Maryjane & Caryn Beth school us on publishing, plus a book giveaway



Left to right: Maryjane and Caryn Beth

Introduction by Tracey Meyers

No matter what it is, a relationship, job, etc., getting rejected hurts and can take a toll on ones self-esteem.

After getting "DUMPED", Maryjane Fahey and Caryn Beth Rosenthal decided instead of getting upset, they would help others get over being rejected.  The result is the book, "DUMPED."

With both Maryjane and Caryn Beth having a background in writing, putting together this break-up bible was right up their alley!  

Throughout the process, they both learned a lot about how to take a book concept and turn it into a reality. They are now the co-authors of DUMPED, a breakup bible for women to get off their behinds and over their exes in record time.  AVAILABLE NOW.

Today, Maryjane and Caryn Beth teach us how to turn our dreams of writing a book into a reality.

To learn more about Maryjane and Caryn Beth, visit them at their website, Facebook, Twitter and You Tube.

Thanks to Sellers Publishing, we have two copies of "DUMPED" to giveaway to readers located in the US or Canada.

JUST DO IT
By Maryjane Fahey

Damn that was a good slogan...and so true! When you have a book percolating inside of you – just do it. Don’t get worn out by the publishing world before you even start. Don’t read all the depressing stats on how the industry is in the trash. Just write your book, then think about how to market it when it’s in some kind of tangible form.

Yes, there are lots of decisions to be made like: do you get an agent? Do you self-publish? I can only share what my coauthor, Caryn Beth Rosenthal, and I decided to do and – and we just launched our book, DUMPED, on September 12th with a killer agent and publisher in tow! Woohoo!

We knew we wanted an agent. We knew we did not want the hassle of self-publishing or to have our already crammed closets stuffed with our DUMPED books as well as fuck-me pumps. We knew we were first time authors and needed the support – physically and psychically – of an agent and a publishing house.

We also knew that, in our case, we had a kernel of an idea for a book that was unique. How did we know that? We researched it – thoroughly! And knew our subject and market – intimately.

Caryn and I went through tough breakups: I was with my guy for 7 years and got dumped in a phone call – blind sighted. Caryn left her guy after 10 years...never easy.  Separately, we had each started working on the huge task of getting our “UMPH” back. Together, since we broke up within one week of each other, we were determined to reclaim our fun sexy selves again – and were lucky enough to have each other to lean on. And it took us a year...a bitch of a year. We exchanged movies, astrologists, numerologists, shrinks – and books. But the books we read for guidance were decidedly un-inspirational. They were written by men to begin with – what’s up with that?...and often took us to page 149 for a first tip...not good when you’re desperate for a best friend with some words of wisdom. Overall, the books we found were corny, self-indulgent and sappy. SO not us! Now, there were exceptions…and they are noted in our book. We simply did the grunt work for our readers!

One year after our breakups, when we were celebrating our “brand new spankin’ lives”, it hit us: we needed to share what we learned with other women by writing a fun, sassy, empowering, DIRECT guidebook that would be the opposite of all the self-help tomes we wasted our time reading. We wanted to give our readers a much-needed kick in the ass, and a laugh when they needed it most.

Here’s what we did to get DUMPED out into the world:

1. Wrote the whole damn thing
Instead of writing a proposal, we spent three months writing the entire book. Why bother with a proposal when we knew that the TONE of our book and the attitude would be what differentiated it.

2. Made a dummy
See it in your mind? Then make it!
We immediately saw the “brand” and knew exactly what the bold graphic approach should be – the exact opposite to the dozens of self-help sappy pastel books we’d been snoozing through in our post-breakup recovery!

Now, here I admit that I had the advantage of being a designer, but think about your advantages: you have a pal who is a kick ass designer? Buy him/her a drink or three...schmooze, baby!

3. Shopped it–relentlessly!
We printed ten mock-up books to show to potential agents and then lurked around bookstores, researching. How? Look at other books in your genre (especially ones you admire). Who did the authors acknowledge in their pages? Usually, their agents...

4. Found that agent!
Three months after the initial mock-ups, we signed with our agent. We know that handing him a tactile dummy made all the difference. Was it easy? No. But we did have a couple of interested parties. And we hustled...be relentless...be shameless.

5. What about a trailer?
Though no publisher was bagged yet, we knew we wanted to make a sassy trailer that would draw attention to the sauciness of DUMPED. Caryn is an actress, and had access to all of her fabulous actress pals. Between her pals and our connects in the film world, we made our trailer on a shoestring. It was great fun to do...and made us stand out!

6. Got those endorsements 

We went after A-list authors we admired who we felt would “get” the book, then sent our DUMPED dummy out to them. And – voila! – we  got amazing advance endorsements...from Rory Freedman, coauthor of Skinny Bitch; Michael Hogan, Executive Entertainment Editor of Huffington Post, and best selling authors Amy Sohn, and Jill Conner Browne. Work it!

7. And of course...the inevitable “platform”! 

You will hear about “platform” in every meeting you take. You may as well embrace it. I was a dinosaur and resisted for the first 3 months. Then, after the 11th meeting, I realized I had to get on board. So glad I did. Hire yourself a 20-something who thinks differently from you and proceed to pick the kid’s brains! Read everything about it, research the best for inspiration. Set up twitter, FB, a website, pinterest and...BINGO...you’ll have the much ballyhoo’d platform.

Most of all - have fun with it all and remember your BRAND and tone! Get exposure NOW! TA DAH....you will be a platformed writer....who will find that publisher, agent....and hey...a film or reality series...why not?

JUST DO IT…and enjoy the ride.

Special thanks to Maryjane (and Caryn) for an inspiring lesson and Sellers Publishing for sharing "Dumped" with our readers.

How to win "DUMPED":
Please comment below with your e-mail address. (Please note: Entries without an e-mail address will NOT be counted. You can use AT and DOT to avoid spam. Or provide a link to your facebook page or blog if you can receive messages there.)

Bonus entries (can be listed all in one post):
1. Please tell us: How do you get over being rejected (whether it's dating, a job, etc.)?
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 too).
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US/Canada only. Ends September 26th at midnight EST.