Long Overdue Newsletter - August 2026
Printers Row Lit Fest - Less than 2 Weeks Away!
For anyone reading this newsletter in Chicago or the Chicagoland area, or heck, even one or two states over, we'd love to see ya at Printers Row Lit Fest.
This year, we've got an entire tent. You may have to zoom in a little on the map below, but we are at Tent GG near Printers Row Park and the Polk Street entrance.
I’m excited about how we’re setting things up. The eight tables on the outside of the tent will feature books and authors. The inside of the tent is a collaboration with our partner Diggypod, featuring stations for each stage of writing a book—writing, editing, designing, printing, and publishing —as well as information on additional formats like audio and ebooks.
For anyone attending the festival who's thinking about writing a book, my hope is they can learn and ask questions about the process and then be inspired by our authors who were in their shoes just a year or two ago.
Leading up to the event, we have three exciting new releases.
Tuesday, September 8th
Wednesday, September 9th
Thursday, September 10th
Then on Friday, September 11th, I'll be at Printer's Row Coffee Co. from 8 AM to 10 AM doing an informal "Publishing Ask Me Anything." If you're in the area, stop by, let's chat!
And then it's showtime. Saturday & Sunday (September 12th and 13th). Come visit Tent GG, or look for "Long Overdue Books" on the sign.
See you in a couple of weekends!
Author Celebrations
Ten Robinson's (Author of Freakboy82) books have arrived! And check out this out, she walked into a surprise at her school from her fellow teachers:
Then it was off to "Bookmarks: A Festival for Readers and Writers" at Harper College. And we got a sneak preview of what will be the middle grade fiction table at our tent featuring Ten Robinson and Clayton Keith (Author of Acrimons).
Way to go, Ten Robinson! We'll just be over here packing and shipping all your pre-orders.
Meanwhile, over in Ohio...
Omar Bailey had a couple of great book-signing events at King Arts Complex in Columbus and at his alma mater, the University of Cincinnati.
Answering the Question: What's Your Book About?
"What's the book about?"
At some point in the writing process, an author faces this question, and it can be a real deer-in-the-headlights moment. Most authors prefer to address this with 300 pages of story, not a 30-second answer at a backyard bar-b-q.
This is a fragile moment for your book idea. If you're met with eyebrows scrunched together or a polite, "Oh. Well, that sounds... interesting," it can really take the wind out of the sails, especially if you're still working on a rough draft.
I've had my fair share of fumbles on this question, but I've found three "containers" that really help distill a big idea or a long manuscript into a few sentences.
1. Start with: My book is like (insert book or movie/show title) meets (insert other book or movie/show title). Example: It's like "Grapes of Wrath" meets "Project Hail Mary." Now, instead of a totally blank canvas, you've given the person two familiar starting points, and then you can build from there.
2. The Pixar Pitch. I think I first read about this from Daniel Pink. You fit your story into six sentences (here's an example using Finding Nemo). This isn't limited to fiction either. A business book, memoir, leadership book can all still fit into this hero's journey framework.
3. This might be my favorite of all. It's from the South Park guys, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Their advice is to build suspense by structuring things around "But... therefore..." rather than a series of "and then... and then..."
The Odyssey is a great example of "But... therefore..." Homer would've had a heyday at the office water cooler sharing how Odysseus was headed home after the Trojan war, but this happens, therefore they've gotta do this, but then he throws a spear at the Cyclops, who happens to be Poseidon's son, therefore Poseidon is ticked off and throws a bunch of storms at their ship, but... therefore... but...
Give one of these approaches a try, and remember, you still have hundreds of pages to cover whatever you missed in the teaser trailer.
Write Local: The Importance of Town in your Story
I have a decent number of Kansas City connections and a healthy amount of Arthur Bryant's BBQ sauce in our fridge.
Because of those two things, I've enjoyed seeing all the LinkedIn posts lately celebrating Season 4, Episode 1 of Ted Lasso, which was shot in Kansas City and filled with local references.
It got me thinking: authors are often told to "Write what you know," and I think that's good advice, but I think writing "where" you know gets a little short-changed. Meaning: your book doesn't have to be set in New York City or Los Angeles. Why not stay close to home?
Especially for self-published or small hybrid-published authors, the marketing process is very grassroots. The book doesn't start out in bookstores all across the country, so those first 10-100 sales are likely from friends, family, colleagues, former colleagues, and those wise, supportive high school English teachers.
That jump from 100 to 250 (which is no guarantee, and many books plateau around 100) usually involves some sort of local angle. "Cool, they're from my hometown. This is a Michigan author. Sweet, this is set in my city. I'll check it out."
Your main character drinking a Coke at McDonald's is product placement. But if he's drinking a Northwoods orange cream soda at Slabtown Burgers in Traverse City, that gets a head nod from the bouncer. Velvet rope opens. Alright, kid, you're on the list. You passed the local test.
One of my Hope College English professors, Heather Sellers, said your town should be a main character in your story. I agree. She had a whole class where that was the starting point. No plot, no characters, nothing else. Just start with town and see where the story goes.
Whether that town has a million people or 100 people, that's a pretty great place to start.
"Ted Lasso? Wake me up when it's basketball season."
-Crash, Team Dog
Best place to keep up with all things Long Overdue is a tie between our monthly newsletter and our Instagram page. If you enjoy this newsletter and know someone who might enjoy it as well, let us know, we'll make sure to add them to our subscriber list. We also got back on Facebook recently, you can follow us here.
And check out our website - Long Overdue Books. Long Overdue Books is a community for creating books. It's a place for authors (and soon-to-be-authors), readers, editors, artists, and designers to come together and move their stories from ideas to finished books.
Also, if you have any questions, ideas, stories to tell, you can reach Cal the Librarian at - library@longoverduestories.com
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