Why This is Taking So Long: The Process

I'm learning more about the process of self-publishing than I had ever expected,or wanted, to know. Unfortunately, the individual steps toward accomplishing this take at least as long as the editing, but are less satisfying.

As I mentioned, "Creating a Blog" was one of the first activities strongly recommend by the Self-Publishing Conference I attended last summer. Creating it wasn't hard; maintaining it - - that takes time. And I still need to work on promoting the blog, which includes Search Engine Optimization activities, though I don't intend to become an expert at that! There's a free service I subscribe to that sends me a weekly report on how many people have viewed my blog in the past week, how many are new vs. continuing readers, etc., but I can't get the count at the bottom of each 'page' of my blog to agree with theirs, and can't afford to spend the time figuring that out. At the moment, it's only off by a little more than 100 (that is, there have been 100 more views than what my counter shows).

But as I am now approaching the end of the first round of editing (which includes making certain that the tenses are consistent between chapters; translating or defining unfamiliar words in Yiddish, Russian, Polish and Hebrew; cutting out asides that don't further the action or contribute to our understanding of the characters, time or place; and substituting more familiar or recognizable words for obscure ones), I am starting to focus on some of the technical aspects of creating this book. I will periodically discuss individual elements of this process in individual blogs (so that I can spend more time working on the book and less time blogging about it).

Some of the elements are:
1) Identifying "thought leaders" and soliciting quotes from them for the back jacket of the book
2) Recruiting and selecting a book jacket designer who will provide 3 "test" covers, each using one of 3 "test" titles, to see which is most effective in drawing people, visually. (Once I have the test covers, I will post them on my blog and solicit votes/reactions to help me make a decision).
3) Determine the physical size of the book. It must be consistent with its competition in the narrative non-fiction category so that it doesn't stand out (in a negative way) on a bookstore shelf.
4) Determine how it will be printed/distributed: Should I identify a small press that can do the job to my specifications, such as Lulu.com? Or go the print-on-demand (POD) route using an Amazon service called CreateSpace? Perhaps I should contact a University press.
5) Develop a marketing plan: There's pre-publication marketing and post-publication marketing. Pre-publication marketing includes getting involved in user forums discussing the same or similar subjects; identifying organizations whose members would be interested in the content of the blog (and eventually the book), participating in book review forums and contributing reviews of others books in the hopes that, when this book is finished that the individual sites to which I contribute will return the favor.
On the post-publication (or really 'peri'-publication) side: Do I hire a book shepherd (more on this role later)? A publicist? (While I can write and send out press releases, it never looks good to have the subject of the press release be the contact person, too). Is it timely relative to something that's going on either in the publishing industry or the world? What's my platform - - What's unique about the book and why am I uniquely qualified to represent it? This has to do with obtaining speaking engagements and publicity (which is necessary only if I want to sell the book).
6) Try to sell the movie rights. (This has never been a goal, though readers of selections of the book have suggested it. I'll think about this once I've completed everything else).


Many of these categories are circular, and someone with a more linear mind that mine could probably draw out a flow chart, but in order to determine the physical size of the book, I need to both look at the competition as well as have a final word count, which I won't have until I finish editing. If the competition, for example, is "Angela's Ashes," (which is a memoir rather than narrative non-fiction), then I need to consider that that was a 364-page book when it came out in hardcover, and a 500-page book of the same physical dimensions might appear too daunting to readers, no matter how enjoyable it is to read. And in order to determine whom or what to use as a publisher (the conference I attended recommended setting ones self up as a publisher and subcontracting out the individuals services ), I will need to know the size of the book, how I plan to distribute it, how I plan to market it, and how many copies to print. While the process appears to have a logical sequence to follow, unless I start on some downstream activities early, I will finish the book and then have to wait 6-9 months or more before I complete the other relevant tasks. All of which can, sometimes, give me a headache.

In Case You Ever Wondered How an Arranged Marriage Worked...

The Reluctant Wedding

While I was growing up my father was as prosperous as a righteous man in this world—that is to say, he had about as much money as a Jew has pigs. That was not how he began life, for my father's father was the richest man in his town, being the only Jew permit¬ted to supply the local Russian fortress with scrap metal, which he transported up the Vistula in his own fleet of barges.

Consequently, Shloime Zalman, my father, was raised in such princely comfort that, when he had to go to cheder, d short distance away, he was driven in a coach drawn by two horses. But since man, as we know, is incomplete until male and female are j oined together, this made it only natural that at fourteen my father should one day without warning find himself betrothed to Rachel, daughter of Reb Shmuel Schlossberg, a ship's chandler and lumberman in nearby Novydvar, who herself had just attained the ripe age of thirteen.

The arrangements were of course made directly between the parents. After all, what did children know about a serious business like married life? The decision, in fact, was to hold the wedding that same year, before the two principals aged any further and possibly got ideas of their own.

Never, of course, did it enter my dear grandparents' heads that the way they raised their son might have left him insufficiently prepared to cope with future hardships, not to mention early marriage.

Fortunately, Reb Shmuel had committed himself not only to a generous dowry, but also to provide food and shelter for husband and wife "in perpetuity." So, as you can see, there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Ten days before the appointed time for the wedding, the bride's entourage came gliding down the Vistula on their own ship, entertained by a Russian orchestra of (it was said) no less than sixty-four pieces, and a conductor from Vienna. They were met at the dock by the groom's family and, led by the band like an arriving circus or a military parade, the procession made its way to the marketplace. The shock waves from all this commotion not only jolted our own sleepy community, but shook up all the neigh¬boring towns as well.

In accordance with tradition, the wedding was accompanied by a seven-day feast for the poor. At every meal sacks full of coins were distributed, not only by the groom's father, but separately by his mother as well, who like Abraham's wife, was known as "Our Mother Sarah," for she gave not only with a full hand, but also with a full heart.

Like my father, Rachel, the bride, also had known nothing whatever about these plans for her future, until people had sud¬denly descended upon her and fitted her for new clothes. What excitement, to be dressed so much better than all her girl friends! Once she learned, however, that she was to be married, she be¬came intensely curious to know who her groom would be. But, being a properly modest girl, she was ashamed to ask. And since she didn't ask, nobody bothered to tell her. Why tell a child about such thing. Once under the chupah, she'd have time enough to find out.

But now, as the time came to lead the bride under the canopy, she suddenly balked. (Now, if such a thing happened in our day, it would be easy enough to imagine some cause. Perhaps the groom, after having sworn eternal love to her, had been found kissing another girl in some dark corner. Or, having brought his betrothed home from the theater, had been seen at an ice cream parlor with another, or things of that sort. But in those days, of course such occurrences were completely unheard of. And besides, the bride and groom didn't even know each other. So how did she know she wouldn't like him?) After great difficulty, they discovered what was the matter. Rachel wasn't in the mood to go out into the street because it was drizzling outside, and she was afraid of getting spots on her beautiful new silk dress.

The way my father's father told it, he had trouble with his candidate, too. Shloime Zalman absolutely did not want to be married that day. He, too, wanted to know why they couldn't wait a few days until the weather cleared up. They finally had to shout at him that this whole affair wasn't any of his business, he had nothing to say about it, that he was still a little snotnose of a boy, and when his elders told him to go, his job was not to argue but to go.

After a good deal of aggravation in both houses, the ceremony finally did take place as scheduled, and for seven days things were doing, as they say, "on tables and benches." Afterwards, the carpet of white linen on which the bride and groom walked from their homes to the synagogue was given to the poor, who used it to make shirts for themselves. This signified that the festivities were over.

My mother's parents now prepared to return home on their private ship, taking with them the groom, to be eternally provided for according to contract—not only himself and his bride, but also their children and children's children. In return for which all my father had to do was study Torah and live with his wife.

At this point, fresh complications arose. The new husband, who had meanwhile turned fifteen, burst into tears. He didn't want to go away with strangers. He wanted to stay home with his friends. When the Maratecks came aboard to say goodbye to their daughter-in-law, she became bashful and hid in a barrel. The result was that my father's mother had to go along until the boy accus¬tomed himself to his new situation. She said, "What can you do? After all, he's only a child. . . ."

But even with his mother there, each day, when the Schloss¬berg family sat down to dinner, my father did everything imagina¬ble to avoid sitting next to his wife. It was said of them that "their love burned like a wet rag."

My mother was equally reluctant to abandon her childhood. Often, her husband would come home from the house of study to find her playing in the yard. Hearing his approach, she would run hastily into the house, leaving her womanly head covering in the sand.

Time passed. Gradually Shloime Zalman was able to live with his wife without having his mother around. The young pair matured, grew to love each other, and had children of their own, including me. But, as we know, while we live in exile, Jewish wealth is as durable as smoke. Despite the marriage contract which guaranteed my father "sustenance in perpetuity," the Schlossberg fortunes took a sharp turn for the worse, and my father quite suddenly found himself obliged to provide not only for his growing family, but for his in-laws as well.

In later years my parents would point to their own lives as proof that true love comes only after marriage. In fact, they believed this so firmly that they tried not less than seventeen times to arrange matches for me. Finally, at the age of twenty-seven, I put a stop to negotiations for an "heiress" with red hair and a temper, and married the girl who, back in Warsaw, had saved me from being shot.

An early sign of ADHD?

The first offense for which my grandfather had been sentenced to death was his response to being slapped by a non-commissioned officer for obtaining hot water for tea without permission. As he struggled back to his feet, this same officer screamed,
“Zhydovska morda! Jewface, pick up your hand and salute!” (except morda, more precisely, refers to the visage of an animal).

"Until he said that, I had been willing to overlook his bad manners. But you must remember I grew to manhood in a section of Warsaw where a man does not lightly, as the saying goes, let someone spit into his kasha. So, without thinking, I snatched up the full kettle and walloped him once across the head, and, while I was at it, also allowed my fist to find a resting-place on his broad nose. In the commotion that followed, with plenty of warm encouragement for both sides, he ended up on the bottom and I on top, while the blood from our mouths and noses mingled fraternally on the floor.

After the fight, my grandfather had insisted on walking to the hospital to emphasize that he had gotten "the better of the exchange":
"My injuries turned out to be hardly worth mentioning: A tooth knocked out by the first blow, and a finger cut to the bone by the sharp edge of my own smashed kettle. But they insisted on putting me to bed, so that my opponent, who, among other things, had lost part of his nose, should not suffer by comparison.

"[T]Here [his older brother] Mordechai finally found me at two o'clock the following morning. He'd brought his own little welcoming delegation of Jewish soldiers from our home town. But when he found out I had committed violence against a Russian of superior rank, Mordechai, in his loving anxiety over my ignorance and dimming prospects for survival, started to shout at me that unless I learned to control my “Polack temper” I would spend my army years going from one prison to another until I forgot what a Jew was."

But after surviving the first death sentenced, he must have felt invincible. Or after that, what was there to lose? Plus it would have satisfied his “young blood [that] craved excitement.”

In one of the last few chapters of the book, I discovered that my grandfather had understood something about his personality, as did the people who spent time with him. After escaping from a Siberian labor camp (about which you'll read later) his friend, Pyavka,
"Well aware of my knack for getting sidetracked by outlandish adventures, [Pyavka] made me swear my most solemn oath that, no matter what miracles, temptations or disasters befell me in this great, unknown city, I would not forget him, would not leave him abandoned at the railroad station like some shipwrecked sailor clinging to a plank."

An unofficial diagnosis of ADHD? Then the rest of us come by it honestly.

Another digression, but this is too funny

(From NYU-Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music: "A special assignment" given to ReMu freshman, Jesse Kranzler, by the NYU Housing Department.)


Music Video for "(Please) Don't Throw Things Out Of Your Windows" by Jesse Kranzler

(I suspect this was supposed to be a punishment...)