Category: writing

two months of Hearts

Almost two months ago, my first chapbook, Hearts, was published by Kelsay Books. It is available from Kelsay, from Amazon, from me personally (if you are local), or by asking your local bookstore to order it through Ingram.

I posted about the first month, so thought I’d do an update.

I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t yet gotten my bookmarks and business cards printed or made any dates for readings/signings. Soon, I hope…

I have made some new inroads in publicity, thanks to Alignable, where I am listed as Top of JC’s Mind. I was invited to join a couple of groups there, Marketing for the Small Business and Networking for Introverts! (The exclamation point is part of the group name.) As a creative, I admit to being a bit of an odd duck in the groups, but I was lucky to meet Traci Poe of Communicate Great. She graciously offered to video chat with me and sent me a number of suggestions that I am implementing, such as using Instagram as a platform, linking it to my Top of JC’s Mind Facebook page. So, if you are on Instagram, you can now find me there as joannecoreypoet. I don’t know how helpful this will be in terms of promotion, as I don’t have a large following on either platform, but I’m trying. You may also notice that my TJCM post now have a featured image, which makes them directly shareable to Instagram, although Instagram posts use square images and some of mine are rectangular, so they get lopped off. Work in progress…

I’ve also learned to use Canva to create FB/IG posts and Meta Business Suite to schedule them. My skills are rudimentary, but I have managed to schedule out a series of posts featuring quotes from Hearts poems. Traci suggested I choose a color palette as a branding tool, but, so far, I am sticking with a clear, straightforward template with black Garamond type on a light gray background. I guess black and gray are colors. Right?

I have also tried to reach out to several places about reviews but haven’t heard back from any of them after several weeks. Not quite sure what to do about that…

Hearts is available at the Artisan Gallery, the shop of the Broome County Arts Council, and at Riverow Bookshop. I have an inquiry in at another local-ish bookstore, but I haven’t heard back yet. Are you noticing a theme?

Admittedly, my introversion is not helpful in this whole marketing piece that I’m trying to learn. All the outreach efforts are draining and anxiety-producing. None of this is helped by the fact that all my other volunteer commitments have either ramped up or hit unexpected snags lately, so I’m feeling overwhelmed. Not that that isn’t a familiar feeling for me…

It’s apparently a day for ellipses…

And questions?

That might be a bad sign…

Okay. Deep breath.

I can do this.

Maybe not as well as I would like.

Or as expeditiously.

And maybe it won’t matter in the long run if some of it never gets done.

I am trying – and learning as I go along.

And taking you all along with me here at Top of JC’s Mind.

poetry scam

It wouldn’t have occurred to me as a possibility until it actually happened, but the publication of my first chapbook Hearts led to a very strange phone call last week.

One evening, the phone rang from a toll-free number that came up without a name attached, asking for me. They started out congratulating me on my recent publication and wanted to know what I was doing for publicity. Most of my efforts have been local, so they started pitching things like national interviews with millions of listeners. I was laughing because the concept seemed totally out of the realm of what one does with a poetry chapbook. They did eventually get around to the cost, $1,000 to $3,000, depending on chosen options, which, of course, was a discount off their regular pricing.

It all sounded very fishy and I would never have said yes, but, while I was explaining why it was unaffordable, given that it would take many hundreds of copies sold to even get back the money paid, they told me they were also a hybrid publisher and that they could publish my book, too, so that I would make more money. I told them in no uncertain terms that I had a five-year contract with Kelsay Books with automatic annual extensions beyond that and that I would never break my legal contract with them.

So, the call ended with me still shaking my head at the absurdity of the whole thing.

The next day, I searched the toll-free number and found that it belonged to a company called Author Reputation Press. Although their mailing address is in Canton, Massachusetts, another site listed their service area as Singapore and nearby areas, which explained the accents of the people who called me. Just a word to the wise, in case any of my writer-friends get publicity or publication calls from them.

Yesterday, though, I did run across a reputable hybrid press, Atmosphere Press. A poet-friend of mine has published with them. In their publishing model, if they accept your book, the author pays the up-front cost of the editorial/design team and publication but then keeps a high percentage of the royalties. It’s not something I want to try now, but I might consider it for my full-length manuscript if I don’t find a home for it over the next couple of years.

Meanwhile, there are more manuscript submissions in my future.

And publicity efforts for Hearts.

At least, I won’t be paying thousands of dollars in a scam, although all the submission fees and such do add up after a while.

More decisions coming soon.

Fingers crossed.

losing our first parent

Today is the eighteenth anniversary of my father-in-law’s death. He was the first of B’s and my parents to pass away. I wasn’t blogging or writing poetry then; it took years for me to process enough to write about his death. This poem was first published by Eunoia Review here in 2016. As it happened, he was the only one of our four parents that we were able to be with at the moment of death.

The Last Night
~ ~ ~ by Joanne Corey

Hospice told my husband what to expect
as his father’s death approached,
skin mottled,
eyes open but unseeing.

Crush the morphine,
mix with water,
spoon into his gaping mouth
every two hours.

The death rattle started,
unmistakable,
though we had never
heard it before.

We did what we could,
smoothing his hair,
holding his hand,
another dose of morphine.

I prayed the rosary silently,
lacking beads,
counting the decades
with my fingers.

When he quieted,
breath slow, gentle,
we woke his wife
of fifty-one years.

She lay beside him that last hour.

Breaths shallower,
with pauses between,
longer –
longer still –
until, near dawn,
no next breath comes.

We switch off
the oxygen concentrator.
Silence heralds
his absence.

A month of Hearts

Just about a month ago, Kelsay Books published my first chapbook, Hearts, available from Kelsay, from Amazon, from me personally (if you are local), or by asking your local bookstore to order it through Ingram.

The experience has been exciting, gratifying, emotional, and exhausting by turns. There have been new things to learn, like keeping a spreadsheet to track sales tax and profit and signing contracts to place books on consignment. I’ve been trying to get the hang of doing publicity, which is a different universe from writing poetry. Sending notices to my poet-friends and non-poet-friends was relatively straightforward, although I admit it feels strange to ask people to spend money to read my work. I’d never been paid for my writing beyond gratitude and the occasional in-print copy of a publication but I am finding it easier to say writing is a profession for me now, even though the total amount of money I earn from it will be small.

Besides the discomfort of self-promotion, which works against my introverted nature, there is the sobering personal aspect of asking people to read poems about my mother’s final years. I’m grateful to know that the poems touch people’s hearts. I’ve had people tell me that our story reminds them of their own experiences with aging loved ones, that the poems made them cry. My heart goes out to them and it is humbling to think that my words might be a help to them as they continue to deal with their loss.

It’s also gratifying to know that I fulfilled one of my goals with this book. I am seldom overt about my own feelings in my work, preferring to “show rather than tell.” I try to leave space in my poems for people to bring their own reactions and emotions to the work and I seem to have succeeded, at least among those who have communicated with me. Three people have even written Amazon reviews, although it seems a bit surreal that I have an Amazon listing at all.

One thing that has happened since the book came out that I wasn’t expecting is the technical publishing questions that I’m asked. Most of these are a version of “how do you get a book published?” which I don’t feel well-equipped to answer. Generally, the person is asking because a family member writes as a hobby and they want to know how to get a book in print, but publishing poetry is different from fiction or memoir or non-fiction, which often involve having an agent, and self-publishing bypasses all the querying and rejection but means you need to know or hire expertise and have financial resources up front. People have also asked me how many copies I’ve sold but I have no idea. I could count up how many I’ve sold, but I have no idea how many have ordered from Kelsay and Amazon. I do occasionally look at the stat for the Poetry by Women category on my Amazon page; at the moment it’s #720, but I have no idea how that translates into number of copies. I probably won’t know until early next year when I get my first annual royalties payment from Kelsay.

I’m feeling as though I’m through most of my initial promotion list but I have more to do. A friend has offered to help me line up a couple of readings or signings locally. I need to find a printer to do business cards and bookmarks to have at events. There is a list of reviewers and awards to look through, although that seems a bit rarefied for me.

And more promotion.

No doubt, more blog posts here at Top of JC’s Mind.

I’m also trying to do more submissions for my new chapbook, full-length collection, and individual poems. Hearts proved that it can take a few dozen attempts to get an acceptance.

Having a book in print does, though, make it seem more possible that another acceptance will come my way.

And, if not, there will always be Hearts…

One-Liner Wednesday: postage

Yesterday, I mailed a copy of my chapbook, Hearts, to the Poetry Center at Smith College, my alma mater, for their collection of books by alumnae poets, using an assortment of old stamps I had on hand.

Please join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/06/07/one-liner-wednesday-how-smoky-is-it/

Review requests

Today’s adventure in book promotion for my new poetry chapbook, Hearts, available from Kelsay Books or Amazon, is to send queries for possible book reviews. As a poetry chapbook, it will probably not be chosen for an actual review, but I’m hoping to make a listing or two of Newly Received Books, which will broaden my reach beyond my personal contacts.

Speaking of reviews, I have my first customer review up at Amazon! Five stars! If you do read Hearts and are so moved, I’d be honored to have you submit your own rating/review.

One-Liner Wednesday: Hearts!

My first poetry chapbook Hearts is now available from Kelsay Books and Amazon!

This joyous announcement is brought to you through Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/05/31/one-liner-wednesday-sorry-3/

Hearts is available!

I’m excited to announce that my first chapbook, Hearts, is now available from my publisher, Kelsay Books, here or from Amazon here.

For local folks, I will also be selling copies myself after my shipment arrives in 2-3 weeks.

For those who might be wondering, a chapbook is a short book, usually centered on a single topic. Hearts is a chapbook of poems that revolve around my mother, including her last years living with heart disease. Long-time readers of Top of JC’s Mind may remember reading posts about my mother, known here as Nana.

I completed the first draft of Hearts in December, 2017, in response to a chapbook contest prompt from QuillsEdge Press. The prompt was “In Transition” and my mother interpretation of that prompt to write about my mother, who was under hospice care. (We didn’t know at the time that her decline would be more prolonged than expected, as she was with us until May, 2019.) Although I didn’t win the contest, I was among the finalists and my poem, “Sixteen Hours,” was included in an anthology of the finalists’ work along with the winning chapbook, Skin Gin, by Rose Maria Woodson.

Given how busy and emotional those next two years were, I didn’t have the wherewithal to send out a new version of the chapbook until spring of 2020. I had continued to write poems during Nana’s continuing struggles and expanded the manuscript with those poems in the months after her death. I benefited from a manuscript review with some of the Grapevine Poets, local poets who meet every other week to workshop individual poems and as needed for manuscript reviews. They were able to offer guidance on ordering the poems and they identified a couple of places where new poems would be helpful to flesh out my mother’s story.

I continued to send Hearts to publishers and contests over the next two years. During that time, I did more revisions, incorporating comments from poet-friends as I went along. In August of 2022, encouraged by Grapevine Poets Jessica Dubey and Burt Myers who had had books accepted by Kelsay Books, I submitted there and received a publication offer from them on September 2nd.

Karen Kelsay and the whole team at Kelsay Books have been amazing! They made the publication process, which was a mystery to me, straightforward. They also were able to move up the publication date, which I had originally thought would be in late summer/early fall.

When I went to the first Tupelo Press/MASS MoCA workshop-in-residence in November of 2015, I had thought that I might be able to put together a chapbook of poem about the North Adams area and my family’s connections there. I set a goal of age 60 to have that book published.

Of course, life events intervened.

That original chapbook idea is now a full-length collection that is being submitted to publishers, unsuccessfully so far.

Now, at age 62, I’m grateful that Hearts is my first published book because it is about my mother, who made my life possible and loving. She was always a strong support for me, whatever the endeavor. It feels right that my first book has her as its heart.

SoCS: imposter syndrome

So, here goes one of those dangerous Stream of Consciousness Saturday endeavors…

When I read Linda’s prompt yesterday, which is to use sink/sank/sunk in some way, I did not really have a thought in my head about it and assumed I would not participate this week.

This morning, I was reading this article in Highly Sensitive Refuge on imposter syndrome among the highly sensitive population and it really resonated. Not that every point feels true to my experience, but most do.

I have a tendency to sink into imposter syndrome from time to time. Maybe frequently? Maybe less now than in my younger years? It’s really hard to say.

The point is, with my book Hearts soon to be available from Kelsay Books, I have been consciously trying to fight off the feeling that I’m “just” a community poet who doesn’t really deserve to be considered just, well, a poet in her own right.

Part of the issue is that I was brought up with a deep respect for academic achievement. I truly respect all the years of study that go into degree programs in English or writing. Most of the poets I know and the vast majority of poets I read have these credentials and are much more able to bring that knowledge base into their work than I could ever hope to be. I am grateful for all that I’ve learned from the Binghamton Poetry Project and all the other workshops that I’ve been blessed to be a part of, but, for example, our leaders in Binghamton Poetry Project are all graduate students from Binghamton University, so you get the point…

It’s also not that I don’t get loads of support from other poets, both those with academic credentials and those, like me, without them. The vast majority of poets I interact with are encouraging and wonderful in their support of my work and of me personally. I truly appreciate that and use their voices when I’m in an imposter state of doubt, but one of the things about being an HSP is that you notice and take seriously all reactions around you. When I get into my imposter mode, those negative voices are amplified in my head and feed into my own doubts. Even though the voices that are supportive are more numerous, it takes a huge effort of will to beat back the negative.

I am having some success in breaking away from the imposter thoughts as I do my final preparations for my book launch. Instead of sinking into doubts, I’m reminding myself of what I am actually accomplishing. It’s been a bit easier to do after the very successful reading that Merrill and I did earlier this month. It’s easier when I hold the proof copy of Hearts in my hands. It’s easier when I’m dealing with the wonderful team at Kelsay by email as they finish the final steps in the publication process. I’ve learned so much going through all of this and I’m trying to bring that sense to the next new thing I’ll be doing, which is trying to market and sell my book.

Yikes! That is scary!

You need to be able to center yourself and put yourself out there as being a worthy recipient of someone’s money.

Yikes!

Yeah.

Imposter syndrome.

One-Liner Wednesday: final approval!


I just sent final approval to Kelsay Books for my chapbook Hearts, so watch for a release date soon!

This shameless self-promotion is brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/05/24/one-liner-wednesday-one-heck-of-a-discount/. Interestingly, Linda’s entry today is also about selling books.