It has been a little over a month since Saving Magnolia has been in release as an e-book on Amazon Kindle. Sales have been slow. The few sales I have at the moment have been mostly to close friends and fellow travelers. I have a print version (on demand) pending, waiting for me to find the time to come up with a back cover and a spine. Some will blame procrastination on my part. They're probably right. Too, I have been busy writing on a couple of other ideas while at the same time trying to figure out if the third book in the Magnolia series (The Magnolia Connection) sounds plausible.
Anyhoo, it's time for a little self-promotion on a Saturday afternoon.
I have classified Saving Magnolia as a piece of general fiction. Not really a good place to be when selling a book (according to the many third parties who are willing to give out generous advice for a fee), especially when the audiences are looking for romance, or an adventure, or a techno thriller. Part of the reason I sat on the book for so long is that I couldn't decide what niche to put it in. My daughter told me that because the hero and the heroine get together at the end, my story could be considered a romance - but the thrust of the story is not about the romance.
It's about radio.
People who know me know that I spent roughly twenty years of my life working as a radio announcer/disk jokey in southern Ohio and western West Virginia. The title to this blog - And all the records you can eat - comes from one of my co-workers in West Virginia who stated (truthfully) that jobs in local radio paid minimum wage and all the records you could eat.
Despite the pay scale, I stuck with it for far longer than I should have - finally leaving after the encroachment of satellite automation and relaxed ownership rules which have led to much of radio being run by mega corporations (read Clear Channel - now I (heart) radio). The radio station where I both started and ended my broadcasting career is now owned by the aforementioned mega corporation, as are all of the other independent radio stations in the same town. They're all crammed into a small building just off the Ross County courthouse, next door to where there used to be the state liquor store.
I don't begrudge the people who are there their due. Dan Ramey (current morning personality at WBEX) and I have had several conversations about the current state of radio in the past year and a half - he certainly has prospered in the business in a way that most of us who passed through the doors of that station and others like it could have hardly dreamed of doing. He has a retirement plan, a medical plan and job security. In the past, most people left radio with no prior notice... usually being handed their license and their final paycheck while being kicked out the door.
I am, however, a romantic. I loved those old days, as tenuous as they were. I met with numerous interesting people in the business and elsewhere who make appearances in the book. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Maybe I'm rambling a bit. Point is that the business of radio is changing, but it's not changing as much as some of the big corporations think it is.
Saving Magnolia is set in a small town with a small town radio station. What makes it different from other stations in the general area is Zeke. Zeke drives the radio station and drives the town. He's older than dirt. Everyone knows him personally from having listened to him or having seen him while he worked his magic in the front window of Zeke's Cafe.
Zeke is a charismatic character based on a couple of radio people I have known. One, Bill Spahr was the morning radio announcer at WBEX when I worked there back in the early seventies. For all intents and purposes, Bill hired me. Once or twice a week, Bill would take a remote transmitter down to the Big Bear supermarket in Chillicothe's Central Center, set up a table and spin records. His presence attracted a loyal customer base for the store and recognition from the community.
(At one time, the company which owned the store attempted to move the store manager out so that they could give another manager a shot at running what was supposedly the most profitable store in the chain. When word of the transfer got out, shoppers set up picket lines - essentially shutting down the store until the local manager was re-instated.)
Another radio personality in Portsmouth, Ohio, Zeke Mullins, was the other inspiration for Zeke Collins. Zeke never wanted for work the entire time he rattled around the Portsmouth area. One of the fellows I worked with in West Virginia, Steve Crabtree, got his start working radio in Portsmouth. He told stories about Zeke and Zeke's following. There was certainly quite a bit of charisma surrounding the man - charisma I transferred over to my fictional Zeke.
I manufactured a back story for Zeke Collins involving a building much like those I have seen both in Ohio and in Texas. Part of the story had to do with a woman from Bristol, Virginia who left her home when she found out that her husband had cheated on her while he was in Italy during the Second World War. She built a successful business which lured the radio personality to the small town of Magnolia. He bought the business when she decided to go "back home" and maintained it and her recipe for home-made biscuits and sausage gravy until the day he died.
Saving Magnolia is the story involving the death of Zeke Collins and the uncertainty in the days which followed.
Zeke knew what was coming and he prepared for the inevitable. He chose an heir and it would be up to that heir to take over what Zeke had built so Magnolia would continue to prosper.
There's a little more involved, though.
In my next installment, I will introduce you to the hero and the heroine of the story. One hint, I saw the female lead of Saving Magnolia for all of a minute, one time, in a home improvement store here in Texas.
I promise the next installment in a matter of days.
Be Seeing You!
bdharrell
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