Long Overdue Newsletter: October 2020
Easter egg - Can you spot the subtle pun hidden in our illustration? Look very very closely then scroll down to the bottom to check your answer.
Advice for Authors from Authors
“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them,
and pretty soon you have a dozen.”
- John Steinbeck
New Artists and Designers - Welcome to the
Long Overdue Books Community!
We created a new section on the Long Overdue Books website called "Building Your Book." The idea was to add talented readers, editors, artists, and book/cover designers who authors could then connect with for help on their books-in-progress.
We're excited to see this group continue to grow and include artists from all around the world. Today's featured artists span from British Columbia to Chicago to London.
Toni also contributed a helpful, down-to-earth blog post titled, "Should I use Microsoft Word to format my book?" Highly recommend this post for any authors rounding the corner going from final draft to the publishing stage. You can visit Toni's site Sanserofin right here.
We hesitate to say anything is "cool" about 2020 but hopping on a Zoom call and talking about a book project from here in Chicago over to London, now that's pretty awesome. We're excited to work with Victoria on future projects and you can see more of her work on Design by VIKA.
Annie's currently helping on a children's board book which we'll share all about in our November newsletter. There's also an incredible local Chicago story that we might be collaborating on before year's end. You can see Annie's work both as an artist and writer over here on her website.
Write For Yourself
Writing Dialogue Without Dialogue
We'll take a look at the final scene of Where the Wild Things Are and study how Spike Jonze uses small details to write a powerful interaction between a mother and son that doesn't have any words. This is part of our monthly Creative Writing 101 mini-lessons.
Write For Your Family
We created a division of Long Overdue called "Family Stories." The focus of this group is to help families record their parents or grandparents' stories and turn these into both audio and written chapters. The goal, normally, isn't to publish for a wide release, but just to have copies for friends and family.
We recently announced our new Family Stories Box for the holidays. You can read the announcement here or find a quick summary of the "Family Stories Box" over here. If you'd like to set this up for a loved one, you can email us directly too.
Next month we'll share more about this ongoing project, introducing the team working hard to pull this together both in Holland, Michigan and right here in Chicago.
Write For Your Community
Please, Take These Story Ideas: Volume 1
Normally we focus on helping authors go from an idea (or a rough draft) to a completed final book. But what about helping with the idea itself?
Especially with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) kicking off in November, we thought we'd throw out some book and movie ideas that are 100% free for the taking. Ideas in this ebook range from a former president who starts doing stand-up comedy to a live-action Mario Kart movie. You can download the ebook by clicking on the cover above.
Huge thank you to Hope College student Annie Cerovich for the great design work!
Conquer the Slush Pile
We ran this as a blog post in last month's newsletter but, again, with the help of a Hope College student's awesome design work, we're proud to present "Conquer the Slush Pile" as a brand new ebook. This is for any author who's trying to determine whether traditional publishing or self-publishing is the right path for their book. You can download by clicking above on the cover.
Thank you to Rachel Elder for putting this together!
*Easter Egg hidden in the newsletter cover illustration - The pun was the "bare" foot / "bear" foot. Insert groan/chuckle, the sign of a great pun
Keeping up with Long Overdue
"Please, take these ideas? How 'bout this idea - What if instead of writing, you took me back outside to the leaf pile?"
- Crash the Dog, Chief Marketing Officer
The biggest development on the social media front is our rebooted Instagram page. Until a few weeks ago, it was collecting dust. Nothing happening at all. But ever since Annie Cerovich has taken the wheel, we've had an engaging series of posts about writing, reading, Holland (Michigan), Family Stories, and more. Here are some of the latest and greatest:
The best place to keep up with all things Long Overdue is via our monthly newsletter. If you're seeing this for the first time, you can subscribe to the newsletter here and also catch up on earlier editions. Our one guarantee: We'll always put a Norman Rockwell level effort into the cover design and occasionally sneak in a quality pun.
Our website is Long Overdue Books. The one-sentence summary, Long Overdue Books is the social network for creating books and recording stories.
Besides Instagram, we're also on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Our next newsletter will be a fast turnaround going out on Tuesday, November 17th.
As always, we'd love to hear from you in between newsletters. You can reach Cal the Librarian at - library@longoverduestories.com
