Knowing why you write to guide your marketing + Poison
Plus today's fiction: Success/Perfect Passed variations on a story
Headline
Derek Doepker gives away a lot of excellent information, with a pitch for his services as a marketing mentor. If I ever hire one, I’ll probably contact him first. I couldn’t make his webinar on podcasts this week, but signed up so I could access the replay - which was available for a limited time - an excellent plan if you do webinars.
He advocates finding a few marketing methods you enjoy and do them well. As for podcasts (and newsletters), they’re about building relationships rather than selling. As he went on describing how to choose & pitch to podcasts, I realized knowing why you write is essential to determine what success looks like and how to get there.
When I was a kid, my friends spent their summers at cottages in Canada. I took home a foot-high stack of books from the library each week. While entertaining me, those books also introduced me to adventures, ways of living, ways of thinking, that I’d never have experienced in suburbia. They helped me understand the world and left me open to understanding people with far different life experiences. That’s what I want to do. So being a guest on podcasts would be an excellent way for me to further that goal. Even if they don’t buy my books, the conversation would hopefully have the same effect on listeners.
You may write for another reason. You may have information you want to share with a specific audience. You might not be sure you want to share what you’ve written.
Know why you write and use that knowledge to guide your marketing choices.
Writers
Crime Writers
Poison was a popular topic this week in the discussion groups I follow. I have a 1993 book The Writer’s Complete CRIME Reference Book which is probably useful only if I write a crime story from that era! Other resources recommended were: The Public Safety Writers Association and The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum - a history of forensic medicine.
Was my book pirated?
This list from The Atlantic is probably not exhaustive, but it’s a start.
Classes
Jane Friedman has been a resource for me since I started this journey nearly twenty years ago. Her next online course is through Writer’s Digest, so there is a charge, but hey, she gives away so much information, if it’s in your budget and info you need, take a look: Effective Book Marketing for Any Author, 9/25/2025
Reviews
Calling for books to review! Use the contact form on my website to submit a pitch for your book (or one you really liked) and a link to its sales page - preferably where I can read a sample. Include your contact information so I can let you know if I want a full copy of the book to read. Full details are in the August 25, 2025 newsletter.
Markets
Emily Harstone has compiled a list of book publishers who accept pitches directly from authors and is offering it for free. I’ve only looked at this briefly - not all of these “traditional” publishers are showing up in my other marketing resources. So, my standard advice applies. Prior to submitting to any company:
Look for complaints or beware notices.
Review their website thoroughly.
Consider: Do they ask you for money? That’s not traditional.
Share your discoveries here:
Readers
Here are two versions of a story idea. In the first, it’s told by the teenager. In the second, she’s an adult looking back. Let me know which you like better. Writers: take a look at the parallels in the structure, particularly the ending.
Perfect Passed
“Don’t end up like me.”
My mother says this every time I bring home a B, before every date, any time I sound like I’d put a boy before achieving my dreams. She even says it in front of my father, which seems kind of mean, since they’ve been together since they were in high school and she’s never had to work like most of my friends’ mothers. He adores her. But she didn’t ever get her diploma, and she’s always telling me about how she was going to be an archeologist, except that she got knocked up when she was fifteen.
I’ll tell her I’ve got it, then she’ll add the piece about how you never know you’re making a life-altering decision until the moment’s passed and you see what you’ve lost.
That’s why I don’t drink or do drugs. The one time I went to one of those parties, three different guys tried to get my clothes off of me, two of them at the same time! Since I was sober, I started necking with the littler one until the big one left us to it and I could get away.
I walked home instead of waiting for my ride.
Now I’ve been dating Ben for almost two years and everyone knows we’re a couple, so he’s the only one I have to worry about. He doesn’t try to get me drunk, but when we’re kissing, I get so far gone that sometimes he’s gotten his hand up under my shirt, but as soon as he gets where he wants to go, I snap out of it.
I know messing around with that kind of stuff is no big deal to most people, and I might even be able to do it with someone else if Ben and I weren’t exclusive, but with him it’s too dangerous. It’s not that I don’t trust him; it’s that I wouldn’t want him to stop. And I don’t want to end up like my mother. I got the message.
“When is Ben supposed to be here?” my mother asks.
“About five minutes ago,” I answer.
She seems more upset than I am that he’s late. His car’s in the shop, so he’s depending on a ride from one of his parents. We’re going to hike to a picnic spot on some property they own, a couple miles from our little farm. All the time we’ve been dating, I never realized they had a patch of woods that close to our place.
“What is your father doing now?” complains Mom.
She goes outside and bugs him about picking weeds out of the lawn. She’s always nagging him about something. I stay in the house until I hear gravel in the driveway. Both of Ben’s parents are in the car. Much to my surprise, they get out and start chatting with mine. Of course they know each other – it’s a small town – but they aren’t really friends or anything. They travel in different circles is what my mother would say.
Ben gets the picnic basket out of their trunk. There’s a wool blanket underneath it. He reaches for it.
“We don’t need that,” I tell him. “We’ve got an emergency blanket in our car that’s easier to carry. It has a strap on it.”
“Is it nice to sit on, though?”
“Yeah, it’s waterproof on one side and fleece on the other.”
“That’ll be better than this.”
We say good-bye to our parents and start walking up the road. He’s carrying the basket; I’ve got our blanket slung over my shoulder. When I look back, the four of them are standing there together, watching us like parents watching kindergarteners walk into their first day of school. I point this out to Ben; he shrugs, smiles, and takes my hand. We walk to the end of my road, then another mile, then follow a logging road across a meadow and into the woods.
“I’ve never been this way,” I tell him. “Not even when I was a kid and hiked all over the place. Do you come here a lot?”
“Mostly when we’re cutting firewood.”
“How come you’ve never brought me here before?”
“We’ve always been doing other things.”
It sounds like a part answer, but that could be me. I tend to make mysteries out of nothing, or so I’ve been told.
“This is a nice spot,” I say.
“No, there’s a special one.”
We come to a berry patch and he leads me single file on a narrow trail into the center. There’s a circle of grass there, outlined by stones to keep the berries back. The dense bushes make it completely private and other-worldly.
“Did you make this spot?”
“No, someone else did a long time ago. We just keep cutting back the berries when we come out for wood.”
“So your family comes out here for picnics?”
“Not really,” he answers as we spread the blanket on the grass. “When we were little, we’d play in here while they cut firewood. That way they’d know exactly where we were… Are you hungry?”
“Not really, not yet.”
“Me neither.”
He takes my hand and we sit on the blanket listening to the insects humming and the birds talking to each other. I lean into him. It feels so right to be together.
When he speaks, it’s almost a whisper. “Have you decided where to apply for college?”
We’re going into our senior year of high school. The best schools have the earliest deadlines. I know where I want to go – I’ve printed out their application form – but it will mean moving far away. I don’t want to ruin the day, so I shake my head.
“I was hoping you’d apply for State. I know you could get into a better school, but that way we could still be together.”
“I know,” I say.
I’d really like to be with him, but the chances of my making it through college without getting married and pregnant would be mighty slim. Besides, I want college to be an adventure, and I don’t want to study for four years, then walk away from it instead of having a career that takes me to all sorts of interesting places.
“You could still do all the things you want to do.” We’ve been together so long, he reads my mind like that. He continues, “I’m going to teach math. I can do that anywhere, even other countries if that’s what you want.”
He pulls me to him and puts his arms around me, but still back enough to look right into my eyes until I roll mine and grin.
“Yes, that’s what I want,” I admit.
He kisses me until I groan and tilt my head back for air, but he keeps on kissing me – my neck, inside my collar, then he’s opening my shirt and kissing me right above the bra, and I’m lost…
We’ve both been shirtless for quite a while, making out like crazy. I’ve been arching against him, pushing my pelvis against his, wanting him so much I’ve forgotten to be scared that we’ve gone so much farther than ever before. Then he gently trails kisses down past my navel and runs his fingers inside the band of my pants.
The snap pops open and my brain pops into gear. “No, stop.”
“I’ve got a condom.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
We’ve talked about condoms before, as a someday maybe sort of thing, and I’ve always expressed fear of having a broken-condom baby that would end all my plans.
Ben is a gentleman, and he really does care about me. So he stops. I turn my back to him to put on my bra and shirt. When I turn around, I can’t look him in the face. I’m not sure whether I’m more embarrassed by what I did or by not finishing what we started. He closes the still-full the basket. His shirt’s back on. I shake out the blanket. He helps me fold it and when our fingers touch, it burns. My glance flickers up to his, and we both take a step away from each other.
The walk back to my house seems much shorter, maybe because we’re walking faster, not holding hands or pausing to kiss. Ben’s parents are there waiting for him in the driveway. They couldn’t have been there the whole time, could they? Talking with my parents? Of course, we didn’t really eat. Maybe it wasn’t that long.
His mother searches his face, then glares at me, though she’s still smiling. She’s never used this look on me before. It’s deadly. “Back so soon?” Her voice is sweet.
“Yeah,” says Ben.
He opens the back door and gets in with the basket.
“See you at school,” he says without a glance.
School doesn’t start for another week. My heart sinks. They drive away and he doesn’t look back. If we’d thrown angry words at each other, there’d be some hope. But I know it’s over.
I turn to find my parents watching me.
My father has his arm around my mother. She’s crying.
“I wanted it to be perfect for you,” she says.
“What?”
“Ben’s so right for you.”
When I shake my head quickly, it’s like puzzle pieces falling into place. “You planned this? All of you?”
“It was going to be perfect for you. Not like it was for us…”
“Stop!” I shout, then lower my voice. “You all planned my big deflowering day? Did you arrange for an announcement in the newspaper, too?”
“Did he propose?” my mother asks, obviously confused. “I didn’t think he’d do that until you were at least in college.”
“What about not doing what you did?” I demand.
“You’re seventeen, not fifteen, and you’ve been dating Ben for two years. You’re made for each other. I wanted your first time to be perfect.”
She pulls away from my father and runs into the house. He watches her, then turns to me with his hands in his pockets and sighs.
“Love’s important, kiddo.” Then he turns and follows the love of his life.
I retreat to the hay loft in the barn, where the one friendly cat has a litter of kittens. She rubs up against me as I watch her babies test their wobbly legs.
My tears come out of a new empty spot inside of me.
Success
“Congratulations.”
My face is frozen in a broad smile as I nod and say “Thank you” again and again. This party is for me. I’ve done it. I have succeeded in rising to upper management in this male-heavy tech company.
In college I learned to dress in jeans and shirts that masked my sexuality. One brief fling taught me the folly of mixing romance and work. So from my first day at this company, I made them focus on my skills rather than my looks. I worked hard and spent my evenings studying new trends.
This morning, my mother called. “I came home from shopping and he was there on the floor. I called 911 but I knew it was too late.”
I told her I’ll fly in for my father’s funeral. “But if I get this promotion, I won’t be able to stay more than a day or two.”
“Of course.” She gave up expecting more from me long ago.
At last the party winds down and I can go home.
“Big day tomorrow!” I tell them as I exit. “I want to get a good night sleep!”
Yawns punctuate my bedtime routine. But when the light is out, my mind won’t stop.
“Don’t end up like me.” My mother’s words echo in my head.
She said that every time I brought home any grade short of an A, before every date, any time I sounded like I’d put a boy before achieving my dreams. She said it in front of my father, who adored her. They’d been together since they were in high school and she never had to work. But she always complained about him, about her life. She was going to be an archeologist, except she got knocked up when she was fifteen and never got a diploma.
I took her advice to heart. Until I went away to college, I never let a boy get any of my clothes off. Except that one time, with Ben.
I curl up around the extra pillow, remembering.
We were seventeen and had been dating for two years. I’d get so far gone that sometimes he’d get his hand up under my shirt, but as soon as he got where he wanted to go, I’d snap out of it and put on the brakes before he could do anything more. I didn’t want to end up like my mother.
I’d gotten her message.
My mind spins ahead to that day my life changed. A beautiful August afternoon, the sky blue, the sun warm, just enough breeze to avoid being too hot.
“Don’t eat lunch. I’m bringing a picnic. I have a special place to show you.” Ben was always thinking of sweet things to do for me.
Mom was more nervous than me when he was late. I stayed in the house while she went out to watch for the car. I waited until I heard gravel in the driveway to go out.
I was surprised to see Ben’s parents had given him a ride, and even more surprised when they got out of the car to chat with mine. They weren’t really friends. They traveled in different circles. We started walking up the road, Ben carrying a picnic basket. I glanced back.
I can still see them watching us like parents watching kindergarteners walk into their first day of school. I pointed this out to Ben; he shrugged, smiled, and took my hand. We walked to the end of my road, then another mile, then followed a logging road across a meadow and into the woods.
I’d never been that way. I hadn’t realized his family owned property this close to ours. We came to a berry patch and he took me along a narrow trail into the center, where there was a circle of grass outlined by stones to keep the berries back. The dense bushes made it completely private and other-worldly.
He said they’d played there as children while the adults cut firewood.
I shift to my back, hugging the pillow to my chest.
I can feel him taking my hand, smell the ripening berries, hear the insects humming and the birds talking to each other.
I roll back onto my side, leaning into the pillow as I remember how right our bodies felt against each other as we talked about college. He knew I planned on applying to Stanford and MIT. I can still hear him. “If you go to State, we can be together.” I said I’d think of applying to nearby State as a backup.
He started kissing me, until I groaned and tilted my head back for air, and he kept on kissing me – my neck, inside my collar, then he was opening my shirt and kissing me right above the bra, and I was lost. My heart pounded as his mouth met mine again and I opened my arms to let him remove my top, then my bra.
Even now, my breasts tingle, remembering the way he looked at me.
I don’t remember how his shirt came off, but I can feel our naked chests against each other in the sun, sliding down onto our sides, arching my pelvis against his, wanting him so much I’d forgotten to be afraid.
Then he gently put me on my back. I can still feel his trail of kisses moving down past my navel and his fingers slide inside the band of my pants.
The snap popped open and my brain popped into gear.
That was the end of that. I wasn’t willing to risk a broken-condom baby. I had plans for my life. I got dressed with my back to him. When I turned around, he had his clothes on and the basket packed, ready to leave. I never met his eyes. I was embarrassed – by how far we’d gone or maybe by not finishing what we started.
We walked back to my house, not touching, not talking. His parents were still there. His mother searched his face, then glared at me.
Ben looked away as he said, “See you at school.”
Blinking cannot hold back the tears coming to me as I remember.
They drove away and he didn’t look back. If we’d thrown angry words at each other, there’d have been some hope. But it was over. I turned to find my parents watching me. My father had his arm around my mother. She was crying.
The conversation replays in my head.
“I wanted it to be perfect for you,” she sobbed.
“What?”
“Ben’s so right for you.”
I thump my head against my pillow, remembering how it felt like puzzle pieces falling into place.
I was stunned. “You planned this? All of you?”
Dad shrugged silently.
Mom blubbered. “It was going to be perfect. Not like it was for us…”
“What about not doing what you did?” The words came out in a shriek.
“You’re seventeen, not fifteen, and you’ve been dating Ben for two years. You’re made for each other. I wanted your first time to be perfect.”
She pulled away from my father and rushed into the house.
He watched her, then turned to me with his hands in his pockets and sighed. “Love’s important, kiddo.” Then he turned and followed the love of his life.
That’s my memory of my father. He never talked much.
My heart aches, but I snuffle, wipe my eyes, and flip the pillow over to the dry side. Tomorrow’s my first day as a top-level executive. I am a successful woman. I’ll take three days off for the funeral of a man whose most important words came too late.
Don’t forget to post reviews for books you’ve read. Encourage others to read the books you’ve liked - including libraries. Read the other books you haven’t read. There’s more info about each novel at my website.
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