A friend of mine called me from his new home out west where it is much warmer than Illinois. He wanted to congratulate me on my book The Brown and White. He recently bought a copy without any arm twisting. It was good to have his kind words because one of the main characters in this fictionalized biography passed away about a year ago. Like a lot of other people, I am coping with the loss as we approach Christmas. I feel good that I got to tell a little of his story along with mine and I know he liked the book. The Brown and White tells our story about high school life on the south side of Chicago in the late 1960s. It's a funny story with a dose of lost love and drama. I suppose I can say it is "based on fact."
Of course, when I wrote the book we thought we lived through some tough times, but kids today have lived through some unimaginable horrors. But my story is my story and it is about times as they were back then.
My friend is a marketing/sales guy who said I really soft pedaled the book to the extreme. I suppose my sales efforts have been understated, but at the same time true to myself. I have this idea in the back of my head that some day someone from the movies will give me a call and ask if I am interested in selling the story. I've joked about this for a few years now.
It's hard to be too confident in promoting your work these days. I am just an average guy who wrote my story over 40 years and then published my book. I had plenty of time to make it better. In good conscience I can't brag about a 200 page work that I took four decades to write. In my publishing career I once had an academic with a rough manuscript on a hot topic that he would send my way only if I could produce it as a textbook in six months. I got his book done as required. I worked on another book that once came in a few thousand pages with hundreds of very difficult formulas and reams of pages on government programs and regulatory materials. I was lucky to get a lot of help from a great editor with a math degree and we got it out several months later. I think we sold a dozen or so editions.
It's tough to sell a personal story because everyone has their own. What made mine more interesting than most is the times and my school characters. My add copy reads:
The Brown and White tells the story of Collin Callaghan's freshman year at a Chicago Catholic High School. Collin is a white boy who is living in turbulent times in a changing city. He clings to his neighborhood and his family as he heads out each day with his classmates on the Brown and White, the ancient school bus driven by free-spirited Willie. Memorable characters abound as this story unfolds. Collin's loveable family, especially his Irish Catholic policeman father and his Irish immigrant mother face life together. Collin and classmates blaze their own humorous and passionate trail through the late 1960s. A unique cast of terrific teachers are there to see the boys through. Laughs and life meet readers head on as they travel on the Brown and White.
If you read this and are intrigued by story, take a chance on a copy, it's $12.50. A few of my kids spend that on side trip to Starbucks when they buy a few of those gigantic flavored coffees. That is about as strong a pitch as I can make!
Lawrence Norris
sportingchancepress.com
