Building a Brand

I've watched with fascination the growth of The Pioneer Woman empire. PW is Ree Drummond, whose website (http://thepioneerwoman.com/) is a smart and sassy mix of delicious recipes, incredible photography, and homespun stories. I like her easy-breezy writing style and have enjoyed her step-by-step instructions to making yummy dishes.

Essentially Ree Drummond has parlayed a blog she began five years ago to keep in touch with her extended family into a multi-dimensional career. The Pioneer Woman has become a brand. Its base is the complex web site that includes sections on cooking, homeschooling, family life, gardening, and more. The site is designed to be interactive, with a separate section for readers to contribute their own recipes. Thousands of her fans comment on each of Drummond's posts. She uses all forms of social media. You'll find her twittering several times a day. Same chatty style as her web site.

But the web site was just the beginning. She's written one cookbook that came out 18 months ago (undoubtedly an easy sell to her publisher because she already had a built-in market). On her web site, she serialized the story of her transformation from suburban Yuppie to wife of a cattle rancher. She then compiled the installments into a book, which was published last Fall. That book has now been optioned by Reese Witherspoon for a big-screen movie treatment. Last month, Drummond children's book about her bassett hound was published. And last week, it was announced that she will be hosting a daily cooking show on the Food Network. Forgive me if I'm using the wrong business term, but isn't that what they call synergy?

I suspect one reason Ree Drummond can do all this, besides being incredibly talented and creative, is because she married a very wealthy man, The Drummond family own one of the largest cattle ranching operations in Oklahoma. Having money when starting a new venture, be it widgets or web sites, gives you a flexibility that many, if not most, entrepreneurs don't have. Still, there are plenty of failures amongst those for whom money isn't a consideration. So kudos to PW -- she works hard and has earned her success.

But her story made me focus on the concept that authors can be a brand. In some ways that can be limiting: Can you only write one kind of story and if you try to break out into a different genre, will your audience and critics be suspicious or even angry? Imagine Stephen King writing a romance novel. How would readers react? Drummond can do the cookbook and the children's book, because the brand is about her family life on the ranch – cooking and pets are part of both.

One compliment often given to cozy mystery writers (which is how the collective Evelyn David define ourselves) is that "you're ready for a bigger book." Bigger being somewhat loosely interpreted. The stakes are higher (the world will come to an end unless the sleuth can find the terrorist). The message is bigger (drugs are bad and the sleuth needs to find the head of the drug cartel). The carnage is messier (think multiple body parts as well as death). A "bigger" book, almost by definition, gets more respect.

But while I wouldn't mind the respect, I also have no apologies for the fun mysteries that I hope we provide for our readers. A friend once remarked, "Not only do I not want to write the great American novel; I don't want to read it." I'm probably closer to that point of view than to the idea that I've got the next War and Peace in me if only I'd sit at the computer and stop playing Minesweeper.

So, if anyone wants to brand Evelyn David, I'm thinking we could start with a perfume – the scent, of course, would be a mystery.

Marian aka the Northern half of Evelyn David

Brianna Sullivan Mysteries - e-book series
I Try Not to Drive Past Cemeteries- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Dog Days of Summer in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Holiday Spirit(s) of Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Undying Love in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
A Haunting in Lottawatah - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

The Sullivan Investigation Series
Murder Drops the Ball (Spring 2011)
Murder Takes the Cake- Paperback - Kindle
Murder Off the Books- Paperback - Kindle
Riley Come Home (short story)- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

Romances

Love Lessons - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

Life Lessons from an Easter Egg Hunt

The egg in the Cypress tree was always a pain to retrieve. I use the word "pain" to keep this a g-rated blog. Even as early as seven years old I was already doing cost vs. benefit analysis in my head. Every Easter there was a dyed egg hidden in that tree's knot hole. I didn't have to search for it; I knew it would be there. If I got to that tree first, it was a dependable "get" to up my basket count. But, the sticky sap of the tree was incredibly tenacious. If I got within ten feet of that tree I would have the nasty stuff on my clothes or skin. On my clothes, I was in trouble with my Mom. On my skin, I'd be rubbing it all day long, trying to clean it off. And it wouldn't come off without gasoline, meaning I'd have to approach an adult who'd help but not without telling me to stay away from the tree and possibly finding a food prep chore for me to do. So it was leave the egg or deal with the consequences on my own. Sometimes I took that egg, sometimes I left it. But either way I considered my decision carefully.

The annual Easter Egg Hunt was at my grandparents' small farm in rural Oklahoma. Usually the weather was perfect - the day warm without the thick humidity that would come later in the season. But often the ground was muddy from recent rains. The egg hunters would be wearing that mud before the day was over.

In the 1960s, my cousins and I usually descended en masse on the farm along with our "ham and potato salad toting" parents for the holiday. My Mom came from a large family with many siblings, so there were always a lot of kids under the age of sixteen to join in the egg hunt. The older cousins, along with my Mom's youngest sisters (who still lived on the farm) boiled the eggs, colored them, and hid them before everyone else arrived.

From the moment our car parked in the gravel area near the front gate to the yard, my brother and I were leaning out the windows, scanning the large yard, hoping to spy a few eggs ahead of time so we could plan our attack. Having a plan was important. Our goal was always to find the most eggs.

Still ... it was an unspoken rule but we all knew the easy eggs, the ones in plain view on the lawn or nestled among the daylilies were for the toddlers. When the whistle sounded, we bypassed those and went to work searching for those that required cunning, daring, and often gymnastic feats to rival those of any circus performer. The eggs in the rose bushes were the worst. To get to them with out being bitten by the thorns was almost impossible. We learned to find sticks or anything with a long handle to reach deep into the wild roses and rake out the eggs. I don't know how many times my long hair got tangled in the bushes, but I persisted until I got the egg. I loved the robin's egg blue ones best. Still do.

Back then everyone had clothes lines in their yards, the wires attached to large t-shaped metal poles. The end of each pole had two openings on the crossbar. Each opening was perfect for hiding an egg. I wasn't tall enough to reach them on my own, but I could hold up my little brother and he could grab them for me. We split the bounty.

Flower pots, tires, dog houses (I can't remember if we ate all those eggs, but thinking back I hope not), we searched all the usual places and then kept looking. We believed if we looked hard enough we could find just one more. And sometimes we did. Regardless, we didn't give up until the adults called us in for lunch.

Afterwards we'd count our eggs, doctor our wounds, and get ready for the softball game that would take place in the same front yard that we'd just searched for eggs. Looking back on those days, I wonder at all the life lessons we learned: decision making, planning, setting goals, caring for those younger or weaker, persevering in the face of adversity, teamwork, and creating our own rules of fair play. And wonder of all wonders, it was all accomplished without adults being called in to settle differences or direct the activity.

Do you have a favorite memory of an Easter Egg Hunt?

Rhonda
aka The Southern Half of Evelyn David

Brianna Sullivan Mysteries - e-book series
I Try Not to Drive Past Cemeteries- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Dog Days of Summer in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Holiday Spirit(s) of Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Undying Love in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
A Haunting in Lottawatah - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

The Sullivan Investigation Series
Murder Drops the Ball (Spring 2011)
Murder Takes the Cake- Paperback - Kindle
Murder Off the Books- Paperback - Kindle
Riley Come Home (short story)- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

Romances
Love Lessons - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

Here Comes Moishe Matzoh Ball...

Hopping down the Seder Hall

Hippity-Hoppity Pesach's on its way.

(Song Credit (and there are more verses) to Dr. Melvin Borden, family physician extraordinaire, and an even more extraordinary father, father-in-law, and the original Pop-Pop)

It's coming down to the wire. Next Monday, April 18, at 6 pm, we will be sitting down for the first Seder of Passover. As I write this, I am expecting 31 people to be around the table. To get to that moment has taken weeks of planning, prepping, organizing, shopping, and of course, because hey it's me talking – worrying. And yet, I wouldn't change a thing. I love a full table, brimming with favorite foods for each of our guests; old china and prayer books from relatives no longer with us, but always there in spirit; family and friends reconnecting to tell the story of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt – and how the lessons learned from that time still have relevance today.

Our seders are loud and lively. While we definitely read parts in Hebrew, most of it is in English, with commentary both wise and wiseass encouraged. This year there will be four children – and oh how much sweeter it makes it. There's Ray, my sister's oldest grandson, now 7 and able to read in English one of the prayers. There's Hal, my sister's younger grandson, aged 2, and a full participant in the search for the Afikoman – a hidden piece of matzoh that the children find and redeem for prizes. There's Vivian, 18 months, the daughter of Larry, my son's oldest friend. We met Larry when he was just a few months older than his daughter – how wonderful that the new generation becomes friends too. And then there's my beautiful granddaughter Riley, 10 months old, no teeth but able to gum almost all foods, full of smiles that make you melt, and a whole new perspective on the Jewish phrase, L'dor Va Dor, from generation to generation. At these seders, we pass our faith, our customs, our love from one generation to the next.

The menu varies only slightly each year. Gefilte Fish with horseradish, potatoes and eggs in salt water, matzoh ball soup, a chicken dish, brisket, and salmon, salad, sweet potato casserole, and asparagus. Desserts include fruit and lots of store-bought goodies.

I would love to capture in a bottle the memories of all those seders so that I could take a whiff of the happiness of those nights during the rest of the year when times are more difficult. It's lots of hard work but the payoff is immeasurable.

I wish for each of you a Zissen Pesach – a sweet Passover.

Marian, aka the Northern half of Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com/

Brianna Sullivan Mysteries - e-book series
I Try Not to Drive Past Cemeteries- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Dog Days of Summer in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Holiday Spirit(s) of Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Undying Love in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
A Haunting in Lottawatah - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

The Sullivan Investigation Series
Murder Drops the Ball (Spring 2011)
Murder Takes the Cake- Paperback - Kindle
Murder Off the Books- Paperback - Kindle
Riley Come Home (short story)- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

Romances
Love Lessons - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

Writing Blind

Last week I gave a short presentation at the Oklahoma School for the Blind (Parkview School) in Muskogee. According to the school's website their purpose is to "meet the educational needs of blind and visually impaired students who are residents of the state by providing a program to help students reach their maximum potential."

I spoke to a half dozen teenagers about writing - as both a profession and a hobby. After presenting my usual "how I became a published writer" spiel, the students and I talked about what their writing goals were and if they had none, what they liked to read. Their answers ranged from westerns to science fiction to fantasy to mystery to poetry. And although only a couple admitted their interest in writing at the beginning of the hour, by the end, I got a confession out of each that yes, they did have some writing dreams but were reluctant to voice them. Since they "chose" to attend my talk on writing as a profession, I had suspected there were some closet writers in the group. Although running out of time, we talked a little about creating characters and structuring a novel versus a short story. We also discussed the changing publishing industry and how one went about trying to get published.

I'd love to go back and work with them again. It was a lot of fun for me and they seemed to enjoy it. Hey, they were teenagers - sometimes it's hard to tell when they are having fun. But they all participated and I take that as a good sign!

After the class period ended I was shown the library and the technology lab. There's incredible equipment available for assisting those with low vision to read regular print - scanners that will take a photo of a book page, and either enlarge it, turn it into Braille, or format it so it can be read aloud by the computer to the student. One aide, a graduate of the school, showed me how she took notes. She had a piece of equipment that looked much like a laptop without the screen. She typed on a regular keyboard as she listened to a speaker, then could read back what she had written either on a computer later using the software I just mentioned, or by using a touch pad that converted the text into Braille. I watched a teacher type a test at a computer using a regular keyboard and software that turned the text into Braille. She then printed the Braille version out using a large printer. I learned so much and enjoyed every minute.

I hope to be invited back soon!

Rhonda
aka the Southern Half of Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com/

Brianna Sullivan Mysteries - e-book series
I Try Not to Drive Past Cemeteries- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Dog Days of Summer in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
The Holiday Spirit(s) of Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
Undying Love in Lottawatah- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords
A Haunting in Lottawatah - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

The Sullivan Investigation Series
Murder Drops the Ball (Spring 2011)
Murder Takes the Cake- Paperback - Kindle
Murder Off the Books- Paperback - Kindle
Riley Come Home (short story)- Kindle - Nook - Smashwords

Romances
Love Lessons - Kindle - Nook - Smashwords