Will be book-signing today with a plethora of authors, as part of the annual Azalea Festival in Palatka, Florida. Its a town sitting on the banks of the up-side-down St. Johns River; it flows NORTH from central Florida's wetlands to the city of Jacksonville at its mouth to the Atlantic Ocean.

During its lifetime the city has known boom and bust, its fortunes changing as transportation from sail to steam on the many waterways of the state, gave way to freight-hauling railroads and the interlocking interstate highways.
Currently its a blow-through community with commuters from the student and academic housing University of Florida (The 'Gators) and Shands medical facilities at Gainesville, en route to the oldest, continuously occupied city (1565) in the USA, St. Augustine. It is filled with trippers and fripperies, art stores and eateries to cater for many tastes. Backwater shrimp-boats and replica Spanish galleons near the Bridge of Lions, are amongst the wide ranging fleet of working vessels and attractions dotting the waterfronts.

Palatka is continually trying to establish itself as a 'destination location'. The Azalea Festival and later, the Bluecrab Festival - critturs trapped  locally - are a couple of events. But 'organizers' still seek the right combination to return to those glory days when Presidents, Poets and Power-brokers stayed in Palatka.
Hope to see YOU, today...

Sadly the updates of my blog took a nose dive when the bright young things from Google decided - without consultation, of course - to re-invent the blog-site I'd finally got comfortable with.
The following contents may be clunky, during this test-run, but it may prime the pump to get the motor running again.

Since last I posted, two more books have been added to the Old Book Shop Publication imprint. As a subtle way to link the 'nautical' theme of similar books planned for the future, my author-name has gathered a couple of extra letters: M.D. No, the initials do not stand for 'Mad Dog' as some Anglophobe have suggested; nor Medical Doctor as spam solicitors have discovered to their chagrin. Just my middle-names which I was encumbered with, following family practice of incorporating our forefathers names into the (then) present, at the christening.

When you have the Welsh-equivalent of Smith as a surname, every little difference helps searchers find the writer they're looking for.

I once mistakenly latched onto what I thought, at a quick glance, was a new Forester book. I guessed it would be a further saga in the nautical Horatio Hornblower series. I only discovered my error when a few pages into Passage to India the actions of E.M. Forster's characters rudely awakened a prurient awareness of the adult world, in the mind of an impressionable schoolboy. I didn't make that mistake again, and double-checked the author was, indeed, C.S. Forester before opening the covers of future books borrowed from the library.


My new books Midshipman David Porter – In Harms Way (The Porter Saga) and Up & Down the Ditch: Cruising the Intracoastal Waterway – with Murphy's Law are nautical in nature. 
 
Many years ago, when the Palm Beach Old Book Shop was a meeting spot for readers and writers sunning the winter season away in South Florida, I discovered the real-life American sailor David Porter. I devoured stories of his exploits on the other side of the coin from his fictional equivelant, during the transitional period from the great seafaring age of square-rig sailing ships, to steamboats.

 

How could such a valient hero disappear from the pages of history? I set about 'factionalizing' him, his family – which included adopted son David Glasgow Farragut – and literary contemporaries such as Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe. Finally Book One in the series – only SIX more to go – has appeared in Tree and Eeee versions.
Also, my introduction to trips up and down the Intracoastal Waterway; which began as an inexpensive summer holiday helping a skipper friend out, generated a series of cartoon-filled sketch-books which I felt many other boaty types could relate to. As a 'bonus' the book contains a “me 'n Joe” type yarn of my maiden voyage on a small boat up the Atlantic Seaboard – hove-to in a nor'easter off Cape Fear – delivering a duplicate sloop to the former boss of Xerox!

Oddly enough, both men and women reacted positively to the Beta versions circulated pre-publication, and hopefully will fill a needed niche on the nautical shelves of active - and armchair sailors, or all flavors.
Feedback would be welcome – and a posted review on Amazon.com would be splendid: pro and con!



                                                            ~~~~~~~ooooOoooo~~~~~~~~~

Mike & Jeff Show - Manuscript to BOOK - a Tell All

The New Age writer/publisher team of Michael Ray King (brand name) and Jeff “Swesky“ (1st keyword in his meta-tag list) revealed much of what they've learned in recent years since digital books became a reality.

Jeff Swesky and Michael Ray King together with books they've written and published

           They appeared before a full house of writers in the St. Augustine Main Library, in all stage of the process, eager to learn or refresh, how to get from manuscript to published book. It was staged by the FWA (Florida Writers Association) Ancient City chapter, yesterday.

Mike aka professionally as Michael Ray King, emphasized the brand-name marketing facet which lodges the author's name, appearance, genre, into the buying-mode of readers. His full name; only heard aloud when he was in trouble with mom - “Michael RAY King...who did this?” has become an asset amongt many pages of Michael Kings' found by search engines. And the conservative jacket atop open-shirt, jeans and sneakers is his “casual but serious publisher” upgrade uniform.

                                           Jeff Swesky guided writers through the Kindle maze

         Jeff Swesky, who broke into big-time print as a “ghost writer” relating a Holocaust memoir of a local Rabbi, emphasized a frequently overlooked tip for writers anxious to tease readers to the stories they have to tell. Often, the author's NAME is the only constant readers remember about a book they liked. So, the author's name is the first clue registered in the keyword field of ALL those little boxes which need to be filled in before a manuscript file can morph into a down-loadable Kindle book.

        Sixty!

       The number of people – not the aggregate age – sat through two hours of the Mike & Jeff Show. And the doors were NOT barred!

If you write it - might be best to Go to THEM!

    In the constatnly shifting world of publishing and marketing the Book Store and Sunday Supplement  Book Page are not the only venues to explore in getting the right book to the right reader ( an old antiquarian bookseller motto).
   Parking was at a premium Friday, March 15, when former Florida Game Warden Lt. Bob Lee launched his hardbound book Backcountry Lawman in the warehouse of the Putnam Feed and Seed Store on SR20. No limos or valet service ala Palm Beach - but plenty of pick-up belonging to hunters and lawmen (not always on the saw side of the law) - and fans or foes of Lee and his "guest" co-signer, Putnam's notorious poacher, Roger "Kat" Gunter.

   One of these days, when I'm not chasing deadlines and racing the clock, I'll reconfigure this snippet, but I do want to illustrate it IS possible to have a successful book-signing outside the norm.

Way to Start the Day - BLOGGED!

Most happy to start the week by being included in Lee Kirk's blog on Tomfolio, the independent cooperative book-dealers site, with a thumbnail biography of my Old Book Shop and a preview of my story “Books Before NOOKs – And Beyond”.

        As a fellow bookseller and freelance writer Lee noted, she recognized a piece of “blatant self-promotion” when she saw it!

         In (one) of my other lives beyond bibliopole, journalism has (mostly) paid the bills for the past half-century or so. Both fields have undergone major changes in recent decades but both have retained the allure of a certain degree of independence which partially compensates for the poor pay.

         For sure a doctor, plumber or garbage-collector are higher up the income ladder, but would they have uncovered the dormant tale of a miracle book from the Vatican which survived the sinking at sea of the SS Andrea Doria?

Please, pick it up here:

 http://www.tomfolioblog.com/AWorldOfBooksAndEphemera/2013/02/24/a-little-tale-about-bookseller-fortunes-and-misfortunes/

Enjoy!

A busy time ahead - TG!

   In the "feast or famine" course of events, the next couple of weeks could be a Rolaid period:

         *       Three Book Signings - for three books
         *       One Book Fair - looking, listening ...selling
         *       Compile and Launch ANOTHER book.

      Plus - with a little bit of luck - the timely publication of a short story about the miracle of an antiquarian Vatican book which survived the tragedy and sinking of the S.S. Andrea Doria.
     The book signings will be::
      *    Wednesday, Feb. 27, Black Horse Winery 6:30 - 8:30:

                *   Friday, March 1, Gallery 26, Melrose Art Walk, 301 State Roard 26, 6 - 9 pm.
                *   Sat.  March 2, Read (Think) Books, corner of St. Johns Ave. & 7th St., Palatka, 1-2 pm
               BEWARE: Impromptu sales and signings can occure whenever Juanita, my Mazda pickup, and I are spotted stopped somewhere!
            

Guy Fawkes Day in the USA --- Had A Few Spectaculer Moments Too

Saturday was a grotty miserable overcast 50's temperatures day in North-East Florida - until I ran into a pukka wedding complete with decorated elephant staged at the Renaissance World Golf Village Resort and Convention.

Drums, chanting, and traditionally draped guests clapped and danced in the short "parade route" in the pick-up/drop-off zone for limos and cabs at the main entrance.

I'd guess neither the valet nor the porter anticipated their job description would include: parking a pachyderm or the "Care and Handling" of that particular type of trunk!



Happy to say the scheduled gig with Dr. Rick Wilber, newspaper editor turned SciFi author and journalism Prof. conducting a a workshop on "Turning Articles into Award-winning Novels" prior to the annual Florida Press Club awards banquet, was not totally upstaged by the reception outside.

With an audience made up of professional newsroom colleagues, Wilber comfortably cut to the chase and spelled out the reality of writing for a living.There are many more Non-Fiction books on bookshop shelves than Fiction. The glamour of top-seller and top-dollar writers hit the headlines -- as most in the room knew. But they represent only a tiny tip of the publishing industry iceberg.

The former newsman, baseball fan (his dad was a pro), SciFi writer and mass media communicator is a hands-on practical, practising, performer of a craft he teaches to students at USF (University of South Florida).

Creatively his head may be in the clouds -- but pragmatically his feet are firmly planted on the ground.

Catch him, if you can!