Up Close & Personal with 'The Shade Under the Mango Tree' Evy Journey #upcloseandpersonal @eholychair #bookpromotion #bookpublishing

Up Close & Personal is one of The Writer’s Life newest features. Here we feature authors who don't mind spilling the beans and telling what it's really like to write, get published and sell that book. Today's guest is Evy Journey, author of the contemporary fiction novel, THE SHADE UNDER THE MANGO TREE. You can visit Evy's website at www.evyjourney.net.

On Writing…

We’re all wired for language. And I think some of us are wired to write. That’s my way of saying that those of us who love words have some kind of innate desire to write. Your particular situation helps as well. Like the female protagonist of The Shade Under the Mango Tree, I was an only girl and I retreated into reading and writing. My first published piece was a short story in a high-school paper, though I don’t remember anymore what it was about. Later, I became its editor-in-chief, so I wrote editorials. Later still, I wrote grad-school papers, a thesis, a dissertation, and then I worked as a social science researcher. I wrote research reports addressed to a specific audience. A few got published in trade journals or were presented at conferences. So, I can argue that I’ve made my living by being mired in words.

On Being Published…

Here’s what happened when I got the first print copy of my first book. I wrote about it in a blog post on my author site, https://evyjourrney.net.

I tore open the cardboard packaging much too eagerly and my palms smarted from the vigorous peeling off of unyielding adhesive tapes. But it’s worth the rawness of a few minutes. It was when I had this book in hand, released from its cardboard packaging, that its meaning finally hit me. It is heavy for its size and the glossy cover—smooth, cool, yet flexible—has an organic substance absent from the image you see on a screen. I read the title and my name at least twice, leafed through the pages slowly, and skimmed through thousands of words. My words, in print. It was then I understood that, yes, I am a novel writer. Maybe not a successful one, by usual pecuniary standards. But a novelist, nevertheless, by virtue of those thousands of words that could take you to another time and space inhabited by characters and events that live only within that palpable, solid, and beautiful codex.

I have since written five more novels, the latest of which is The Shade Under the Mango Tree. It’s about a young woman, brought up in an affluent family, who hungers for adventure. But one where she can also make some difference. She journeys into a country steeped in ancient culture and mired in a deadly history. It isn’t what she had imagined. In the end, she decides to write a memoir about her experience.

On Publishing Industry…

I’m self-published. I like the independence and it suits my work. I tend to write cross-genre fiction and I found early on that traditional publishers require specific tropes. Tropes that sell.

On Marketing…

Marketing is where I fail. You’ve probably heard too many writers say that. I’m an introvert, uncomfortable selling myself—which is what marketing gurus tell you you must do. They say, you’re selling yourself as a brand and each book is just a manifestation of that brand. I can’t—I refuse—to think of myself as a brand, like Coca Cola or Cheerios. I wish marketing was something I could just hand over to someone else to do. But since that’s unlikely to happen, I try. For this book, I’ve signed on to this book tour as a part of the launch. And I have a new-in-books promotion two weeks after book release. After that, I’ll purchase advertising from different providers to do a stacked promotion to last over a period of time. Maybe I’ll buy Amazon or BookBub or Facebook ads. It’ll depend on finances.

On Goals and Dreams…

First, please tell me what “being successful” means. I’m guessing the usual criterion is dollars (or euros or yen, etc) you earn. In that case, all available data will tell you only a very small (maybe miniscule) percentage of books make money. Success, by that definition, is less about writing than it is about marketing. It usually rewards celebrities or those involved with a celebrity or in some well-publicized affair or scheme who write tell-all books. Or to already well-known writers, or maybe those who write erotica. And yet, just writing and finishing a book is an accomplishment. And fiction can be an ode to creativity or inventiveness, a uniquely human capability of a high order. But who counts finishing a book or doing a creative piece as success?

I write because it makes me feel alive. And because I can. I write to be read. I would give away all my books like I used to give away some of my art work. Until someone told me that in doing so I cheapen the work of artists who make a career of art. Maybe, the same is true for writers. In any case, all I can say to aspiring writers is, first of all, ask yourself why you’re doing it. If you’re doing it for the money, then you must study what types of books sell in your chosen genre and try to write one of those. If you write because you think you have something to say, then prepare to be disappointed where money is concerned. Or maybe study your potential audience and write what would benefit or resonate with them. Then, hopefully, they’ll buy. When the writing is done, market, market, and market your book and try to enjoy that process.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: THE SHADE UNDER THE MANGO TREE
Author: Evy Journey
Publisher: Sojourner Books
Pages: 330
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home in California and Hawaii where she grew up. An adventure in which she can also make some difference. She ends up in place where she gets more than she bargained for.

Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s journal at a café. He has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it. But they don’t stop him. His decision to go on reading changes his life.

Months later, they meet at a bookstore where Luna works and which Lucien frequents. Fascinated by his stories and his adventurous spirit, Luna volunteers for the Peace Corps. Assigned to Cambodia, she lives with a family whose parents are survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide forty years earlier. What she goes through in a rural rice-growing village defies anything she could have imagined. Will she leave this world unscathed?