The Radio Interview and the Mermaid

Well, I had my radio interview the other day. There was another author there by the name of J L Cash. Reverend Jim Wilson interviewed us. He is a very intelligent and interesting man.

Being on the radio is fun but also scary. During the whole interview I kept praying that God would not let me say anything silly. That is easy to do when the interviewer is asking you questions and you have to answer them off the top of your head. I think I did okay. I hope so.

It helped that there was another author there also. Jim Wilson would talk to me for a few minutes and then he would talk to Jim Cash. That would give me a moment to relax. It is amazing what being on the radio does for your ego. Suddenly you feel like maybe you are a success, whether you really are or not.

The way I met Jim Wilson was at a book signing. I belong to a writer’s forum. Once a year they have a big book signing in the center of the local mall. You can rent half of a table for half of or all of the day. People in the mall come by and look at the books, talk to you, and hopefully buy. You don’t have to be a member of the forum to rent a table. I rented half a table for the whole day.

As it turned out, the other half of the table had been rented for half a day by a lady who was not from the forum. She had a book that she had written about some little mermaids who had special powers. I read part of the book and thought it seemed like it had been written, and illustrated by a little child. She told me that she had not been able to sell a single book. I wasn’t surprised. She said she decided to give the book signing a try. I felt sorry for her because obviously she had wasted her money. I really liked the lady, but I couldn’t see anyone spending any money on her book.

We sat there and started getting to know each other a little bit. She was really sweet and soft spoken. After about five minutes a lady stopped at our table and looked at my book. She told me that when she came to the book signing she had told herself that she could buy two books and had decided that mine was going to be one of them. I was very flattered and excited.

About twenty minutes later a lady who already had one of my books showed up. She had her aunt with her. The aunt wanted to get one of my books also.  I happily sold her one also and was thrilled with how well the book signing was going. This was going to be a very good day.

Then the lady with the mermaid book told me that her son’s girlfriend had said that she would wear a mermaid costume and come down to help promote the mermaid book. A few minutes later she showed up. The top part of her costume consisted of two shells with a ribbon around the back. There wasn’t even a ribbon over her shoulders to hold up the shells, so she had to keep pulling them up. The bottom of the costume started about four inches below her belly button and went down to her ankles, where she was wearing very tall high heels.  As you can tell, there was very little left to the imagination. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

The gentleman who had rented half of the table on the other side of the mermaid author introduced himself to me and we became friends. He was Reverend Jim Wilson (the radio interviewer) and he had several of his books there. He has been selling his books for many years and is very successful at it.

As soon as the mermaid showed up you can imagine what happened. Every time a man or boy walked by, their jaw would hit the floor and they would stare at her the entire time as they passed the tables. Every time a woman walked by she would say, “Oh, how cute”, and stare also. Every time a child walked by they would start squealing, “Oh mommy, mommy. Look at the mermaid. Mommy take my picture with the mermaid.”  So, of course, the mommy would take out her phone and take a picture of her child with the mermaid. Then the child would again start squealing, “Oh mommy, look at the mermaid book. Mommy buy me the mermaid book.”  The mother, without even looking at the book to see if she liked it or not, would take out her check book and buy the mermaid book.

No other author on our entire side of the square of tables ever even got looked at or spoken to again, once the mermaid showed up.

I couldn’t wait for the day to be half over because the mermaid author would be leaving. Then maybe the rest of the authors and I could get to talk to the people again. Suddenly, to my dismay, the mermaid author told me that the person who had rented her half of the table for the afternoon hadn’t shown up so she was being allowed to stay for the rest of the day. My heart sank.

Jim Wilson and I did a lot of talking to each other because there were no people to talk to. In the early afternoon, he told me that someone at one of the tables had sold all of their books and had left. He said that he wasn’t even being seen where he was, so he was moving to where the other author had been. For the rest of the afternoon I kept looking over where he was and he was constantly selling two or three books at a time all the rest of the day. He sold tons of books. Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t another space that came available all day, so I had to stay where I was.

The mermaid author sold books all day long. I only sold the two books before the mermaid showed up. By the end of the day I was just laughing to myself about it. It was a case of either laughing or crying so I decided I had to see the humor in it. However, before the day was over, Jim Wilson had set up a radio interview with me. That was a little over a year ago. The interview last week was the second one, so I guess it all worked out for the best anyway.

What I learned at that book signing was how effective marketing can be. The mermaid book was not well done, but the marketing was. If you find something that grabs people’s attention, like a scantily clad mermaid, it is amazing what you can accomplish. Since my book is about a little angel in heaven, I don’t think I will be marketing it with a scantily clad angel. I guess I will have to think of something else.

If you would like to find out more about my book, feel free to email me at jbates@littlechrisamee.com. I will be happy to send you some information about the book and show you examples of the illustrations.

God bless you.

Falling Into Place

Hello my friends. I have to apologize for not writing last week. I have so much going on right now and it is very hard to sit down and write.

The other day I was worried about what I was going to write. I was feeling like I didn’t have anything to say that anyone would want to read. Then a friend called and wanted to read a daily devotion. Guess what! It was about how Christian writers are only writing for one, and that one is Jesus Christ. Wow, was that a word for me or what?

Then I sent an email to the publisher of my book, Lisa, to ask her a question. She is about 2000 miles away and I hadn’t spoken to her in months. She called me back a little later and told me that when the email came in she was talking to someone at her business about me and my book. Another coincidence? She also asked me to send her the first chapter of my new book so she could give it to the editor. That way, if the editor thought I needed to make changes she could let me know before I finished the manuscript. The editor was happy with it. I am really excited.

There is a pastor here in my town named Jim Wilson. He is the founder of a Christian organization called Pray North State. He also has a radio show. A little over a year ago he interviewed me on his show. That was very fun. Well, guess what. He called me the other day and asked me to do another interview for his show. We are going to record the interview tomorrow and it will probably air in a few weeks. I am really looking forward to doing this.

As you can tell, a lot of things have been falling into place for me lately.

It is nice when life is easy like it is right now. However, as you all know, the easy things in life are not what grow you character. If we never had problems or difficulties we would not be able to relate to others when life isn’t easy for them. We would become self-centered and uninteresting. God, in His infinite wisdom, knows this and lets us go through some very tough things sometimes. That is when we have to rely on Him. He also knows that if tough times were all we had, we would collapse under the weight of life. So, here we are. A little bit of easy and a little bit of hard. Even though the easy times are more fun, I thank God for it all.  It is necessary for spiritual maturity.

As I am writing this new book, which is about the fall of Lucifer, I am drawing on the difficult emotional times in my life to help me try to show how much the fall hurt the heart of God. I can never feel the sadness He felt, nor can I put it down adequately on paper, but my own hurts and heartaches help me to try to express it.

I guess this is another reason to allow us to have pain in our lives. It helps us to understand the pain that our sin has caused Him, and to realize how much pain He had to go through to redeem us from sin.

We will never be able to fully comprehend it, but I want to say thank you God for all you did for us. Please help me to never forget it.

The Slump

Boy have I been a slump. I believe it has been a combination of things.

 

For one thing, we went on a two and a half week cruise where we were waited on hand and foot all day long. Ever since we got home I have been sitting down at the dinner table and waiting for the food to magically appear on a plate in front of us. After a while I realize it probably isn’t going to happen, so I get up and cook us some dinner. Just kidding. That is, however, what happened while we were on the ship. The beds were made, the bathroom cleaned, the meals cooked and the dishes washed while we just had fun.

 

Even though we knew this wonderful treatment was only going to happen while we were on the cruise, we did get used to it and we got pretty spoiled. My husband is still telling everyone that this was one of the best times in his life. He is an extremely hard working man and has never before been spoiled to this degree. I have to start spoiling him more.

 

I also got spoiled on the trip. I think everyone needs to be spoiled at times. On the other hand, it does make it hard to get back into the groove of life. Before I left on the trip I wrote several articles for my blog and scheduled them to post each week. While I was having fun riding around the countryside on busses, playing trivia, learning to water paint, or watching some wonderful show each night, my postings were appearing on my blog all by themselves. Now I have to think of what to write, type it up and get it posted. That is a lot more work. Don’t take me wrong, I love doing this. It does take effort and discipline though.

 

Then there is my book. The first one was easy to write. Creation is a very exciting thing to write about. The second one, however, is not so easy. I am telling the story of the fall of Lucifer and the fall of Adam and Eve. That is a very sad story to tell. When you are writing for children you can’t have too much sadness. The children will lose interest.

 

For quite a while I couldn’t figure out how I was going to do it. Then one day I felt like God inspired me to include the story of the nativity in the book. That is a very happy story. Now the book won’t be all sadness.

 

In the mean time I had gotten into a slump with my writing. A slump is different than writer’s block. With writer’s block you want to write but the words won’t come. When you are in a slump you just can’t get into the mood to write. That was the problem I was having.

 

I mentioned the last time I posted that I met a wonderful young man from Serbia named Igor while we were on the cruise ship. He was our waiter. As we got to know Igor I got to thinking about how the people in Serbia probably don’t have as much opportunity to hear about God as we do in the United States. God laid Igor on my heart to make sure he knows about God. That is when I decided to give him the book that I had with me. I also got his email address so I can tell him this story of salvation. He was very excited about getting the copy of my book. When I gave my book to Igor I told him that I would send him a copy of the next book when I get it published. He was thrilled at the idea of getting the next book also. He said, “Oh yes, please send me the next book. I would love to have it too.”

 

In case you aren’t familiar with my book, it is about a little angel named Chrisamee who watches through a window in the side of heaven as creation happens. At the end of every day she jumps out of the window, runs to the throne room and tells Father God what she saw. She has questions about it and God answers all of her questions. The idea of the book is to tell children the story of creation and to answer the questions about it that they might have. While sitting here in my home I thought about Igor wanting to receive the second book, and about how I want to tell him about God. That is what made me realize that I had to start writing again. Yesterday morning I sat down at the computer and started working on the book. Once I started, the enthusiasm about writing came back. Even though this is a more difficult book to write, I am having fun again.

 

I think the slump is over. It feels great.

 

 If anyone is interested in finding out more about my book or purchasing it you can contact me at jbates@littlechrisamee.com.