Long Overdue Newsletter: September 2020
Advice for Authors from Authors
"I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”
"Unless you write yourself, you can’t know how wonderful it is; I always used to bemoan the fact that I couldn’t draw, but now I’m overjoyed that at least I can write. And if I don’t have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. But I want to achieve more than that.”
- Anne Frank
New Authors - Welcome to the
Long Overdue Books Community!
David Todd Whittley is the lead Pastor at the Corinthian Temple Church of God in Christ over in the West Garfield neighborhood of Chicago. He's working on a project right now turning the sermons he's delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic into a short study book for his congregation, the local community, and whoever is looking for encouragement during this time.
The book-in-progress is called "Sound Words for Strange Times." You can read two sample chapters ("Anchored in Jesus" and "Hope in the Midst of Crisis") right here on Long Overdue Books.
We're excited to have Roz Morris join the site as both an author and an editor. You can read Roz' writings right here and if you're an author looking for editing help or coaching on your book-in-progress, you can reach out to Roz right here.
Write For Yourself
Every newsletter, we'd like to offer up a miniature creative writing class. These will be short lessons to help you grow as a writer and find more enjoyment in the craft.
This month's lesson: "Building Your Container." Goal is to show how a little bit of structure can be a surprisingly effective way to be more creative. Check out the lesson here.
Write For Your Family
Quick analogy: If you think of Long Overdue as a book, then one of the chapters within it is called "Family Stories." The story of the whole book is about empowering people to create meaningful stories. The focus of the Family Stories chapter is to help families record their parents or grandparents' stories and turn those into books (or audio libraries).
We recently announced an exciting new product/service for the holiday season. 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.
Write For Your Community
Writers shouldn't set the expectations too high when sharing their work, but we can't help it with this new blog post.
For any author confused by the publishing process, or frustrated by it, or some mix of the two, we think "Conquer the Slush Pile" will not only be helpful, it's also just an enjoyable read. You'll learn how traditional publishing works, what are literary agents, and what is a slush pile. You'll also be introduced to self-publishing alternative platforms, learning about Amazon KDP, Wattpad, and Long Overdue Books.
Keeping up with Long Overdue
"I don't know about all of you, but I gotta say, I think
September is underrated."
- Crash the Dog, Chief Marketing Officer
The best place to keep up with 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
Our website is Long Overdue Books. One-sentence summary, Long Overdue Books is the social network for creating books and recording stories.
For social media, we're on LinkedIn and our "Family Stories chapter" is on Facebook.
Our next newsletter will go out the week of October 26th, just in time for Halloween and right before National Novel Writing Month kicks off in November.
As always, we'd love to hear from you in between newsletters. You can reach us at - library@longoverduestories.com