Wednesday, October 15, 2008

In the Beginning…Virtual Book Tour for Author & Publisher Carol Denbow


Welcome to the first day of my virtual tour! As many of you know, I’ve done numerous Interviews on radio and on-line, but this is my first “virtual” tour and I’m very excited about it. Over the next eleven days I’ll be visiting some awesome Websites and blogs talking with some great hosts about writing, publishing, and marketing books. Some of the topics will include, writing and publishing fiction and non-fiction, writing as a business, connecting with your market, and even how to set up your own virtual tour. Join me on this wonderful adventure and reap the benefits of successful “authorship!”

About me: I came into this business just a few years back with the intent to write only one book on business start-up. I soon after realized that writing is an addictive “sport”—and I was addicted! Book two, book three, and they’re still coming! Of course after book writing comes publishing; POD, self, traditional, WOW, so many options. So I began the research. I woke up one day with a new publishing company, Plain & Simple Books, LLC. Don’t ask how it happened—it just did. You see, at this point, I was supposed to be retired, you know, done working. Business must just be something that flows through the bloodlines—and it defiantly flows in mine. Everything is a challenge to me, and it has to be done right and finished or I’m not satisfied. So here I am, an author and publisher—wow, what a ride!

So I’ll go back now (I like to do things backwards). I was born (what a cliché), in 1959, yep, a baby boomer. I grew up in what then was a “small” community; Anaheim, California. I was the last (to survive) of six kids. I went to Catholic school, spent weekends at Pearson Park, and Sundays with my family at San Clemente Beach goofing around on homemade skim boards.

I dropped out of high school, never completing the 10th grade, stupid I suppose, but got my GED when I was 19 thanks to an aunt of mine who wouldn’t let me settle with being a “drop-out.” To my surprise, I passed the thing with just about the highest score possible (maybe not quite as stupid as I thought).

I married, divorced, married, divorced, and married again….Three months into the marriage, I lost my stepson in an automobile accident and a few years later, divorced again. Raised two great children in the process, believe it or not, and when I finally realized what makes a marriage (and after I had learned to comfortably live alone), I met the love of my life, Craig. Now happily married and living on the southern coast of Oregon, I enjoy writing, golf, volunteering my time in town, and golf (yes, that much!).

So that’s me in a nutshell, or as the nut I am.

I hope you will all come along for the ride this next ten days and see what can be learned to help you get your book written, go through the publishing process, and sell, sell, sell!!! Every stop will hold valuable information which under normal circumstances might take you endless hours to find on your own. I’ve included the entire virtual tour schedule below along with links to each posts location. Hope you’ll join me!

Please don’t forget… I want to hear from you! Don’t hesitate to leave your questions for me, comments on each post, or just introduce yourself and tell us about your project (comment link is just below each post—very small print!). I will try to respond to every question asked as soon as possible. Please, no advertizing in the comment section.

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3 comments:

Jeannie Barber-Patty Wiseman said...

Good morning Carol! I'm thrilled to be part of this virtual tour. I'm currently co-authoring a novel with a friend of 30years and we've gone through a firestorm of learning. I'm hoping to emerge from your tour with all the materials and information to birth this baby we've worked so hard on. We wrote the entire story only to be told at a writer's conference by a NY agent and a Dallas editor it should be non-fiction. So we buckled down and attempted that whirlwind. You see we spun the beginning of our novel from a 'real-life' event, but the rest is FICTION. Also, we learned there were 'rules' (?) to write a book. So doing an about-face, we began again. We're no in the editing phase. The road has been bumpy because of the inconsistent 'help' we found and we lost the joy of writing. So thank you for any/all help and advice.
Hugs,
Jeannie Barber
dragracers@yahoo.com
www.jeanniebarber.com

Carol said...

Good moring Jeannie,
Great! I'm really excited for you and your long standing friend. I hope you gain all the knowledge you need to really get this project wrapped up the right way!
FYI, something not discussed in this tour which may be of interest to you. If you publish your book as non-fiction, you will need either 1) a signed release from those individuals mentioned in your book, or 2) you will need to state in the front matter of the book that all charactors mentioned are made up and not real people. The reason I mention this is because I had a script which to me it was very important that readers believed the people mentioned were real. The publisher didn't feel my releases were legally "omplete, so I was forced to include the "made up" statement. I felt my book lost a certain amount of credibility because of it.
Keep in touch,
Carol Denbow

Susan Helene Gottfried said...

Hey, Carol. I'm stopping in to drop (of course! Gotta love EC) and to say thanks for the comment on my blog. I hope you'll linger more often when you come by to drop!