This is not a blog about Led Zeppelin. I have shamelessly used this title and image to get your attention. I am sort of sorry, but not really.

This blog however does concern the song title, “Good Times, Bad Times.”

At a book publishing seminar I attended a while back the speaker warned that marketing books was much more difficult than writing books. I didn’t believe her, or more accurately I couldn’t allow myself to believe her. At the time I was slinging rubbish into my manuscript and worse, knew my style was bad.

A couple of years later here we are–River of January is complete and I am finding that wise facilitator’s words haunting me. I think we are doing everything right, talking about the work whenever and wherever I can find a platform. Book stores, libraries, service clubs, book clubs, pushing the story on friends–you get the picture, Those who have read River, for the most part, ooze with enthusiasm and push me to complete part 2, The Figure Eight. And I am trying to get back into that writing zone, communing with Helen and Chum, by studying their mementos, listening to Chum’s taped interviews, and brushing up on the historic background of their lives. But there is this big problem in my attitude toward the second manuscript . . . plunging into the marketing angle again, when I have only sold around two hundred books with the first one.

My husband is a good cheerleader, claiming that everything with the book is good, and that we will meet our goals. We will sell books, and the public will respond in a positive manner. I think he might be right, the whole package is gorgeous: cover, interior design, pictures, font, paper color and yes, even the style and especially the story.

So Good Times must certainly follow this funk in the process of publication, and leave behind the episodes of Bad Times.

So once again consider River of January. It’s a pretty good read, even if I say so myself.