A Note from the Author:
What would induce a normally-sane, cube-dwelling professional to liquidate her retirement account, purchase a beater RV, and take off on a trip around the country? I'm still asking myself that question...
For nine months I've been on the road, traveling with multiple boxes of books and a borderline evil cat for companionship, attempting to kick-start that difficult to define and almost impossible to create 'buzz' surrounding my first novel, The Minor Protection Act. Along the way I've discovered some truly discouraging facts about marketing and publishing, come across magnificent areas in America, and learned priceless insights into God's character and my relationship to Him.
Marketing yourself bites -- both marketing when the product is yourself and marketing by yourself. There's no other way to say it that describes my feelings quite so well on that subject. Personally, it's been enormously difficult for me to continuously and actively pursue marketing opportunities. I'd much prefer to slouch in front of the computer and write with the curtains drawn!
The good news is, if I can do it, anyone can do it! I don't break out in a sweat on the way to a radio interview like I did the first few times -- in fact I find them pretty fun now -- but months of practice has yet to make it easy for me to cold call a radio station. It still takes multiple attempts to craft a cover letter and I continue to dream of hiring a publicist to do this junk for me.
However, wouldn't you know it but God is faithful even to introverted authors trying to masquerade as extroverted salespeople. My first and best radio interview came about because I finally agreed to the Lord's prompting and, with much fear and trembling, cold-called a few stations. I spoke with one gentleman who agreed to have me send a book and, after receiving it a few days later, called to schedule an interview.
He was pretty stand-offish, which I've found is the almost universal reception since no one knows my name, and he told me flat out that he most likely wouldn't read the book as it was Friday and he had a busy weekend planned. He also told me he had no idea why he'd called back because it was an unusual move for him, but he felt God wanted him to.
Monday morning he called back to say he'd finished the book, was very enthusiastic and wanted me for his entire morning program. We ended up chatting on air for the better part of two hours and, during that time, four people actually took the time to stop by the station and buy books.
There've been plenty of marketing flops to go along with a few successes. Once I spent an entire day under the blazing sun as a vendor at a flea market and managed to sell exactly zero books. On the flip-side, one time all I did was get up to use the bathroom at a BBQ joint in Texas and ended up selling a book to the lady waiting next to me in line.
Besides the book selling (or lack thereof), I've come across innumerable beautiful sights and interesting people. In Arizona I saw the red rocks of Sedona and spent a day hiking into the magnificence that is the Grand Canyon. In Texas I visited the largest cross in the northern hemisphere and managed to bend my RV stairs all to pieces while in a tearing rush at an Oklahoman Flying J. In Louisiana I learned that graft and bribery are alive and well and that you can cover over a murder if you have enough money, or so said the lifelong residents of New Orleans who entertained me outside their RV with an evening of hair-raising stories....
In Oklahoma I attended a huge gun show frequented by some of the 80% of their citizens currently packing heat. A wonderful couple in Birmingham took me in for a long weekend after I cold-called their radio station because, so the man said, God told him I was "one of His" and he should "take care of me." I soaked my feet in Lake Michigan while a stranger told me all about her adopted children and completely missed the fact that I was crossing the Mighty Mississippi because the only thing mighty about it was how brown and mucky it was. Thankfully, sailing in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in exactly zero shark attacks, but I'll have to get back to you regarding alligator bites as I'm currently trapped in Florida's steam room waiting on a new transmission.
I've walked into church services in small towns all across the country. I couldn't find a church to attend in Roswell, New Mexico so I got on the road and prayed I'd come across one. In the middle of nowhere, just as they were starting Sunday School, I rolled up to a white clapboard church where I held hands with cowboys at the close of the service to sing "I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God." I've attended a Pentecostal service where teenage girls danced around waving flags while the pastor gave me a specific word of prophecy. More in line with my own tradition, I've perched upon benches carved in the 1800s while singing songs from an old Baptist hymnal. I've attended prayer meetings and business meetings and I've shown up an hour late for Wednesday night Bible Study because they forgot to change the time on the sign, even though they'd been meeting earlier for almost two years. The pastor felt so bad he bought a book and told me he was going out first thing the next morning with a bucket of paint.
And I should probably mention that I've been lost in approximately 95% of the states I've driven through, but a couple park hosts in Texas told me that you're never really lost in an RV, you just change your destination.
So far I've only hit sixteen of our fifty states, but in almost each one I've walked into a church a stranger and walked out an adopted member of the body. People have taken me to lunch, given me a place to stay, called their friends to help me network, given me gas money and, of course, bought my books. True, I haven't made that one special contact with the power to endorse me into crazy numbers of book sales, but I have two months left!
ENDORSEMENTS FOR JODI COWLES' BOOK:
"Ms. Cowles' novel is a sobering reminder of how fragile religious liberty and parental rights are in America. If you think re-education camps could never exist in America, and children could never be snatched from their Christian parents, this book will be a wakeup call for you. The story she weaves shows how plausible that scenario is, and how few and short are the steps between here and there. This book will motivate you to pray for our land, to be on the alert, and to be ready to act with courage."
Bryan Fischer, Executive Director, Idaho Values Alliance
"The Minor Protection Act is compelling enough to get your attention and hold it! Hopefully, this scenario will never happen here...but it could! If it does, this book will help you recognize and cope with this sort of oppression. Read and be challenged!"
Dr. Mary Wilder, Professor, Western Seminary, Portland OR
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