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thecosydragon · 7 years ago

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My latest blog post from the cosy dragon: Interview with E. A. Barker

An Interview with E. A. Barker, author of Ms. Creant: The Wrong Doers!

E. A. Barker believes he is an average guy in mid-life who has led a mostly average life. His readers may not agree with his assessment. The single biggest difference between him and most other people is his pursuit of knowledge. Throughout his life he never stopped asking the simplest question: Why? E. A. describes himself as a collector of ideas and a purveyor of dot connections. He attempts to present his findings in an entertaining fashion in an effort to encourage people to read—especially men who are reading far too little these days. E. A is an advocate of education for its ability to affect social reform and actively promotes the idea that a global conscience is possible.

COZY DRAGON INTERVIEW

Everyone has a ‘first novel’, even if many of them are a rough draft relegated to the bottom and back of your desk drawer (or your external hard-drive!). Have you been able to reshape yours, or have you abandoned it for good?

(E. A. laughs.) It’s crap! I write narrative non-fiction partially because my ability to write quality dialog is so lacking in my opinion. I am reasonably certain I am at least decent at what I do. Ms. Creant ‘s mission was to challenge the beliefs of the reader so that we might change and grow as humans. This is a niche which I believe best suits my abilities.

Some authors are able to pump out a novel a year and still be filled with inspiration. Is this the case for you, or do you like to let an idea percolate for a couple of years in order to produce a quality book?

I admire prolific writers who can produce quality works time and time again. For me, it does not come so easily. I suppose my percolation happens during the extensive research phase, which in the case of this book, represented a one year period.

I have heard of writers that could only write in one place – then that cafe closed down and they could no longer write! Where do you find yourself writing most often, and on what medium (pen/paper or digital)?

Wow. Your first sentence supports my working theory that we writers are merely scribes channeling the thoughts of some other entity. This is probably not the place to get all weirdly metaphysical so I will move on to the question at hand. I can write wherever I can make my body comfortable and where there is little distraction or noise. Paper notes always litter my workspace, if not the entire room, until such time as they are compiled by section into my trusty old HP laptop.

Before going on to hire an editor, most authors use beta-readers. How do you recruit your beta-readers, and choose an editor? Are you lucky enough to have loving family members who can read and comment on your novel?

I have never been clear on how the literary world uses some terminology. My scientific background tells me to speak of alpha readers first. To me, the process is as follows: 1) I produce a very rough draft which is then read by alpha readers whose sole job it is to blow sunshine up my butt so that I can find the courage to continue. In my case, it was my hairdresser. 2) I then read, revised, re-read, revised . . . until I realized I was stuck in an endless loop and had to seek professional help. 3) Enter my editor—who I picture in my head as Ilsa of the SS—she is what I believe to be my beta-reader. Laura had no trouble telling me how I had gone off course (content editing); nor did she lose any sleep over pointing out my embarrassing grammatical errors; and I believe she rejoiced in highlighting the literally thousands of typos and punctuation errors. This is what makes her good. Her ability to completely devastate any ego the writer in you had developed, will either force you to be better, or quit. Badly shaken, I chose the former. I made massive revisions which fleshed out ideas, supplied answers, and ultimately resulted in three additional chapters. The most observant of readers might see where I ended the book on three separate occasions. She was recruited by writing a cheque. 4) The gamma reader was my proof-reader who line edited (a.k.a. copy edited) the manuscript prior to publication. She only found another five hundred or so mistakes in punctuation as well as missing words I just could not see when I read those sentences. She was recruited through a negotiated exchange of services and the promise of a signed hardcover.

I walk past bookshops and am drawn in by the smell of the books – ebooks simply don’t have the same attraction for me. Does this happen to you, and do you have a favourite bookshop? Or perhaps you are an e-reader fan… where do you source most of your material from?

I LOVE PAPER BOOKS! It is easy to understand people who like digital books though; they can buy books for far less money and could carry their entire library with them at all times. There is a danger that we should be discussing in the digital revolution we are in the midst of. I USE LIBRARIES to source most information. Libraries have always been the keepers and conservators of knowledge. Budget cutbacks combined with limited shelf space are leading many libraries into e-book information technology systems where the librarian will no longer be the curator. Whosoever controls “the cloud” will then control all knowledge. We must continue to encourage a balance between paper and digital books or we risk quickening our fall into a dystopian nightmare.

Oh my! Asking an author if they have a favorite bookstore is leading them to potential career suicide. ANY bookstore that carries or recommends Ms. Creant: The Wrong Doers! is a favorite of mine. I do however frequent a local used bookshop in the Beaches area of Toronto near my home.

I used to find myself buying books in only one genre (fantasy) before I started writing this blog. What is your favourite genre, and do you have a favourite author who sticks in your mind from:

childhood? Jules Verne

adolescence? Frank Herbert

young adult? Robert Heinlein

adult? Hemingway? I am now trying to read the greats across previously unexplored genres including poetry—something I would never have done when I was younger.

Social media is a big thing, much to my disgust! I never have enough time myself to do what I feel is a good job. What do you do?

Social media is a massive time suck that keeps us from writing. I would like a PA to take it over but I have yet to have a quality unpaid one offer to do so.

This is my approach:

Facebook is number one in terms of users. If you are willing to track people down and stay engaged with them, it can be powerful. Therein lies the time suck factor—engagement. Facebook goes out of their way to minimize your reach. Only 3 to 7% of your friends and followers will see some of your posts regularly.

Twitter is second in terms of users; limited in terms of post length, but UNLIMITED in terms of reach—all your followers and all selected hash-tags receive your posts, you can tweet @ anyone on twitter and they do not put you in jail for over engagement.

I tweet daily and send the tweet to both my facebook profile and my author page. In theory you could do this in 30 minutes per day but you would not have the all important needed engagement with other people.

Not long ago, I found statistics which clearly showed you really only need to be engaging on Fridays and Saturdays. This opens the door to time suck savings by posting (a.k.a. updating status) each day, but engaging just on those two days.

Understanding the value of any marketing effort is often difficult to measure in immediate sales—social media is epitome of this. After two years of working social media an average of three hours per day, seven days a week, 360ish days per year, I will tell you its value cannot be measured monetarily. When I attempt to do this, the numbers make me feel foolish.

$0.03 is what I have been paid per hour.

30 minutes is invested in each follower.

Followers rarely buy your book but about 1% will.

You will get 0.1% response from a twitter campaign.

My RATIONALIZATION for continuing at all is I committed to this for two years–one year leading up to this release (the building phase), and one year of promoting the book after release. I assure you there will be a massive scaling down of social media work once the book has its first birthday.

So what are the positives?

You gain a handful of digital pen pals from around the world—priceless.

A good percentage of initial sales and reviews will come from people you meet on facebook.

It is the digital equivalent of flyer distribution and it is free, if you do not count your time.

About 50% of blogger interest came through social media channels.

The best alternative to social media marketing is REAL WORLD marketing but you must be an extroverted salesperson to do this, and many writers are not. Some will have costs which can quickly add up.

E-mail campaigns have netted the greatest amount of interest thus far with about a 10% response rate. This is literally 100 times better than social media and introverts can do it.

Direct mail promotion to independent bookshops and libraries seems to generate interest.

Attend book fairs and sell signed copies.

Public speaking is always an opportunity to sell books.

Pitch indie bookstores and other merchants on buying or displaying consignment copies of your book.

Send out review copies to literary critics. Most will not give you the time of day, but just one published positive review from these people can make a career.

Links to: Twitter Facebook

Answering interview questions can often take a long time! Tell me, are you ever tempted to recycle your answers from one to the next?

Your questions were thought provoking and multifaceted so I could not cheat. We are faced with some stock questions which cause us to reiterate answers. I have yet to copy and paste an answer, but who knows what the future may bring.

Ms. Creant: The Wrong Doers!

This book was created for everyone from young adults to seniors. It was written from a male’s point of view, speaking to men who are endlessly struggling to understand the opposite sex. For women, this is a fascinating journey inside the male psyche. The book gives a young reader a glimpse of the future, with a recommended time-line for key life events. Mature readers, who have already experienced much of what is discussed in the book, should come away with a new found understanding and perhaps even closure. Ms. Creant is a controversial, entertaining, yet informative look at everything which influences human behaviour including: relationships, life, health, biology, philosophy, sociology, theology, politics, genetics—even physics. E. A. Barker shares twenty-four “inappropriate” stories of life with women. The author based these stories of women behaving badly on his real life experiences, spanning four decades of his search for an ideal partner. The lessons taken away from the book will serve to help readers make better choices, become more aware, grow and change—at any stage of life.

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the-record-columns · 8 years ago

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Jan. 11, 2017: Columns

More about Rotary

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

One of the highlights of my week is to attend the meeting of the North Wilkesboro Rotary Club at the Brushy Mountain Smokehouse and Creamery in North Wilkesboro.

To adapt an old saying, the way to a Rotarian’s heart is through his stomach, and the folks at the Smokehouse take excellent care of us every week.

But it is the Rotary Four-Way Test I want to talk about today, more exactly, “The Four-Way Test of the things we think, say or do.” It goes as follows: 1) Is it the TRUTH? 2) Is it FAIR to all concerned? 3) Will it build GOOD WILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS? 4) Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

These are four excellent questions, and club President Lee Bentley leads us each week in reciting them. As with anything we repeat often enough, sometimes it is tempting to just go through the motions and not really pay attention to what you are saying. At least I have been guilty of doing so sometimes through the years.

However, because of a conversation I had in Durham some time ago and again this past weekend, I have a whole new respect for thinking and not just saying the Four-Way Test. I was attending a meeting of the NC/SC Agricultural Fairs Association to hire acts for the Rotary Club’s annual fair held in October. Besides trying to keep folks worried to death about the coming snow storm, I spent lots of time visiting with vendors hawking everything from popcorn makers to a full-size, three-ring circus.

As I browsed, I again met a woman named Tammy Peters with a company called North Pole Productions who marketed Christmas light shows.

She saw my Rotary pin and told me she was a member of a club in Albany, New York, and before long reminded me that she was the first female member of that long-established club. As we visited on, she shared a great story.

It seems as though she joined Rotary very soon after women were first eligible to be admitted, and there was a prominent member of the Albany club who had resigned in protest as soon as the resolution admitting women was passed internationally. After Tammy had been a member about six months, this gentleman’s name came up and someone told her about his quitting in protest over the admission of women.

Turns out Tammy had been well acquainted with the gentleman for years, although unaware he was a Rotarian. After a few weeks of thought, she made an appointment to visit with the man, and, after a short conversation, placed a copy of the Four Way Test on his desk in front of him.

When he inquired why, she told him she just wanted him to read it to her. With a puzzled look, he complied. Then Tammy asked him to reconcile the test with his decision to leave Rotary over women being allowed to join.

I couldn’t wait to hear about the battle which followed, but she just stood there smiling. After a minute or two, I said, “Well? What happened.”

“I was his sponsor when he re-joined the Rotary Club of Albany,” She said proudly.

The Four-Way Test of things we think, say or do FIRST—Is it the TRUTH? SECOND—Is it FAIR to all concerned. THIRD—Will it build GOOD WILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS? FOURTH—Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Believe in kindness

By LAURA WELBORN

Can kindness cure the world of violence and hatred? While I am not sure of the worldwide effects of kindness, I have experienced what kindness does to me- it’s almost contagious and I find myself feeling more positive and happy. Kindness is the heart of intimacy, connection, self-respect and respect for others and it has to be at the root of our actions and thoughts. When I get discouraged about the violence in the world I tend to look at those facebook stories of kindness over and over again. The ones about the white helmet people who live in violent areas and go help victims of bombing against their own safety. I watch shows that end happy with everyone having a surge of love- you know the ones around Christmas on Hallmark channel. So what to do when Hallmark shows turn into psychopaths doing harm to others?

I am going to make more of an effort to be grateful to others. I hope to be intentional and be specific about what I am grateful for with people in my life. I had a friend who sent me a card/book for my birthday (which is coming up this month- the big one) and the book was about how this fictional person in the card was an inspiration to others. I taped the card in my elevator so I could look at it and feel a surge of kindness everyday.

One of the reasons I love facebook is because it keeps you in touch with people. I think our generation is at a point of posting life events and positive messages. It is also a great way to reach out to people you normally would not be around. I recently got a message from someone I lived next to 33 years ago- on facebook which helps us connect to a friend of a friend. If things do get negative I just hide their posts and pray for them to release positive thoughts instead of negative ones. It just takes a minute to send a message or look someone up on facebook and all you need is their name. Recently I received a post from a childhood school mate of a picture of me and my twin sister in Afghanistan when we were 10 years old. Well the post was going around and they could not figure out who I was, and since I do not use my maiden name in facebook it was forwarded to me by my twin. The long and short of it was I was connected again to people from over 50 years ago and was finally able to convince the readers the mystery person was Laura Mullen- twin of Debbie Mullen who was the adorable white blond dressed in an afghan costume. (I was the skinny long legged one with dark hair in an American square dance costume). My point is the connectedness of over 50 years ago by a post of a school mate.

I am sure that besides feeling good because my brain gets an immediate hit when I am helpful and compassionate it starts a kindness social contagion. So back to the facebook point- other people get a lift and feel good when we post positive notes. I also think that when we pray for people we get intentional positive energy out, and the contagion starts by paying kindness forward so to speak.

There is a movement called spread the kindness which is a way to acknowledge a good deed or inspire you to pay the high-five forward cards. You can buy the cards at lifevistinside.com or go to parade.com /cards to print out free kindness cards to use as a reminder of spreading love and kindness everyday.

Laura Welborn, Mediator and inspiring Substance Abuse Counselor can be reached at [email protected]

Israel has a Trump Card to Play

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

In trademark tyrannical fashion, lame-duck President Barack Obama betrayed our historically Israel Dec. 23 by instructing the U.S. delegation to abstain on U.N. Security Council’s Resolution 2334—a blatantly one-sided, anti-Israel move. His maneuver ignored the will of the American electorate, the bi-partisan consensus in Congress, and America’s historic record of support for Israel at the United Nations. He also ignored Israeli positions across the political spectrum, and is seen as using the occasion as a personal vendetta against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he did not get along. Arab sources and intelligence even informed Israel that members of the Obama administration secretly colluded with Security Council members to draft and promote the anti-Israel resolution. Unsurprisingly, Obama has placated Israel’s enemies, most of whom prefer terrorism as a means of persuasion, and who would rather see Israel wiped off the map than as a partner at the negotiating table.

Obama’s machinations deliberately undermined his successor President-elect Donald Trump’s clearly voiced intent to help Israel and the Palestinians work toward a negotiated, peaceful solution.

The resolution is fraught with factual and legal inaccuracies. It frequently references the “pre-1967 borders”, which were actually 1949 armistice lines never recognized as international borders by any nation, including the Arabs. Since the West Bank never belonged to a state since the Ottoman Empire, the term “occupied Palestinian territory” is a fiction. The resolution also conflicts with previous U.N. resolutions that call for negotiated settlement between the parties, not a third party, and which establish every nation’s rights to secure, defensible borders. Finally, the Mandate of Palestine that established Israel permits Jewish settlement throughout the territory of the Mandate, which includes the West Bank.

Unfortunately, no future president can undo the Security Council resolution, and it has left little maneuvering room to discuss a final negotiated settlement. Thus the resolution has damaged the prospects for peace. Needless to say, this has been consistent with other Obama foreign policy failures.

While Israel is not bound by the resolution—Netanyahu has already rejected it—American Center for Law and Justice Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow wrote: “The resolution—which references pre-1967 borders several times—would cripple Israel’s sovereignty, weaken its borders, leave it susceptible to false criminal charges at the International Criminal Court, and strengthen the pernicious and ill-conceived Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to delegitimize Israel.”

But now for the good news: The backlash against this shameful resolution has already begun. Netanyahu’s office announced that Israel was “looking forward to working with President-elect Trump and with our friends in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, to undo the damage of this absurd resolution.”

The U.S. Congress has also stepped up to the plate. Sen. Lindsey Graham, with support from other congressional leaders, has threatened to punish the resolution’s sponsors and the United Nations with U.S. aid cuts. "This vote will create a backlash in Congress against the UN," Graham said. “The organization is increasingly viewed as anti-Semitic and seems to have lost all sense of proportionality. I will do everything in my power, working with the new administration and Congress, to leave no doubt about where America stands when it comes to the peace process and where we stand with the only true democracy in the Middle East."

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said the "unified Republican government will work to reverse the damage done by this administration, and rebuild our alliance with Israel."

Of course, President-elect Donald Trump—not Obama—will soon determine how the United States will vote in the United Nations. Trump, who tried unsuccessfully to intervene on Israel’s behalf before the resolution was passed, tweeted: “As to the UN, things will be different after Jan. 20th,”

If Trump supports slashing U.S. aid to the United Nations, the nations that sponsored the resolution, and the Palestinian Authority, it will be interesting to see how the voting goes, according to the nonprofit Americans for a Safe Israel.

By abstaining, the Obama administration slapped an important card on the table in its game plan against Israel. Israel still has a "Trump" card to play. It may be time to use it.

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