How? Howwwwww is it possible that You Have Four Minutes was released exactly one year ago today?
After steadily working on it for five years, I felt like a mom who had been gestating for, well, five years. I was like, “Get this thing out into the universe already.”
Or, more dramatically: “Release the Kraken!”
Last year, outta the gate, chef Jasper Mirabile threw me one helluva book release party. There was fanfare. There were meatballs galore. There was also an exponential amount of his famous coconut cake. And there was a line that wrapped from the back of the building, through his restaurant, and up to the bar.
I certainly didn’t anticipate that response. Clearly, neither did Jasper. At one point, he sat down next to me with that look only Sicilians can give. It was one of pride and rage as he smiled through gritted teeth and said, “The line is almost out the front door, Mackie! SIGN! FASTER!”
To which I immediately responded: “YES, CHEF.”
To wit, I have a few things about putting a book (or audiobook) into the ether that everyone needs to know. Here’s a bit of friendly advice:
1. Read your publisher’s contract.
Read it again. Read it a third time. Then have a lawyer read it. Know what you’re in for long before the process starts in earnest.
2. Get ready to shill your book to anyone who will listen.
There’s no such thing as bad promotion. I was on podcasts I’d never even heard of. I gabbed about interviewing celebrities on a shock-jock sports radio station in Omaha, for Chrissake. Hell, last month I was the featured guest on The Crisis Files, a well-known podcast about navigating crisis management. (What that has to do with me is moot apparently. I’m clearly that great of a guest.)
Thus, host Roshini Rajkumar and I dished about what happens when interviews go sideways. Happens.
3. This next bit of insight is divisive.
I’m not a fan of freebie books, especially when they come with the promise of “exposure.” Honey, exposure ain’t gonna pay my publishing fees.
If my publisher wants to dole out discounted books or give some to charity, that’s cool. But if, say, a book club wants to use my books and promises they’ll promote it, that’s a hard nope.
You’ll buy ’em — at full price — like everyone else. Maybe more. Probably more.
Funny how that works.
4. Get an editor you jive with.
Case in point: my editor, Maria Martin, was the features editor at The Kansas City Star for approximately one hundred years. She’s seen her fair share of overwritten garbage, unimpressive prose, and sentences so clichéd, she’d rather set the paper on fire than let it actually go to print.
I thought I was a good writer.
Maria confirmed I was an okay-ish writer who was pretty clever.
Through lots of teen angst and hand-wringing, she singlehandedly made my book 250 percent better. And went through a half-dozen red markers in the process.
We caught exactly one error in the book after it was published.
Curious thing is … we both spotted it after the fact. Ten minutes apart.
5. Wait, let’s revisit #3, shall we?
The only free books I’ve given away are to celebrities. Especially if a photo op is somehow involved.
Jeff Hiller. Nancy Wilson. Darius Rucker. The list is lengthy.
If I can somehow get a picture with said celeb, I’ll do it.
I’m shameless that way. (PS. The B52s’ founding member Cindy Wilson got mutliple free copies. She wrote the book’s heartfelt foreword, for which I am eternally grateful.)
And now, as of today, the audiobook is out for your listening pleasure.
It took FOREVER to finish.
How authors read their entire book over two 16-hour days is beyond me. I would go in once a week for an hour or so and attempt to read four or five chapters.
It was exhausting. Just thinking about it is exhausting.
Shout-out to Real Media and my producer, Karlie Farmer, who kept me sane. She also had me repeat Lena Headey’s name approximately 45 times because I apparently could not wrap my brain around her very weird pronunciation.
Also, when I announced that my audiobook is coming out, folks inevitably say one of two things:
1. “Did you read it? I hope it’s in your voice.”
Or:
2. “Did someone else read it? I hope it’s not your voice.”
Now, I ask you: why would someone else read my book?!
Granted, I did download Britney Spears’ trashy memoir, which was inexplicably written — and somehow classed up — by Oscar-winner Michelle Williams narrating it. (I don’t think I could have managed BritBrit’s Louisiana drawl for seven hours.)
So, if you’re a fan of me — and who isn’t, really? — feel free to download your copy of You Have Four Minutes: My Life as an Unlikely Celebrity Interviewer. (Or feel free to snap up the original paperback copy, published by Ascend Books.)
It’s light-hearted fare that’s perfect for a mindless road trip through, say, Nebraska.
Let’s face it — September 9 was incredibly good to me last year. Let’s keep the dream alive one year later.
My audiobook is now available now on Amazon and Audible. (And soon on Apple, kids!)
Go ahead.
You have four minutes. Starting now.