Hello there. As the title suggests, this is just a quick update. Last week, I wrote a blog entitled Radio GaGa in which I spoke about my experience doing my first online radio show to promote my book (Soulless).
Well, good news. It’s up online now and will be until midnight tonight at The Authors Show. To listen to it, simply click on this link, and then find my name and click. That’s it. I hope you enjoy it and click around to hear other author interviews.
Thank you very much for your time.
Hello everyone out there. It’s official. I have become the new and undisputed Prince of All Promoting, excelling in phone interviews, web interviews, newspaper interviews, and now, I have conquered the world of internet radio. Well…maybe, conquered is too strong a word. Actually, ‘excelling in,’ may also be a bit of an exaggeration–by that I mean I’m surprised there was any usable material between all four types of interviews to write a decent tweet. #nervous_interviewee.
In an ever-expanding quest to promote my first novel, Soulless, my publisher suggested an internet radio show called, The Authors Show. I made contact and received my scheduled interview time, which was to be conducted via Skype. I spoke with a wonderful woman named Linda Thompson who ran through what the interview would be like and did her best to put me at ease. I was not at ease.
When the interview time came, I readied myself to sound like a complete buffoon, and dug a little hole next to the computer so I could promptly bury my head in it at the conclusion of what I was sure would be a monumentus–and recorded for prosperity–fail. The interview started out great. Linda was very welcoming. We chatted for a few minutes to break the ice and get to know one another, and just as we were about to start, the internet cut out on me. Once. Twice. Three times. Now I panicked. I hid it well, but probably only because this was an audio only interview. Had it been a video chat, Linda would have seen me pulling what little hair nature has deigned to allow me to maintain, right out of my head.
Unlike my first phone interview with the Bronx Times, I actually remember every agonizing minute of my conversation. That Linda did not immediately call off the interview and pronounce me a blight on society was a miracle in my mind. She said it went well, and so did my wife who was in the room keeping our son busy while I mimed hanging myself as I stuttered through each answer.
When the interview was over, Linda Thompson did not inform me that I was now added to an infamous blooper reel on their program, but instead went on to tell me more about what her show does and what it offers, and once again thanked me for the interview. I was shocked. Even my son said he liked it, and he’s six, so you know he doesn’t know how to lie without getting caught yet. I guess I had to accept that it was an okay interview.
Later on that week, I received an email informing me that my interview will air on The Authors Show, on May 23rd, 2016. It was yet another sign that the interview went well, as two weeks in not nearly enough time to call my understudy, Jared Leto, to redo the interview as me.
Overall, my first radio interview to promote my book, Soulless, was a pleasant one. I might even try it again with someone else soon; even if two successful Ismael Manzano interviews in a row is one of the most known and often feared signs of the coming of Ragnarok (that’s the old Norse version of the end of the world). So for now, I’ll cross my fingers, pray to Odin, and wait for May 23rd for The Authors Show to air my interview all day long.
Oh, no, that’s not a typo. They said for debut authors, they air the interview all day long on their channel so that no one misses it. Let’s let that sink in a minute. All day. 24 hours. Of me. Holy, Hammer of Thor, we’re all doomed.
A year ago I announced that my book series, Soul Broker, had been picked up for publication by Fantasy Works Publishing. Almost two months ago, the first book in the series, Soulless, officially hit the market.Celebrations were had, emotions ran high, and I was elevated to the pantheon of published authors, drinking ambrosia from the chalice of adulation. I quit my job, bought a house and hired a band to follow me around playing “Eye of The Tiger” as my own personal theme song.
Except…nope.
Despite childhood dreams to the contrary, most authors don’t get to quit their jobs, sit back and collect boatloads of royalties. I knew this going in, so I wasn’t surprised by it. I was well aware that as an unknown, first-time author, my book wasn’t going to propel me into the upper echelon of society and literary notoriety.
My life now is more or less the same as it was back then. I still have a day job, I am still blissfully married and still proud as hell at everything my son does. And I still write. The toil never gets any easier, it just gets grittier and the scars get deeper. I’m currently working on book two, while simultaneously deflecting questions from well meaning loved ones who constantly ask me whether I’ve made it rich yet (as if making it rich was ever one of my goals. I never believed financial success to be an accurate measure of a person’s worth).
I tell them no, and try to explain that it’s a process that needs to build over time, and that I never expected fame. Quite the opposite. If you’ve read any of my former posts, you’ll probably know that I am a social coma victim, and talking about my work with anyone ranks on same level to me as waterboarding. That’s something else that hasn’t changed.
The only thing that has changed is that now when people ask, “Hey what have you been up to?” I must adhere to the publishing contract that I signed in blood, and shamelessly–and very clumsily–reply with some variation of, “Oh, not much, just working on (insert current chapter here), and trying to make sure (insert random character here)’s voice is the same as it was in the first book. This usually prompts them to question what I’m talking about–or they ignore me–and that prompts me to try to sound nonchalant–which I define as not being a stuttering, sweaty mess–when I explain to them that I have published a book and am working on the sequel to said published book. Sometimes they ask for the name of said book, and sometimes they shrink away like Homer Simpson dissolving into the hedges to avoid Ned Flanders.
If the former happens, I give them the name of the book, hope for a sale, and cease all further communication because I actually have to write book two. They walk away thinking I’m a conceited jerk because I have yet to develop proper social etiquette, and properly never will.
And that’s my life now in a nutshell. Not much different than it was before. Maybe it’ll stay like that forever, with me enjoying my craft while sharing it with the masses. Maybe my stories will one day hit it big, and I’ll be a household name (shivers in terror over that thought). In the meantime, life goes on, and that is great, because I am still working to improve, and grateful for my break. If it goes no further, I’ll still be happy every time I see a good review, because it means that someone had an enjoyable experience reading my book.
ismaelmanzano.com 