Wade takes care of the design end of our short story blog, Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com and I take care of the publicity. We printed out bookmarks that we leave at libraries we visit. (I'll take some with me when I am performing in Canada.)
Since the beginning of our blog, I've sent e-mails to librarians, suggesting that they use our short stories in their book clubs. In July 2011, while on my western tour as a storyteller for the summer reading program, I met the librarian at Augusta, Montana, population 284. Because her patrons were too busy and too few to have a book club, she started a short story club. The readers came to the club prepared because while they didn't have time to read a book each month, they could read a short story.
My suggestion is that they use our short stories. I send ten e-mails every evening. So far I've covered the libraries in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota.
Most of the time, this requires me to go into the library websites to find an e-mail contact. Those websites are the entry to the library for upcoming generations. Some are brilliantly designed, some barely function. Sometimes, I am appalled at how few libraries a state has and how difficult its internet systems are to navigate.
The Iowa Library Association has a directory that is the best I've seen. I've sent 400 e-mails to Iowa libraries so far, and I'm only a little over half done. It seems every small village there has a library. Iowa students always score high in educational tests, and I can see why. It can't be the politicians who show up in the state early in the presidential election year, they certainly don't do anything to raise the intelligence level of their audiences. I give credit to the Iowa library and school systems.
I won't have any idea of how successful my work is until September when the book clubs meet to select the books they want to read and discuss. After several thousand e-mails, surely some of the libraries will consider our offer.
What may prove to be a problem is that I offered to Skype with the book clubs to answer questions and do readings live. If too many contact me, what will I do? My evenings would no longer be my own!
Since the beginning of our blog, I've sent e-mails to librarians, suggesting that they use our short stories in their book clubs. In July 2011, while on my western tour as a storyteller for the summer reading program, I met the librarian at Augusta, Montana, population 284. Because her patrons were too busy and too few to have a book club, she started a short story club. The readers came to the club prepared because while they didn't have time to read a book each month, they could read a short story.
My suggestion is that they use our short stories. I send ten e-mails every evening. So far I've covered the libraries in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota.
Most of the time, this requires me to go into the library websites to find an e-mail contact. Those websites are the entry to the library for upcoming generations. Some are brilliantly designed, some barely function. Sometimes, I am appalled at how few libraries a state has and how difficult its internet systems are to navigate.
The Iowa Library Association has a directory that is the best I've seen. I've sent 400 e-mails to Iowa libraries so far, and I'm only a little over half done. It seems every small village there has a library. Iowa students always score high in educational tests, and I can see why. It can't be the politicians who show up in the state early in the presidential election year, they certainly don't do anything to raise the intelligence level of their audiences. I give credit to the Iowa library and school systems.
I won't have any idea of how successful my work is until September when the book clubs meet to select the books they want to read and discuss. After several thousand e-mails, surely some of the libraries will consider our offer.
What may prove to be a problem is that I offered to Skype with the book clubs to answer questions and do readings live. If too many contact me, what will I do? My evenings would no longer be my own!
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