A Story Worth Telling

Who did you talk to about your book today?

The power and influence of our stories must not be diminished, but in order for them to have an impact, we must first conquer the fear of telling them. Our stories are not meant to be hidden away but shared with others who may find value in them.

Telling others about your work is not an attention-seeking act; rather, it is a necessary step for your work to reach its full potential. Without spreading the word and gaining an audience, our stories will remain unknown and unread. So, who have you told about your story? And more importantly, who can you tell today?

Start by sharing with those you see in person. Naturally integrate your book into conversations, allowing others to discover and learn about your work organically. What you wrote is worth sharing, and what better way to do so than through conversation? This is a simple, easygoing approach that can lead to meaningful connections and opportunities for your story to reach new readers.

Spread the word across all of your social media platforms (if you feel comfortable doing so). Share the news about your book on Instagram, Twitter (X), Facebook, and LinkedIn – ensure that everyone is aware! Promoting your work is not an act of shameless self-promotion, but rather a means of announcing the availability of your product. Social media serves as a platform for readers and fellow authors to connect with you as a professional. It is also where your audience begins to take shape, forming a community of book enthusiasts and eager fans awaiting your next release.

Create a website!

A website can be a powerful marketing tool, bringing all of your work together in one space – how cool is that? Think of it as your own presidential library, where you can showcase your work and maintain control over your digital image.

It can feel vulnerable to share our books with others, and it is natural to have reservations about potential criticism or negative comments. However, for every excuse we come up with to avoid sharing our work, there is one important reason why we must get the word out: it will help us sell more books. By spreading the news about our work, we can build an audience who will appreciate the efforts we put into making them aware of our incredible book.

Exercise: Today, make an effort to tell 10 people about your book. This could be through conversation, a social media post, email, or even a handwritten letter or card sent by mail. Take this opportunity to share your book with others and watch your audience grow.

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And now a fiction break

The Last Time

By Liz Dubelman

It was 2:00 in the afternoon and Dino was still in bed. Today was his son Mikey's eighteenth birthday and tomorrow Dino was going to prison. Mikey had come into Dino’s room a few hours ago with skateboard in hand. 

“Dad,” Mikey said softly. “I’m going to meet the guys at the skatepark. Unless…” Dino rolled over and pretended not to hear him.  Unless? Unless what? Mikey was such a douchey wimp, Dino thought. Say what you mean, man. You’re eighteen, for God’s sake.  When I was eighteen,  I bought a dilapidated building in Jersey City, and in less than a year I’d figured my way into the storage business. Mikey slipped out of Dino’s room, half relieved and half regretful. 

Mary, Dino's wife, was also still in bed but in a different room. Her room. She had told Dino he snored and she had to sleep alone. She would sneak out to get a small meal when she knew no one was around. She had books, a television, and a laptop. A cleaning woman came in from noon to four. She left her dishes outside her door. 

Mary was a mess, Dino thought. The bitch was paranoid and phobic and he surmised, on a modicum of evidence, that she was on a wide array of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications to combat her anti-people condition. Weak. 

When Dino was convicted of tax evasion, Mary hired a prison consultant named Fred to help him prepare for life behind bars. Fred called four or five times, but Dino didn’t take his calls. He didn’t need advice.

Dino wandered around his tarnished colonial in his boxer shorts and wife-beater, his big belly hanging out and the hair on his chest silver and thick, mocking the few strands of hair on his head that he never combed. He wondered what prison would be like. Would it be just another place with guys he could run? Dino was sixty-nine, overweight, and soft, but he thought of himself as big, scary, and tough. 

The doorbell rang. Dino opened his door a crack and spied on the scene. To Dino’s surprise, Mary left her room dressed in a beige shift dress and low heels. Her hair was pulled back but she wore no makeup. She answered the door and invited Fred in. Dino quickly retreated to his bed. Mary came in, her voice soft and expecting nothing. 

“Fred is here. The prison consultant. I thought we should talk to him before you have to go.”

“You talk to him,” Dino said.

“I thought this would be a good time to ask some questions, while Mikey’s out.”

“Mikey’s always out,” Dino said.

“Maybe he could help.” Mary waited for a reply, acutely aware that Fred was waiting.

“You ask questions,” Dino said, closing his eyes. When he opened them she was gone and he could hear the muted conversation float through the house. He did have concerns. Would the towels be thin and useless? Would the chapel be a safe place to be? Was he going to die in prison from a disease he contracted from the germs and the rodents? He secretly hoped Mary would intuit his questions and he could overhear the answers. He would not allow Fred, or especially Mary, to see his vulnerability. That would be worse than incarceration.

Dino thought he would be okay in prison because he was malleable. He was able to abandon his personality for another if it got him what he wanted. That's how he got Mary to marry him. His first wife, Elena, had just died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Dino had found her when he got home late one night. She was in the kitchen making his dinner in case he came home to eat with her. (He hadn’t.) She bled out on the black and white linoleum. The same floor that was still in the kitchen.

He met Mary three months after Elena passed. She was twenty-three years his junior, a comprimario at the Metropolitan Opera. Dino hated opera and had no idea what Mary did. It seemed she was some sort of support player. 

Mary reminded Dino of the thing that held the incense that the priest would swing around at mass. It was gilded, exotic with a little playful motion. He knew she was the only thing that would erase Elena. They married when Mary was four months pregnant. 

Dino never understood how he ended up with a son like Mikey. He blamed Mary and the world. Texting, computers, and television made Mikey stupid and insular. When he was ten, Dino took him to Gleason's Gym to teach him to box. The boy was weak and uncoordinated. He couldn't even keep his arms up, just absorbing the punches like a sponge until he collapsed in a worthless heap. Dino was so embarrassed that he never went back to that gym, and it was all Mikey’s fault.

Dino sauntered stealthily down the hall to eavesdrop on Mary and Fred. “Drugs, gambling, and alcohol all lead to violence. Tell him to mind his own business and don’t expose anything about himself.” Did he think Dino was dumb? He knew all that. “And stay away from church. That’s where predators hang out looking for weak people.” Shit. Dino’s plan had been to become religious, to go to Mass every day, to study the Bible. … 

A thurible! That was what that incense thing was called, Dino remembered. 

“What about Mikey?” Mary asked Fred. “Should he visit? He’s just eighteen today.”

“My advice is to focus on Mikey’s birthday today and keep him from seeing his father humiliated in prison.”

Mikey wasn't smart or clever. He was average, and that was the worst thing he could be in Dino's eyes. He got Bs and Cs in school. He didn't have a pretty girlfriend. He was a nothing. He was going to go to junior college to "find himself," whatever that fucking meant. Mary had arranged it. She wanted him to learn coding, but Dino didn't think he even had the smarts to work at the Shop-Rite. 

Last year on Mikey's birthday, Dino had futilely tried to make a connection with him. "What do you want to be?" he asked.

"Happy," Mikey said, and Dino knew right then that there was nothing between them. 

Still, prison. It was that storm that Dino could see in the distance, with a heavy wind bringing it closer. A million things ran through his mind. Why was he going to prison? Okay, maybe he didn't pay all his taxes but he gave back in other ways. He once beat up a high school kid half his age who was rumored to be selling coke. No punk was going to sell drugs in this nice suburban community. 

Fucking  prison. He had trouble wrapping his mind around being surrounded by criminals. He thought about running. He wanted to go to Italy and live out his days by the sea, away from his family, but he didn't think he'd get past the TSA. In the old days, he could have, but now he couldn't be sure. He thought about killing himself but that was a mortal sin. Another chance not worth taking. Six years. What a waste of time. He wondered what prison would smell like. He imagined it smelled like the zoo.

Years ago, when Dino opened his first storage facility, he had a master key to all the lockers. He wasn't above rummaging or pilfering because it was his building. His clients were lucky to be under his protection. So, on top of the rentals he could make a little bonus from time to time. And the clients could come to him if they needed a loan at the customary rate. Everyone was happy.

Back in the day, he could search through people's stuff with impunity. He thought about what he learned from the things people stored: the cigar box full of photos, the broken toys, the bicycles waiting on repair, the chains for tires. He once found a silver pocket watch with an inscription that said: "Love continues even after life."

This might be the last chance Dino had to influence his son. His only son. Anything could happen. Mikey could die while Dino was in prison. The poor child didn't have the sense of a termite, who at least had a purpose. Dino wanted Mikey to remember him. 

So he got out of bed after Fred left and Mary went back into her room. He made a stop in the bathroom to pee, brush his teeth, and wash up. He stayed in his underwear. He wanted to know Mikey better in the hours he had left. He wanted to give him something to remind him of his old man. So, he searched Mikey's room for a clue. It was sparse and that irked Dino. Stuff was important. It wasn't hard to go through his room. He had nothing. A dresser with a bit of clothes. A closet with some shoes. A bed neatly made. All his music and books were on his phone or laptop, which confounded Dino. And a bedside table which contained a few condoms – that made Dino proud, at least the boy had sex – and …

What was this? A small glass hash pipe? Dino was infuriated. The boy's a fucking drug addict. Never mind that pot was practically legal in New Jersey. Drugs would never be tolerated in Dino's house and it was his house, at least until tomorrow. Who knows what Mary and Mikey would do on their own?

Mikey would be home soon. Dino took the pipe back to his room. He found the pocket watch from all those years ago. This is what he could do for his son. He would teach him to be a man. He was going to save him from the perils of drugs and the losers that came along. He was going to give him values. 

It gets dark early in the winter. The whole house was gray and creaked with the rising wind outside. Dino barged into Mary’s room, where she was watching “The Barefoot Contessa.” He grabbed her by the wrist and made her sit at the kitchen table until Mikey came home. Dino placed the hash pipe and the watch in the center of the table. He looked at Mary. She looked dazed or medicated. God, she had gotten old. 

Mikey didn't come home right away. Dino percolated. He wanted to do the right thing in his last hours as the boss of the family. Mary kept her eyes lowered. It seemed like forever before the door opened, accompanied by a frigid blast of air. Dino bellowed to Mikey to join them in the kitchen. 

"Do you see this?" he asked. He pointed to the glass pipe. Mikey looked at his mother for help with the old man. "Don't you look at her." Dino shouted. Mary never looked up. Dino saw she was staring at her chipped nail polish, which was the same color as her nails. He preferred red polish.

"I wanted to give you something for your birthday," Dino said.

Suddenly, with the force of a 300-pound man, Dino came down hard with a flat hand on the watch. The noise was ear-splitting. Dino lifted his hand and, not even looking at it, held it close to Mikey's face. His palm was sliced, bleeding, and speckled with pieces of the watch hands and mechanism. 

“Look,” he said. “Look what you made me do.”