Cassandra Cookbook Counundrum

A pinch of Hard Work.

A dash of determination.

A recipe for no sales.

The Cassandra Cookbook was supposed to be a recipe for literary success. It was well-received by literary agents, book clubs, and most critics It’s a book praised for its solid premise, well-developed characters and tight storyline.

Unfortunately, African-American readers weren’t interested.

Despite handing out numerous free (over 40) promotional and review copies to vendors, aggressively contacting African-American book clubs, and bookstores, the sweet story about the girl working towards developing her own recipe for success in Downtown Brooklyn is a failure. Isis and All About Marilyn kick Cassandra’s ass in sales.

I’m trying to find out what went wrong with The Cassandra Cookbook. It’s a mystery that baffles me. Everyone likes the story when they read it, but can’t it get any takers when it comes time to buy it. I’m still trying to figure out:

Is it the price? $14.95 isn’t that pricey for a trade paperback Cassandra’s size. I mean, I offered it for $5 at the Harlem Book Fair this year with lots of lookers, but no takers. Amazon discounted the book down to $2.36 this summer and STILL no buyers. Meanwhile over the summer, Isis and All About Marilyn continued to sell and pick up readers and interest.

Is it the cover? Some reviewers said they were turned off by the cover. I’m trying to figure out what is it about the cover repulsed people? The composition of the figure? The image of a black woman with blonde hair? Or is it because she’s a light-skinned African-American? My pencils? My ink and color work?

Some complained about the colors I used on the cover. I used pink and blue in the cover design because that’s what most publishing houses were using on their chick lit covers to “cute” up their design. Chick Lit covers often used illustrations to appeal to young females. But I guess African-American women don’t like cute stuff on their book covers. Many in the Black community thought I was selling a children’s book and not a piece of contemporary fiction targeted at them.

Is it the title? Many on the street misinterpreted my attempt to be clever with the title and thought the story detailing a sista’s recipe for success was a real cookbook. Maybe the concept of a Cassandra Cookbook went over most readers’ heads.

Was it the writing? While most liked the story, some complained that I over-worded some paragraphs. I don’t think the paragraphs in Cassandra were wordy; Read Jane Austen, Anita Brookner or any English author and you’ll be in for some dense paragraphs. Others didn’t like the fact that I used the word “digress” or the word “pink” so many times. I don’t know, I thought I by using a word like digress would help readers develop their vocabulary; something a reader would need to expand for exams like the SAT, GRE, or civil Service tests. And White chick lit heroines have pink everythings; from their cell phones to their nail polish. Was I wrong to think African-American women would identify with a woman who liked cute pink things?

Could I have offended some brothers and sisters with the down-low storyline involving Cassandra and her fiancé Gerald? I did my best to be as sensitive as possible tackling that particular storyline showing how the harm down low men cause for black women is emotional, and not about a man’s sexual orientation. What hurts most sistas about down low brothers is their violation of a sista’s trust and their lack of honesty. It’s more about the lying to them about being straight than a man being gay. However, I understand homophobia is rampant in the African-American community, and perhaps many brothers and sistas were turned off by a storyline that explored complex gay issues.

Is it because I’m a black male? I don’t know. Many sistas don’t mind picking up books by other black male authors like Eric Peete, Eric Jerome Dickey, or Carl Weber that feature black female protagonists. Isis and All About Marilyn both featured female lead heroines and readers love those stories.

Was it the editing? I’ll take responsibility for the errors in Cassandra. Truth was I wasn’t in top form on editing because I was starting a new job and working with a new computer a year after my laptop died. But hey, those street lit books have 50X more errors than Cassandra does and brothers and sisters are more than eager to give those titles a chance regardless of quality.

Could it be the timing? I released the book unaware that street/urban lit had become the new hot thing in African-American fiction. The way this book has been recieved, I have to wonder Is anyone black even still interested in contemporary African-American fiction stories anymore?

Or is Cassandra just a victim of the sophomore curse? This is a tragedy usually befalls an author’s second book.

All I know is I did the best I could with Cassandra. I put my whole heart into that story and it hurt to watch it received so negatively by readers, especially women of color who I wrote it for.
While many may not like it, Cassandra was a very inspiring and uplifting story for me. I was out of work for a LONG time (Since November 2002) and was depressed over losing a job I failed to do well at (Brothers at the reception desk= FAIL). While I was writing Cassandra’s story in 2003-2004, I managed to work my way out of depression and lost over 40 pounds. Cassandra was the first book since Isis that put a smile on my face. I loved sharing what I knew about the black business world on paper.

I also loved trying out new techniques. The Cassandra Cookbook was the first story where I experimented with a new softer style of storytelling. In the past I often wrote darker, more cerebral characters and very intense storylines. Cassandra’s story model was the first to feature lighthearted characters, a quirky storyline and a bit of fun. I designed the plot structure to have more of a comical nature than the seriousness of stories like Isis, All About Marilyn, or The Temptation of John Haynes.

Doing things differently with Cassandra’s story had a huge impact on my writing career. When I queried literary agents; it was the first book that attracted their serious interest. Cassandra almost got representation. It almost got sold. It almost made it to a table at Barnes & Noble. It coulda been my big break. I believed in the story even though positive rejections piled up in cyberspace and in the mail. Everyone telling me how great the story was encouraged me to persevere.

Then in July 2007 in the middle of editing it and revising All About Marilyn my first laptop, a Dell Inspiron 2500 died after seven years of service. I put my dreams on hold but continued to do revisions on loose-leaf paper hoping to self-publish Cassandra and share it with readers.

As I found employment in early 2008, I set a goal. No matter what happened with this new job, I was going to publish The Cassandra Cookbook. In my first 90 days on the job I spent my nights revising Cassandra while adjusting to a new work schedule. I saved up money from my first few paychecks eager to share this great story with brothers and sisters and spent several thousand dollars in between the book fairs, mailing out free copies and other promotional efforts to get the word out about this book. It saddens me to see all that work I did to publish and promote this book went nowhere.

The Cassandra Cookbook was my first book back from a long journey back from depression and unemployment. I've done all I can over the past two years and I don't know what to do anymore. I love this book and I don’t want to see it die. I believe in what I wrote. I believe Cassandra is a great story that will put a smile on people’s faces. I just wish brothers and sisters would take the time to give this great book a chance.

Check My Bag? No, I think I'll check My Senses Part 2- Why Bag checks don't work in the Inner-City

Last week I wrote about bag checks as retail security in the inner-city and why I thought they were racial profiling. Now I’ll reinforce that data with some interesting facts.

According to national retail statistics, on loss prevention 31 percent of loss is done by shoplifters. However, over fifty percent of those shoplifters are MIDDLE AGED WHITE WOMEN. And another significant percentage of shoplifters are WHITE FEMALE SENIOR CITIZENS.

So why are there so many images of African-Americans shoplifting in the media? And why are so many retailers so eager to target African-American customers as potential shoplifters when they walk into their stores? If these statistics are true, shouldn’t retailers be taking a harder look at middle aged white females and white senior citizens when they come into a store instead of brothers and sisters?

No, because white females are considered the most coveted customer in the United States. They have the most spending power out of any demographic. To alienate this consumer base with such harsh security tactics would put a retailer right out of business. And it has in many cases.

But if most of the shoplifters are middle-aged white women as the data states and white women are more likely to shoplift than any other ethnic group, shouldn’t there be more bag checks in the suburbs? Shouldn’t there be bag check booths at the doors of places like Wal-Mart and K-mart? Target? Macy*s? Sears? Saks Fifth Avenue? Wouldn’t this prevent the crime before it’s committed like it allegedly does in the inner-city?

No, retailers in the suburbs say security tactics like bag check booths wouldn’t be effective in reducing loss at large suburban malls where a majority of white female customers shop. Too many people running around to effectively police whose bag is whose, which could lead to lawsuits. Also, stuff like bag checks seriously disrupts the relaxing environment retailers need to make money. Uncomfortable people who are forced to check bags at the door tend not to spend money. Not to mention the terrorism risk post 9/11. What’s not to stop a bomber from leaving a bag at the bag check booth and detonating it when they left the store in a crowd?

Oh yeah, and White customers would be the first to protest and boycott a retailer who implemented these security tactics at their retailers as Un-American. Many White women would feel these types of practices infringe on their Constitutional Rights as American Citizens. Retailers so fear alienating white female customers they’re actually willing to eat the costs of most losses through their insurance rather than giving them a negative impression regarding their stores or their products. No White American wants to shops at a national retailer who utilizes fascist tactics in policing their place of business, but this type of oppression is okay in the communities of color.

But if most shoplifters are Middle-aged White women shouldn’t sales people follow middle-aged White women around the store the way sales people follow black people around the store because they’re most likely to steal?

No, that would be considered harassment by the customers. Again, retailers do not want to make a customer uncomfortable because it means they’re less likely to spend money with them. Also, giving a customer a bad experience leads to word of mouth that can kill a retailer’s reputation. Not to mention it’s grounds for a lawsuit. According to the law, a retailer’s staff has to actually see the person take the merchandise and leave the store for them to be considered a shoplifter. But tell that to retailers in communities of color.

In addition to shoplifting, other crimes against retailers like credit card fraud, and the passing of counterfeit cash are usually perpetrated by white people than people of color. But if White people commit these crimes more than Black people, Shouldn’t retailers ask them for ID when they use a debit card or Credit card? Shouldn’t they ask them for a $15 minimum purchase? And on college campuses with white students are notoriously known to make “P-notes” with laser printers and flatbed scanners. Shouldn’t retailers check their $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills for legitimacy?

No, because that would be bad for business. And when it comes to credit cards it’s also against the law. That’s right in many states it’s against the law to impose minimums on credit card purchases. It’s also against the law to ask people for identification when they use their credit cards. And it’s not too favorable long-term for a business to scrutinize a white customer’s dollars to check for their legitimacy. Again It’s Un-American to think a good White American would be capable of counterfeiting U.S. currency!

But some paranoid retailers in communities of color think everyone who lives there are out to scam them.

And another fun tidbit? A whopping 41 percent of theft of theft at retailers is actually done by employees! And most of that theft is done before the merchandise even hits the sales floor! That’s right, most employees steal stuff right off the delivery truck because they’re familiar with the shipment schedules and know what merchandise is being delivered to the store. Others slip items out with the trash, and some less savvy employees steal merchandise right off the sales floor!

But in the inner-city it’s customers of color that are seen as criminals first and customers second.

Customers in the inner-city actually count for very little theft at retailers. And when that handful of brothers and sisters do commit these crimes, bag checks are totally ineffective in securing merchandise. A bag check won’t stop shoplifter who uses tactics like smash and Grab, (When a shoplifter smashes a counter and grabs merchandise) Grab and Dash (when a shoplifter takes a bundle of merchandise off a table and dashes out of the store into a nearby car), Crotch walking (when a woman in a long dress puts an object between her thighs and walks out), folded up newspapers (when a shoplifter hides merchandise between the pages of the newspaper), Umbrellas (when a shoplifter hides merchandise in an umbrella) or staged arguments used to divert employees attention while shoplifters who use a combination of these tactics.

Nor are bag checks effective against baby strollers, which are often allowed to pass these retail checkpoints. While everyone in the store is looking at lil’ Precious, Mom is hiding merchandise under the blankets the toys, and even the baby!

Dye packs? Shoplifters freeze the garments, wrap duct tape around the pin and break them with a hammer. And those wonderful magnetic alarms that make all that noise at the door? They don’t go off when a person is wearing a shirt or jacket lined with plain old tin foil.

So does this mean that retailers should do nothing to secure their merchandise? No, it doesn’t. But when retailers use tactics that utilize racial profiling to secure their businesses it actually makes them less safe. While they’re spending most of their time looking at customers of color, employees and white women are walking away with their profits. A comprehensive retail security plan doesn’t look at the color of the customer but the actions that define their character.

Check My Bag? No, I think I'll Check My Senses And Shop Someplace Else

Shopping in the South Bronx I’ve run into this sign a lot in my life:

CUSTOMERS MUST CHECK ALL BAGS AT THE DOOR

Usually I’d see it at local retailers in places like Third Avenue, Fordham Road and 170th Street in the Bronx when I was a kid. Store owners often claimed they checked bags as a “security” measure to prevent shoplifting.

Over the years I grew accustomed to it. When I was growing up in the late 1980’s early 1990’s I often saw these signs at the Jeans and Sneaker stores Like Dr. Jay’s and V.I.M. with all the trendy cool clothes everybody coveted in High School. As I grew older I noticed these signs and booths were emerging at the Supermarket, drugstores, and even 99cent stores. Basically in order to shop there, a customer had to give a clerk their bags from previous stores they shopped with and they’d hand them a card or something. When the customer finished shopping, they gave the clerk the card back and got their bags back. In most cases. About 85-90% of the time.

But if they lost the customer's bags…

They were only liable  for up to about $15. So if a customer had a $2000 laptop in there with their LIFE on it and a store employee gave it to some dude who said it was his bag...

Screw the customer who trusted the retailer to take reasonable care of their stuff. The store is only responsible for $15.

It always irked me how these retailers with the bag check policies implied customers who patronized their businesses were responsible for the loss of merchandise, however, if the retailer lost a customer’s bags they weren’t responsible for reimbursing the customer for the value of the contents of their bags. Nice double standard there. Isn’t this supposed to work both ways? Wouldn’t a retailer reimbursing a customer for their $2000 laptop teach the store to be more careful with a customer’s possessions?

What really aggravates me is how careless store clerks are with customer’s stuff after it's checked. In supermarkets I’ve watched clerks walk away from the customer’s bags leaving them unattended to go do other stuff. Sometimes clerks would be doing something on the other side of the store for fifteen minutes to a half-hour while customer’s bags are just THERE. For anyone to take. Sure, in some stores the customer’s stuff is behind a counter. But the person paid to hold the customer’s stuff ISN’T THERE WATCHING IT. With the customer’s bags TWO FEET FROM THE DOOR, and NO ONE SECURING IT, ANYONE CAN JUST TAKE A CUSTOMER’S BAGS AND WALK OUT.

But screw the customer. Even though the store’s employees and management are clearly negligent, the retailer is only responsible for $15.

What’s even more disturbing is what I’ve seen in some supermarkets lately. Customers’ bags are either left on top of the counter or just thrown onto a pile near the window with no one watching them. Some security there.

Yeah, checking bags is supposed to stop people from sneaking store merchandise in their bags, but WHO IS PROTECTING THE CUSTOMER’S BAGS FROM THEFT?

That’s the question I really want an answer to. Shouldn’t this work both ways? Shouldn’t the retailer be making thier best efforts to protect the customer’s stuff from theft? Why aren’t they held liable for not taking reasonable care of a customer’s stuff?

That's right if a customer walks into a store with a bag check policy with that $2000 laptop check it, in and the store's staff loses it, the store is only responsible for $15 because it’s implied that you read the sign (wherever it’s placed) and understood you entered into a contract with the retailer.

But the retailer only being responsible for $15 sounds like a cop-out to me. If these inner-city retailers are so afraid of theft, then why not hire a plain-clothed licensed security guard who has their 8-hour certificate to protect merchandise? Certified security guards make about the same wages as a store clerk. And wouldn’t a guard be more effective against preventing shoplifters from walking out with merchandise because they’re trained on what suspicious behaviors to look for?

That’s how Macy’s and the big supermarkets like PathMark police their shops. But local inner-city retailers think having some untrained kid checking bags and looking out for shoplifters is a good idea.

Having a clerk doing security in addition to stocking shelves and working deli counter never seemed like an effective way to prevent shoplifting to me. It always seemed like a BIG ASS lawsuit waiting to happen. So let’s say the clerk catches a shoplifter and injures them in preventing a theft. The store would be held liable for having staff using excessive force, and the employee would be held liable individually as well.

Why? Because neither is a licensed, trained and certified security guard.

And what if said clerk is injured or killed in confronting a shoplifter in securing merchandise? Who pays their medical bills? Funeral expenses? Pain and suffering? Local retailers may carry insurance on their merchandise, but many can barely afford to pay their bills at the end of the month. An employee getting injured or killed on the job would put a small retailer out of business.

Yeah, it’s noble that an employee would fight to defend the store and protect its merchandise. But certain policies implemented by local retailers to stop shoplifters like bag checks and clerks working security are penny wise and pound foolish. This is why the big chains like Target, Gap, and Sears make it company policy to tell store employees NOT to confront or engage shoplifters on the sales floor. In their eyes engaging shoplifters in-store is seen as an escalation  which can lead to more violence and injury of staff and customers especially if a thief is armed with a weapon. They’re willing to eat the loss of merchandise with their insurance rather than deal with the expense of a huge lawsuit if someone gets injured or killed on the premises. Sounds crazy, but it saves lives and money long-term.

Retailers call bag checks a security measure. Customers of color endure them as part of shopping in the Inner-City.

I call them racial profiling.

Seriously, why is it only in inner-city stores there are these bag check policies at the door? Why is it implied that people of color are going to shoplift before they enter the store? I know the inner-city is a dangerous place, but 99 percent of the people in the inner-city aren’t criminals. Most people are just out to shop; they shouldn’t have to endure a battery of security checks to get a gallon of milk.

Seriously, why is it when I shop in the ghetto are my $20, $50 and $100 bills scrutinized to ensure they aren’t counterfeit? Why is it when I want to use my credit card or debit card with a local retailer who isn’t a chain store, I have to show ID? Why does a person of color have to spend a minimum of $15 in an inner city retailer if they want to use a credit card? And why is there no cash refund and only an exchange in local inner-city stores?

I find it funny that when I travel into chain stores in my neighborhood, like Rite Aid, Target, and Path Mark, there are NO bag checks. In these stores my money isn’t scrutinized for authenticity when I use $20, $50, and $100 bills. I can use debit or credit card without being asked for ID. I can spend as little as a penny on a debit card or a credit card if I like. And I can return stuff for a full refund at almost any time within 90-180 days.

Moreover, when I shop at stores Below 96th Street in New York City like Whole Foods, Duane Reade, and Food Emporium, not only are there NO bag checks or other discriminatory retail policies, but customers are allowed to bring in stuff like strollers and bikes in while they shopped. Heck, I’ve seen them bring DOGS into retail businesses unchallenged!

But let a person of color do this North of 96th Street and retailers throw a hissy fit. Not only accusing them of stealing, but accusing them of disrupting their store!

I’ll note there were a few stores that initiated these crazy bag check policies and other restrictive rules below 96th Street in Manhattan. I’ll note that all of them quickly went out of business.

Why? RICH WHITE CUSTOMERS WON’T PUT UP WITH THAT SHIT. If a retailer implemented these policies such as bag checks in places like the Upper East Side, the ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD would stop shopping there. Moreover, other competing retailers would capitalize on their stupidity of retailers in these high-rent areas by posting signs stating they DIDN’T CHECK BAGS and take customers from them.

Now that I’ve grown up and become aware of racial profiling in retail I do my best to make it to avoid shopping with retailers who check bags and practice other policies that discriminate against customers of color. As much as I like to support local businesses in my neighborhood, I’m not going to tolerate being disrespected by merchants who do not value my business. I feel that if a retailer can’t trust me with their merchandise, then I can’t trust them with my money. As a paying customer I deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, not like a criminal casing the joint.

Check my bag? No, I’ll check my senses and find some other place to shop.



Progress Report

Things in Shawn’s writing world are hectic. After taking a little break to rest up this summer, I’m back at the keyboard.

Regarding previously published works:

All About Marilyn was on Amazon’s bestseller list for the second time in the Screenplay category a few weeks ago. The book looks like it could be overtaking Isis as my most successful title. Could it stay on Amazon’s bestseller list? I’m crossing my fingers and praying for a breakthrough.

On the promotion front, Marilyn’s press release has passed 920 plus hits. Looks like the press release will be headed towards 1000 hits soon!

Thanks to my promotional efforts, and the efforts of others out there, more people know about All About Marilyn than any of my other books. The word is getting out there!

The Cassandra Cookbook's  press release has passed 797hits and is headed towards 800 hits.

On the sales front, I’m gonna do a blog about Cassandra in the future. That poor book was on sale for $2.36 this summer on Amazon with no takers. When a great book with great reviews costs less than a pack of Oreos and no one wants it, it’s a failure. Chalking up Cassandra as a loss and moving on.

Isis still has a following, and is still well-received by readers.

I’m hard at work on the final production stages of Book #4, The Temptation of John Haynes. With the editing and page layouts finished (as best as I can), now I’m now onto the cover design stage. Cover design can be just as intense as writing; finding that one solitary image to tell a story is more challenging than typing up the words of the manuscript.

She's supposed to be going for that bow tie, but the hands I drew are crap. The face on John is OFF MODEL in this  one and That's  supposed to be a tux. 

I’m drawing pictures for the artist to work with for Temptation’s cover. Model sheets of characters, portraits, the whole nine. Studying the likeness of actors I based some of the characters on so I can draw them into the characters I imagined. Here’s a rough sketch for the concept of Temptation’s this cover:

This one captures more of what I want the cover to look like. Yeah, I know the hands are STILL crap. A lot wrong with this concept sketch, John is a little more on model, but E'steem's facial expression is supposed to be her going in for a kiss/bite. I'm trying to iron stuff out like composition and body placement. before contacting a professional artist to render the design for me!

These are more like doodles than a drawing, so bear with the crappiness of my art. Nothing is symmetrical; I’m trying to capture the spirit of the characters on the page. More crappy drawings to come!

I’m also pondering putting some type of design on the back behind the synopsis. I really liked how Marilyn’s back cover art worked out, and back covers are so underutilized in publishing. Books have to compete with DVDs and the Internet in retail spaces, so one of my goals is to design the back cover to be just as visually appealing as the front. Back covers are voids of empty space waiting for publishers to capitalize on!

Also checking out several artists and their work along with their rates. If I can get a good deal, I might ask the artist to pencil & ink some Isis stuff (I love that character) if I can afford it after paying for the cover. Always wanted to see what my characters would look like if they were rendered by a professional.

After the art is done, then I’ll secure the ISBN and fret and worry as I take that cool Photoshop stuff I teased last week and merge it with the JPEG of the artist’s cover when I get it in a couple of months. Fret and worry some more as I merge everything on a Lightning Source Template on the .EPS. (Encapsulated Post Script) Distill that .EPS with Acrobat Distiller and create the PDF (Portable Document Format) for the cover. Keep everything in the red and blue dotted lines of the template. Remember to delete the layer of dots of the template before submitting anything. Does any of that make sense? Anyway, I’m gonna drive myself crazy over the next couple of months. But it’s gonna be totally worth it for my growing audience of a dozen or so readers!

I’m doing my best to make sure the quality control on Temptation is better than on any of my previous books. I want to give readers the best quality reading experience possible.

On the promotion side, I’m working with scaled back plan. Way back than previous campaigns. Temptation is LONG (94,000 words) and close to 400 pages. So the printing costs are higher than on a smaller 220 page book like Marilyn.

To make this book’s initial print run cost out, I can only send out a handful of review copies. It may be as low as five or six this time as opposed to the dozen or so I sent out with The Cassandra Cookbook and All About Marilyn. In the past I’ve sent books out to book clubs for reviews and in a lot of cases (especially Marilyn’s) the book wasn’t read. I can’t afford to keep doing that. Books cost money, postage costs money, as does bus fare for trips to the post office. With me being out of work and Unemployment running out soon, I can’t afford to spend money like I did in previous promotional campaigns.

I also won’t be able to afford to offer free copies of Temptation to vendors. From now on, my promotion of titles will be mostly online with social media.

Long-term, my goal is to have Temptation released in early 2011, with Nikki’s series bible being released soon after. Did some research and I learned what I was writing is actually a TV series bible, something producers and screenwriters use to develop and design a Television series. It’s going to be a great companion piece to All About Marilyn, and a fun book for anyone who wants to learn something about writing TV scripts!

I’m still doing some page layout cleanups and ironing out some grammar issues on that book. But thankfully, the cover design is done for that one!

In other news:

Big news concerning this blog: Starting this week, it’ll update twice a week! I only posted a blog once a week so readers could catch up with their reading, but I’ve got so many great topics I want to write about material is backing up. Also want to see if more posts translates into more readers.

I’m thinking about having it update Thursday and Saturday Nights so readers can still catch up on stuff and give myself a window to work with. Still working out the content issues; Thursday’s blog would usually be something light while Saturday’s blog will remain something more substantive and political.

Book #4 Teaser

The progress on Book #4 has been slow and steady. Really Really slow, but steady. Five years going on six. With the page layouts finished, I’m doing cover design now. Working out the Photoshop layouts for a second rough cover:

(cover is not final!)

And I’m really pleased with how it looks. The graphics for the logo look like something professional this time. I’d say this one looks bookstore quality! 

I DO NOT want to illustrate this cover! While I’m working on some drawings for the artist to work from, I’m willing to accept my limitations. I think a professional can do better work than I can in this area.

Temptation will be available Sometime around Early 2011. Not giving anything away on the plot, but it’s a fantasy novel. Think Devil’s Advocate meets Ghostbusters with a sprinkle of Vampire in Brooklyn. You’re gonna love it!

Next week will be a progress report with some exciting news about this blog! 

Lab Cat Chronichles-Anything is Pawsible - A great book for kids 7-12!

Lab Cat Chronichles: Anything is Pawsible

By Savannah North

ISBN-13: 978-1602645202

Suggested Retail Price $9.95

James is a high school freshman in trouble again; only this time he has reached the limit. As luck would have it he was trying to help someone and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just as he begins to avoid trouble, trouble has found him again in the shape of small, brightly colored laboratory experiments that have gone to the dogs - or rather, the cats.

When James tries to dodge the responsibilities of having to care for his new 'pets', he finds that the easy way isn't always the best way. Will he be able to escape from his past while making an easier life for himself? His decisions could send him down a road he doesn't want to travel. Will that path lead to a

'dead' end?

For me, Lab Cat Chronichles was a fun YA novel. Author Savannah North crafts a solid plot in an imaginative story with a great message about responsibility and growing up. I would definitely love to see a sequel to this book, or even a series. The cats are just so much fun to read about!

In between the pages are some great illustrations by North. I highly recommend this story, It’s an entertaining book that will put a smile on your face.

This is a great story for kids ages 7-12, So while you're shopping for books for the kids, Pick up Lab Cat Chronichles at Amazon today!

A trip down Memory Lane

Before I wrote:

All these great books are available at Amazon by clicking one of the links on the side.
All About Nikki will be coming sometime in 2011!

 I wrote:

Classic Mayor Fox Covers! What happens when your kids have too much time and too much imagination!

Way back in 1982-83, when I was a little cheese, living in a rundown one-bedroom apartment next to the Metro-North railroad tracks on Park Avenue in the burnt down Bronx, I became enamored with a Richard Scarry character called Mayor Fox. In between games of Tabletop Pac-man, the Atari 5200, Saturday Morning cartoons, trips to Alexander’s, McDonald’s, Pioneer Supermarket and the Pizza shop on Washington Avenue, I devoured all the Richard Scarry books my parents bought me. I also had most of the Puzzletown figurines. 

(c) TM 1976 Richard Scarry. Thank You for Inspiring me to create.

I also loved the comic books in my brother’s comic collection. Unable to draw the intricate art I saw in  his comics, I decided to use words to make the pictures in my Mayor Fox adventures. After I wrote my Mayor Fox stories, I took a little Elmer’s glue, some construction paper to design a cover and made these crude comic books featuring my favorite characters (and a couple of others co-opted from Disney movies, TV shows and other stuff). Oh and like any good comics , mine feature ads from sponsors:

Look kids

Crudely desinged back interior ads! I think the networks would pay me NOT to endorse their shows in my home-made magazines!

Snorks! Hey this was a favorite back in the day. On Saturday morning at 8::30 on Channel 4 back in 1983 or 1984.

Some of these home-made comic books like this issue were ahead of their time incorporating bonus material inside their pages:

Look kids, it's a poorly drawn Voltron Poster by an 11-year old that has nothing to do with the story. I just liked the show!

And on the back- A Garret A. Morgan CES 132 Memo!

Others like this later issue depicting the death of a major character were 72 pages long. The cover idea for this came from the Daily News front page featuring the rubout of Mob Boss Paul Castellano way Back in 1986:

The interior page of this issue with the official Mayor Fox seal! Check out my commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Statue of Liberty at the top of the page!

I took my allowance and got a Record book from McCrorys on Third Avenue and made these:

The first books I ever wrote!

The wrecked accounting book ith the Heathcliff Stickers from 1983 is a compendium of the First Mayor Fox Stories I wrote when I was nine. The non-stickered book is a compendium of crap I put together with help from classmates in 1984 when I was in gixth grade.

No front matter here, we get right to the story!

Even though I’ve moved on to publishing real books, I still cherish my home-made comics and books. Sure they’re crude, poorly written, and filled with very silly stories that only make sense to me.

I hope by seeing these home-made comics all the readers of this blog will understand why it’s important to never give up on your dreams. I wanted to be a writer since I was nine years old and twenty-seven years later I’m living my dream. So keep persevering, one day your dreams will come true!