Elizabeth Alan to make Bakersfield appearance for Morning Coffee novel - By N.L. Belardes

Chester Blum and Karen Luethke both live on opposite coasts and have the same creative knack for not just talking about writing, they actually create. And in unison. Both will be appearing at Bakersfield’s Barnes and Noble today at 7pm to promote their book, Morning Coffee.

Morning Coffee is romantic fiction, “a story about wanting to find someone to share the little things with” Karen said in a phone interview. “It’s a full-bodied romantic novel.”

I asked how long it took to write their dual-author novel. They met online and started with short stories. Around February, 2005 they had the beginning of a book with about 25-30 pages in a story about first love and not letting go. They finished in late July. That’s quick work.

“But why go with Authorhouse?” I asked Karen, a Central Valley writer from Clovis. Chester lives in New York. She indicated it was just plain rejection. That’s something we authors all face. The protocol is you send your work off to a bazillion potential publishers, then sit and wait while editors toil over your work, lose pages, spill coffee and use your novel for their bird cage floor. I’ve been in debates with Central Valley writer/editor Cindy Wathen who tells me that’s just not true, that it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a track record, or if you’re a first time author without an agent. If you think your work is good enough, then get it out there. Publishers will publish you if your work is good and if you have a handle on the idea of marketing.

But we’re in a new age of self-publishing, where authors can empower themselves as their own marketing experts with just a few hundred dollars and an online and media campaign. With good editors and fancy cover artwork and reviews, authors can get their work out to people in small bursts of promotion.

“We sent our work to one publishing house who said we didn’t have a handle on our genre. So we empowered ourselves,” Karen said. “And that didn’t seem so difficult to do because you have more courage with somebody else helping you.”

Karen is also an artist. She designed the coffee cup book cover in pencils and pastels…

I’m going to meet them today for real coffee… and see what else they have to say. Hopefully I can add a few photos to this write-up. In the meantime, please support valley writers whether they're self-published or with a traditional press.

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Friday, May 12, 2006. You can leave your response.