign books. First television appearance. First disasterous makeup experience. First second television appearance. First book launch trip with husband.

I was on tv this morning. Dick’s (aka Rick) advice at 5:45 a.m., “The most important thing is that you’re loose,” made my lip muscles tighten like a guide wires. He rolled out of bed at 4:50. I’d been up showering and curling eyelashes for 45 minutes. He roamed around the studio, checking out the monitors and equipment, while I jumped around and went to the restroom twice. He was definitely loose.

Kona weather immediately took my hair to friz. On the mainland, the cut is professional but casual. This morning, despite expensive products and a 15-minute blow dry, by the time I got to the car I looked like an aging hippy out of Huelo. It’s a great look if you’re walking out of your bamboo cottage to pick a papaya for breakfast or if you’re wearing hand painted silks and espousing oracles.

Kirk Matthews at KHON 2 Honolulu’s Morning News was a pro. Charming, cute about my book. I wish I could’ve been as loose as I usually am with men. I mean, how is anyone going to believe that I find men easy if I’m all tight? Nerves and self consciousness. At least better than last time. I think. Tevo will tell the brutal truth.

My first tv interview was 5 minutes with Angela Keen at 8 Morning News Tuesday at 6 a.m. The perfect person for my first tv gig. I loved her expressions and her voice and her energy as we talked–I wanted to just sit there a chat for an hour. But it was 5 minutes that felt like 2. They reported to Nanette, my publicist, that I was like a pro, a natural. Right. I saw the tevo. Yuck. I was stiff and my makeup and hair were wrong wrong wrong. But Angela was great.

The book signing deserves its own entry. I’ll get to it this weekend!

March 1 was Men Are Easy’s official pub date. Tuesday, March 6 at 6:30 is the first book signing at Border’s on Dairy Road in Kahului. Come if you’re on island!

Last Saturday I was interviewed by wonderful Cecille Piros on KPMW-FM on Maui. Her enthusiasm for and understanding of Men Are Easy gave me the confidence to do the show. Her Saturday morning programming also features an hour on immigration–a true blessing for the Filipino community.

Yesterday (Saturday) another woman radio owner who’s been married forever, Mimi Stoneburner from KTIP in Porterville, California, interviewed me for an hour for her show Body Talk. She knew my book better than I did! She even pulled questions from the love test. The show is soon going to be podcasted and I’m signing up for the feeds.

These women taught me so much in two hours about how to present both myself and the book. If this is a taste of what’s to come, I’m jazzed.

This week I’m going to be on Honolulu TV–Take a look at my media schedule. It’s growing daily now.

Nanette, my publicist, put out a press release and we had 457 visitors to the site yesterday. I’m going to be on TV on two stations in Honolulu and, so far, four on the mainland. I’ve been interviewed four times this week

Now we need book sales. It’s time to shamelessly beg my friends and family to buy on Amazon. Fortunately it’s selling well in the stores locally. And, better than that, I’ve gotten some amazing emails from people thanking me.

Men Are Easy needs Amazon reviews. I can use your endorsement!

It’s here! You can now buy early release, autographed copies of Men Are Easy on Maui! The printer shipped early and I have 500 copies to sell. The rest are shipping out of the fulfillment house through my distributor Greenleaf Book Group on the mainland. I wasn’t prepared to not only author and market but also distribute. I’m getting into it.

Find Men Are Easy in:

Makawao: Jenny’s Collections, Isobel’s Holiday & Co., Ted’s Yoga Awareness

Paia: Joyce and Becky’s Jaggers, Teri’s Nuage Bleu

Wailea: Barb’s Water Lily

I’m adding more this weekend in Lahaina, Kapalua, and Wailuku. It will soon be at Border’s but I really want to drive traffic our local businesses.

These are all great business people who make Maui Maui!

I have no idea what’s going on with the preorders on Amazon. Torture. They don’t tell until pub date, which is the availability date, and that’s March 1st. So on that date it will have a higher ranking. I did make $12.36 on Amazon referral fees from some sales in December. Someone clicked through and bought a size 5 pair of GOGO Angel Spike patents. Wow.

Thank you, Joan Strega, for a lovely and very personal tribute at blogcritics.com to Tillie Olsen!

I read in the New York Times that Tillie Olsen has died.

I read her story, As I Stand Ironing, for a literature class, and I have schlepped that anthology around for over thirty years. I pulled it out again today.

“As I Stand Ironing” is the story of a working woman at her ironing board when her daughter comes through, hellbent on going the same way her mother did, and all the mother can do is stand there ironing.

Last June Dick and I were in Marfa, Texas, at the Brown Recluse. Great food, an old house, a young NYU grad owner with a great used book collection on old bookshelves against the walls. In short, heaven. Read the rest »