Quote of the Month
“Books are something social – a writer speaking to a reader – so I think making the reading of a book the center of a social event, the meeting of a book club is a brilliant idea.”
- Yann Martel, Author
Safe Landing: 1-Year Publishing Anniversary
One year ago, we celebrated the release of Safe Landing at First Draft here in Chicago. What an amazing first year of publication! And our author trio shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, May was the busiest month yet! Three book club appearances and two library speaking gigs.
Buy or Gift a Copy of Safe Landing
Keep up with Recent Events/New Photos
Read the first chapter, check out press coverage, and more right here
Long Overdue - Book Clubs
Speaking of Safe Landing, one thing that caught me off guard (in a good way) was when leaders of book clubs reached out about reading the book and having the authors join one of their meetings (either in-person or over Zoom). What a great idea! Seems like such an obvious fit in retrospect.
I had a chance to visit one of these book clubs, and it was an awesome time. This group, in particular, has been meeting for 20+ years. Great discussions. Great food. And an awesome view of Navy Pier and Lake Michigan. As people in the group asked questions and talked about different chapters, it was a trip down memory lane for me, picturing the scenes from the book.
Which got me thinking...
Start a Book Club
We want to help support, create, facilitate, and participate in more book clubs.
The first group of people we're thinking about is anyone who wants to start a book club. Whether that's in-person or over Zoom. Maybe you've moved to a new location, or you had a book club dissolve, or you've been thinking, "I've always wanted to start a book club, I know the type of books I'd want to read, but not sure where to go from here."
If any of those things ring true, send us a note (chris@longoverduebooks.com)
Join a Book Club
Who we're thinking of here - If you want to join a book club, but don't love the idea of leading one or starting one yourself. We'd love to hear from you (chris@longoverduebooks.com). Types of books you're interested in. Preference for in-person or Zoom. Do you have a couple of other people joining with you or diving in solo?
Oh! Can't forget this. We're thinking about book-specific book clubs, too. For example, maybe there's one on East of Eden that we run a couple of times per year. It'd be like a book club/class (without grades and high-stakes term papers). But once done with the book, you can jump out. Wouldn't be an ongoing thing. Thoughts on first book to include?
Share Your Book Club
Going from "long overdue" book clubs to "long-running" book clubs, we'd love to hear from more book clubs who've been meeting for 1 year, 10 years, 20+ years.
A couple of ideas here. First, if you'd like to read Safe Landing or any of our Long Overdue Books in your book club, let us know. We offer discounts for multiple orders, and we can also arrange a meeting with the authors, which is a really cool experience. If your group is also interested in writing a book, we can arrange the call to be more of a, "Here's How I did it" with the author(s).
Photos to share? Milestone events? We'd love to include it on our Instagram/Facebook page. Or here in the newsletter.
And here's one more idea. With our sister site, Noteworthy, we can record one of your book club discussions like a podcast. Or help you write a review article as a group. Maybe you do it as a guest blog on our site. Or how cool would it be to make a book of your reviews, photos, and memories over the years? We can help with all of that via Noteworthy!
Ideas I haven't thought of here? Send 'em over! Excited to get this project in motion.
Oh Baby It's a Clear Lake: Hey, Would Ya Look at That
Check this out, a stack of signed copies of Oh Baby It's a Clear Lake by Vicki Toups Sheafer and Kristie Kaiser Frudden available for sale at Kowalski's Markets!
Also, remember during COVID how there might've been a wedding or a baby shower held virtually, then once things got back to normal, there was a "Round 2" in-person version? Or Disney bringing movies out of the vault for a re-release? Well, a similar thing happened last year with Oh Baby It's a Clear Lake. We rushed the book out there to be ready in time for an art fair and didn't get to do an official release. We're changing that. Mark your calendars, Wednesday, June 21st, 2023 is the first day of summer and what better way to kick things off than the summer-themed Oh Baby It's a Clear Lake.
And if you're reading this sentence before June 21st, hey, you're ahead of the curve. You can order your copy right here, right now.
"Yeah, I like the sound of a book club. Let's meet at Wrigley Field. And instead of books, let's make it a baseball gane. And instead of baseball, let's make it a game of fetch.
- Crash, Team Dog
Keeping up with Long Overdue
Best place to keep up with all things Long Overdue (including our authors' events like the one above) 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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