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Dear Reader,
I'm in Manhattan, sitting in the main lobby at Random House, waiting for my 10:30 appointment. Random House was the very first publisher that I contacted when I came up with the idea for the book clubs.
It used to be scary calling on publishers, because I didn't know anything about the industry. I needed to get permission to use material from their books, but I had no idea where to start, or who I was supposed to be calling--not that it mattered because no one ever called me back.
But it didn't bother me because I realized that publishers got hundreds of calls, every week, from people who thought they had a great idea. But since my idea was "the real deal" and the phone approach wasn't working, I decided to find a way to stand out.
So I tracked down the name of someone whose position sounded "big-league", called their secretary to make sure they were going to be in the office, baked some chocolate chip cookies, wrote a letter and shipped overnight a huge Ziploc bag of my homemade cookies along with my letter.
I was hoping the woman I'd shipped the cookies and the letter to would fall prey to the idiom, "You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours." Or in this case, "I'll send you some to-die-for, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and you take my call to relieve your guilt, because you ate the whole bag."
And she did take my call. And I did get an appointment.
It was my first trip to New York City, and the closer I got to the Bertelsmann Building where Random House's offices were, the closer I felt to throwing up. I was so nervous, I could hardly walk in the door. I listened to tunes on my headset for 15 minutes outside the building, then I found the courage to go in, and headed up to the
17th floor.
Everyone seemed perfectly normal and nice in the reception area, and I was just starting to calm my nerves when I picked up on the conversation in the office next to me. I could hear another dot.com guy pitching his idea to the same person that I was going to be talking to. He sounded pretty "with-it;" and it was making me feel pretty "without-it." The lingo and terms he was using--I had no idea what he was talking about.
I was feeling squeamish again. I stood up, smoothed the wrinkles out of my skirt, and patted the bag of cookies in my briefcase for moral support. I bet Mr. Cool in there didn't bring any cookies with him.
My appointments at Random House are different now. I'm not a nervous wreck anymore. I actually look forward to the visits. But there is one thing that hasn't changed....I still bring cookies.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
www.DearReader.com
P.S. Win a copy of She's All Eyes, by Maura Conlon-McIvor. Sample this first-time author's book, send me an email, and tell me what you think. That's all you need to do to enter the free giveaway. I have 25 books. Maura told me she'd love to hear your feedback. Go
to: http://www.emailbookclub.com/alt/alleyes
AUTHORBUZZ: free stuff, tours, personal stories. This week's authors: Susan Squires, The Hunger; Barbara Delinsky, Looking for Peyton Place; Rochelle Krich, Now You See Me.
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