Meanwhile, on the Foothills of Parnassus...

     For you poor, eternally-disappointed souls who have been contributing to P'ville these past several years and have come here day after day to find no new examples of my so-called wit and wisdom, I profusely apologize for the paucity of political posts (How's that for alliteration?).
     As always, I'm endeavoring to set aside time for the type of blogging you've come to expect of me (especially since the midterms are coming up, one that'll, obviously, set the tone for President Obama's agenda for the rest of his term). But to those of you who've been following me on a regular basis know, I'm also getting my ass kicked by my current novel, TATTERDEMALION, which I'd previously described as "a special kind of special." There are very good indie novels out there by some very talented people but my book absolutely deserves a traditional publisher.
     It's a given in the book biz that a compelling trailer will elevate your book's sales and if it's professionally done, it shows how serious you are about marketing your book. Everything nowadays has a trailer. Along with movies, TV series, video games and books have trailers. And some of the book trailers I've seen are pretty slick.
     Yesterday, I was doing a casual search for voice-over artists and hit pay dirt pretty quickly when I ran across Debbie Irwin. A Chicago native, Debbie's now a New Yorker who does audiobooks, promotional videos and, among her favorite projects, book trailers. In fact, here are two samples of her work in that medium she's done recently. To give you an idea of the level talent and prestige of the clientele I'm speaking of, she's also the official voice of the Statue of Liberty.
     So I touched base with her yesterday through her website, told her a bit of what I had in mind. She wrote back, asking for particulars. I told her what kind of a book TATTERDEMALION was and that I'd like her to narrate the trailer as Annie Oakley, one of the major characters in my novel. She seems to be pretty taken with the concept and we've been bouncing ideas off each other since yesterday and even followed each other on Twitter.
     As for the question of compensation, she said her usual fee for a 30-45 second-long trailer would be $400, which I told her was somewhat out of my league. As she seems to believe in my project, she's willing to haggle and negotiate but I don't think I can secure her considerable services on my current budget. Kickstarter, which was a huge disappointment for me the first and only time I ever tried it, wouldn't be a good candidate for crowd sourcing. After all, it's just a trailer I need funded. What incentives could I offer?
     So, once again, I'm appealing to your fine folks here at P'ville  for help. As much as I love to blog about politics, I'd love even more to be a fulltime novelist who can actually support himself as one within an actual vocation and not just an unpaid avocation. Having a world-class voice over artist like Debbie Irwin would immediately set me apart from most of the pack and show potential readers that I'm serious and professional about marketing my book to a wide commercial demographic.
     Obviously, once the trailer's graphics are done and Debbie's voice looped into it, I'll be posting the results on Youtube, hence Pottersville, so you'll be able to see and hear what your kind donations paid for. We can cover the rent for another month and the car still needs some serious work but right now my focus is in getting this trailer done and sent to Philip Spitzer, who'd invited me to resubmit my book to his literary agency after I trimmed it down.
     So, whatever you can do to help us out would, as always, be tremendously appreciated (And donations of $50 or more will get you [if you live in the continental US], if you so choose, a free, signed paperback copy of the finished TATTERDEMALION shipped at my expense).