Dr. Ni's Notes & Nibbles--7

Welcome to Dr. Ni's Notes &  Nibbles--7, a gathering place of news, notes, words and wisdom bulldozing its way into your workday.


Where in the world is Dr. Ni tonight???  Join host Janet Elaine Smith of PIVTR and Star Publish with her special guest Dr. Niama Leslie Williams, author of seven books in seventeen months!

Ms. Smith is a marketing powerhouse whose skills in that arena include getting Borders and Barnes & Nobles to stock her self-published books at a time when both chains refused to support self-publishers.

"Dr. Ni," as she is fondly known, completed her doctorate in African American literature at Temple University in May 2006 and almost immediately found herself out of work.  For the next 17 months she job hunted and wrote, completing 7 books, including three novels, three collections of poetry, her dissertation, and a forthcoming collection of essays, "Don't Keep No Secrets:  A Black Woman Speaks Her Mind."

Tune in tonight, Monday, December 10th, at 8 p.m. via the PIVTR website:  www.internetvoicesradio.com.  Listen live and call in!

You may have asked “where in the world is Dr. Ni tonight?” because you realized, perhaps upon emailing her recently, that she has a new web home!  Yes, gone are the days of CityMax and trying to figure things out with no phone support.  Dr. Ni’s former website designer, the illustrious Cassendre Xavier, turned her on to Homestead.com, a wonderful group of people who understand that some techies have a phone jones.  Homestead is this level of cool:  when you call, a recording by the CEO OF THE COMPANY answers your call and AGREES WITH YOU ABOUT THE HORROR OF TELEPHONE TREES.  You just can’t get any cooler than that.

The Help Center folks, especially Carlos, Chris and Jon, have been working constantly the past three weeks to make Dr. Ni happy, and you know an Aries woman likes nothing better than three different men catering to her every expressed desire.  We are in the midst of moving the site from a Gold Package to a Storefront so that it will be easier to build on a Mac, and because Dr. Ni wants to be able to do audio and podcasts and have Paypal buttons (cause yall need to buy her books and participate in her workshops and such!).  For those of you interested in link exchanges, hang tight; as soon as we work that out, Dr. Ni will be in touch.

For those of you creating your own ezines, take a gander at the ListInferno.com box on the homepage and on the “Contact Me” page; I’m trying ListInferno out to see how well and how fast it builds a list for me.  It’s free and quite intriguing ……

Oh, and the URL for the new home?  http://www.blowingupbarriers.com.  Stop by and stay a spell!

Jumoke Dada, realtor and marketing specialist extraordinaire, sent me an announcement several weeks ago about the opening of his friend Flory Morisset’s art gallery in Olde City.  Vivant Art Collection will be the only African American female-owned African/Haitian art gallery there. The gallery is located on 2nd Street between Market and Arch Streets. Please stop by if you can.

Florcy Morisset                    Jumoke Dada
Vivant Art Collection                Realtor and Marketing Specialist
[email protected]            [email protected]

Next up we have Don McCauley’s severely wise words on self-publishing.  I have been WAITING for SOMEONE to say this ……..

Re: Article on self-publishing ........
Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:26 am (PST)

I am getting ready to go on a rant now . . .

The downfall to self-publishing success (assuming you have written a book that is indeed marketable) is nearly always in the area of marketing skills (or the lack thereof).

In my previous life I worked in the field of corporate marketing and sales training. Our training program was considered to be one of the top sales and marketing training programs on the planet. We interviewed prospective salespeople somewhere around 7 times before the hire and then put them through an exhaustive 2-year (in the field and classroom) training program. Even with all of that due diligence and training, only about 5% of these trainees achieved success as we defined success.

The untrained and inexperienced self-published author is really up against it. BUT . . .

The advent of the Internet and electronic marketing has changed the entire ball game.

There are many really great American novels out there that no one will ever read. There are also tons of poorly written pieces of you-know-what that experience great sales success. Why is this?

It is, in a word, marketing. Period.

It is an unfortunate fact that the success or failure of a book does not stand upon great writing alone. Marketing skills are the key to the success (or failure) of any book. Again, period.

I know a person who makes 10's of thousands of dollars a month selling a book through Internet resources alone. The book is exactly 28 pages long. 28 pages! It is, in my opinion, poorly written. Yet, he sells thousands upon thousands of copies because he has something most of us do not have:

Marketing skills.

This person also enjoys first and second page placement on BOTH Google and Yahoo. How did he accomplish this?

Marketing skill.

How much does he spend on marketing to rake in 10's of thousands of dollars per month selling a 28-page book?

Exactly zero.

Can we learn something from this person? Indeed we can.

I learned long ago that there are many FREE and EFFECTIVE techniques one can use to build a massive publicity campaign for little or no money. Finding those effective resources takes times and a great deal of patience. But it can be done.

Learn to market effectively and it will matter not at all WHAT publishing methods you use. Pete you are absolutely correct - there is far too much hype out there. Cutting through it all can take years and a great deal of money. The purveyors of this garbage know this and are quite willing to take your money. The horror stories I've heard and experienced COULD fill a book and I just might write it someday.

If you have no capital you must work very hard. If you DO have capital you must still work very hard. If you learn to work SMART, capital does not matter.
You may pen anything you like and publish using whatever method you prefer. It will not matter unless you can convince others to buy and read your work. It can be 28 pages or 2800 pages. What DOES matter is learning to create that all-important buzz. No one is going to create that buzz for you. You must learn to do it yourself.

You will never sell a zillion books by being a great writer. You WILL sell a zillion books by being a great marketer. If you can somehow manage to combine the two, you will experience the success you seek.

There. I'm done ranting now.

Don McCauley ICM, MTC, CH
Top Ten Secrets To Getting Free Publicity
For Your Book
Free Publicity Focus Group
www.freepublicitygroup.com

I found this rather humorous quote—if one’s sense of humor bends toward the internal—as part of Wednesday, December 5th’s A Word A Day.  I chuckled, knowing how extremely judgmental I can be, and passed it on to a few writing friends.  Imagine my surprise when good friend and Aussie physician (I’m trying to get him to retire and write full-time) Dr. Ross Bills responded with these brilliantly wise words ….

date        Dec 5, 2007 12:31 PM
subject    Wednesday afternoon chuckle from A Word A Day .......
   
There are few things more disturbing than to find, in somebody we detest, a moral quality which seems to us demonstrably superior to anything we ourselves possess. It augurs not merely an unfairness on the part of creation, but a lack of artistic judgment. Sainthood is acceptable only in saints.
-----Pamela Hansford Johnson, poet and novelist (1912-1981)

date        Dec 5, 2007 7:34 PM
subject    Re: Wednesday afternoon chuckle from A Word A Day .......
       
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

When we find sainthood other than in a saint I question the actions of the self-publicist firstly, but then my own prejudices. It is all too often often the latter at fault however, and we are too blind to realise that, or the good that sometimes resides in people.

Even the worst villains I have found to have admirable qualities of loyalty and kindness. (Sometimes camouflaged with inconsistency.)

In Freemasonry it is taught to "Judge with candour and admonish with friendship," in the Bible to "Judge not lest ye be judged," from popular lore, "People in glass houses should not throw stones," and from Indian lore "if you would know me first walk a mile in my moccasins."

All our cultures teach us not to seek the worst in people, indeed not to "Judge." I would observe that if you seek for evil, that you will surely find. Amongst the early Christians we find Saint Augustine of Hippo, who by all accounts was in his early days a womaniser and lecher before finding his way. There are many others among the Saints we might argue were less than saintly.

So I suggest that the disturbance felt and described by Ms. Johnson is a disturbance of our own souls, when confronted with the unanticipated need to judge ourselves and our own judgment of others. In short, we are disturbed because we suddenly found ourselves wanting in those qualities we ascribe to saints.

Far from being unfair, creation is demonstrating to us just how wonderful it truly is, in so far as it is able to compensate for the worst with judicious doses of the best.

True saintliness is enshrined in the act of conquering the basest of our natures to bring forth the goodness in ourselves. To say that there is no badness in a saint is like saying a hero feels no fear. Heroism too lies in conquering our fears, rising above them, not in ignoring them or accepting them. Dealing with PTSD as I do almost daily, I have found that the ability to be brave is a limited and finite strength, as perhaps is saintliness.

Ross

And without further ado, two pieces on two saints in my life …….

LOVE IN CHRIST JESUS, YOUR DAD, WILLIAM MASSEY
Niama Leslie Williams
Copyright March 2007

   

It is, in the end, always about fathering, isn’t it?  That lap you were never allowed to sit on long enough, those tears you held back—at his request—the night of his leaving because you both knew two hearts were being flung against the wall to shatter and splinter, not just one.
   

You accepted his leaving, an obedient child, and you did not allow yourself to wonder why until middle-age threatened with its higher awarenesses and deeper sensitivities.  Not even he understood the pain and shock and pure evil that would suck up the empty space his leaving created.  He had no choice about leaving, at 45 you finally know that, but the abuse that took up residence, the abuse and the manipulation born of everyone’s, your brothers’, your mother’s horror at his leaving and staying gone; somehow he knew when he met the right woman she’d have to meet you and then for sure he’d know.  He did.  She did.  The one fight they had as newlyweds when you were ten consisted of your new stepmother, with her own two daughters, yelling that he did not spend enough time with his youngest when she came over.  You stare into middle-age and you know that was the instant she became your second, alternate mother.
   

And this is not about everyone’s grief becoming a horror, a weight because he and your mother had once been the talk of the town, the talk of their circle, the funniest and loudest, most enjoyable parties of their clan of friends always had the two of them at the center, each couple present happily trading off being the foci of attention.  My brothers’ grief and anger, rage and sorrow over your leaving turned the balance of my formative years into a living minefield of a horror movie because my brothers old enough to remember those parties, remember you two in love.
   

Having no such memories, not one, I have looked in picture windows all of my life for unconditional love from a strong man.  Because, first father, you were and remain, a strong man.  I find strong men enticing appealing sexy.  Neighbor Jim is a strong man.  Vincent a strong man.  The jury still out on Jim P., the psychiatrist.  Larry K. a strong man.  Dimino.  Enrique.  Ramzi.
   

There have been many and not a one has shared my bed.  I have wanted and wished, but been unable to claim.  They have wanted to be friends--loving, intense friends--but never lovers.  A particular door within me I now realize was shut, cemented, with honey in the lock to make sure nothing got through or if it did, it would be messy!
   

Well, my consciousness reached in and adjusted the hinges on that door and now it swings to and fro, freely, widely, inviting.  But this spiritual advisor, this living breathing asthmatic God Can (I can’t, God can) has walked into my life to sustain me with the appropriate foods until the right one, he whom God intended, finds me.
   

It is tough, grueling work, this spiritual advising.  I often call at 2 a.m., often need him to drive miles upon miles to pick me up and take me marketing, and somehow he does all this asking nothing, accepting only the small gift in return, the shared meal (sometimes he pays), conversation.  He says my words feed him; they percolate within me but I have no clue as to the list of ingredients or to the chemistry set that is his Biblical digestive system.
   

I only know that it was time to let him know who he was, who he is to me.  I read, “Love in Christ Jesus, Your Dad” and I knew him instantly, knew where this piece was to begin.
   

He is my own personal John Travolta, my own archangel Michael, without wings or potbelly.  He is neither slovenly nor slow; he moves with a speed, agility, and anxious relentlessness that frequently cranks his asthma up and sends him to bed.  Yet underneath his clothing, surreptitiously wedded to his skin is an outfit, his Mighty Mouse uniform with membership certificate, card-sized, indicating his thorough study of how and when and why to save the day.
   

And you do, Rev. William Massey, you do.  May God bless you and keep you til we are both back in our other realm, seated to the right of the throne, eatin’ peanuts, tossin’ the shells and doin’ some of everythin’, includin’ talkin’ out of turn, to God’s humorous delight.
                                    Love and blessings,
                                    Dr. Ni

 

THIS IS NOT HERO WORSHIP
809 words

   It was that she smiled at me, and the way she smiled at me.  A Mother Goose, it’s all right the bandage is on your knee now, you are such a beautiful young woman; it was a Sutter’s Formula Peanut Chews’ smile in the way that food can comfort you; it was a chocolate smile without the kiss of death this diabetic has learned to fear.
   

It was a good parent smile, wholesome and benevolent and good.  June Cleaver didn’t give those types of smiles; neither did Donna Reed or Mrs. Brady.  I think perhaps Florida could give this type of smile; yes, Florida, beaming at her son Michael, astonished and surprised and pleased at something unexpected he’d done.  One of those full-teeth, only Esther Rolle could do them smiles.
   

The beauty, the power of the smile, its urgent energy, what makes it pack a wallop, is that I did something bad to earn it.
   

I bugged her.  Called her incessantly three/four days out of a weekend, our weekend, Wednesday to the following Thursday.  Called her with problems, with good news, with instructions.  Called her so much I was convinced that I was bugging the s**t out of her, that she wasn’t going to want to see my a*s on Thursday at 2:30, our new time, that she had a lecture prepared about my abuse of phone privileges.  When I was in the middle of the last message—number five?  six?—and the machine cut me off, saying “memory full,” I knew the motherfucking jig was up.  She was going to be gunnin for my a*s but good.
   

So I was unprepared.  For the smile.  It rained on me like soap on Calvin when he’s seized the day, like ink on the most willing paper, like … like a mother should always look at a daughter.
   

I had to turn forty before I earned smiles like that, and even then I couldn’t enjoy them, didn’t remember them.  The one smile I do remember was close, one of pure joy.  I’d told her I was returning to finish my degree, and the smile was a potent one, full of peace, a moment of clarity amidst Alzheimer’s grip.  She knew deeply and profoundly in that moment what my returning meant, and she was happy for me, relieved and happy.
   

But this, this was more powerful, perhaps because she is gone now and the bearer of this smile has replaced her as the eminent emotional woman in my life, at 66 and counting.  She says, I am 66, loose and free.  I’m easy.  My mother, though 71, was never loose and free.
   

And I don’t know that this is about privilege:  Black single mother of three, divorced, and married Jewish mother psychiatrist.  I suspect married Jewish psychiatrist experienced hells of her own, multiple levels, as a female med student in the late ‘50s, early sixties.  What did The Feminine Mystique mean to her, I wonder.  Was it freedom, or did she come from an immigrant family in which all were expected to strive and work, even the girls?
   

The stories are so different:  1932 Black illegitimate daughter evil stepfather abuse began at six and med school in the fifties … I wonder what accounts for the peace I noticed right away, the air of solitude, serenity, comfort that pressed my shoulders down in relief?
   

The smile.  66.  Free and easy.  “It is alright if you call me,” she says; “it is perfectly alright.  I see people during the day, but in the evenings I have my calls forwarded so I can be reached.  So that I am available.  You can call me anytime, as much as you like.  People do.”
   

Carefully she says this, as though instructing a terrified child, and I am, I was in my way, terrified; not terrified exactly, but prepped for a blow.
   

Yet she says this, after the smile.  That sunray, I was a three year old raised in darkness and now this, now this smile.  She seems to know everything; she described that three year old so clearly I for the first time felt someone with me in that dark, someone I could trust.
   

I am a little embarrassed that a smile could mean so much.
   

But when you’ve spent your life believing/knowing somewhere inside that you were bad, wrong, about to be, deserved to be, in trouble (it was his idea, he was seven years older, but you know, you know you are bad); when you have lived your life in fear of the annihilation getting yelled at is, someone prefacing all that with a smile white and bright and blinding in its beneficence; well, such a smile causes one to think, to rethink, and for the first time, be gentle with one’s self.  Causes one, hesitantly, to look in the mirror and smile back.
###
(Note:  This piece also appears in the “Intervention” section of Dr. Ni’s first novel told in stories, THE JOURNEY.  Check it out at http://stores.lulu.com/drni)

The funnies preceded by a tear-jerker this week, at least what I found to be the happiest tear-jerker I’ve run across in a long time.  I will let the YouTube video speak for itself: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek1iIOTsiRo&feature=related

Jason McElway--Basketball player--Rochester, NY

And on Comedy Central this week?  Well let’s see ….. Major disappointment—they haven’t changed the rotation; it’s still the flute guy, the racist animals and the funny as hell ventriloquist.  Heavy sigh ….. They’re still worth checking out though, til next time!

Love and blessings,

Dr. Ni
[email protected]
http://www.blowingupbarriers.com