Today was going to be the big moment Zena Brennan had
been looking forward to all her life—being on the Oprah Winfrey Network in an
Internet radio interview. Her latest book, which had just come out in print,
was called The Vixen and was getting
rave reviews. That was a switch because her two previous books had hardly
caused a ripple in the literary community. However, her author website had very
professional-looking, up-to-date content on it, and her blog contained several
interesting and unusual human-interest stories that were very lifelike. It was
strange now that it was all finally coalescing. She had been through so much
already that she had been seriously getting down on herself because she seemed
fated for a life of mediocrity and she just couldn’t stand that idea. As she
sat and thought about the past few years, she reflected on her life at work ...
Zena
was a hard worker who had gone all the way through university and earned a bachelor
of commerce degree with high honours (80 percent average). Her heart was in the
business world, where she wanted to make it strictly on her own merits. To this
end, she got many opportunities to work in different jobs requiring different
responsibilities. None of these jobs were all that challenging, but she took
what she could from each job and built up an impressive repertoire of business
experience. Regardless, no one seemed to take her abilities seriously,
including her usually male bosses, her predominantly female co-workers, her
boyfriend of three years and her family. It just didn’t make any sense. Why did
they all have this anti-feminist attitude? She was just as good as anyone else
at work, yet the pervasive attitudes persisted and she was getting more and
more frustrated as time passed. After all, she was approaching 30 and still
hadn’t found her niche in the world of work. Zena resolved not to quit trying
though, since that would have played right into their hands. She was no
quitter; she knew that if she quit, she would never win, and she intended to
win in life, come hell or high water.
Her
male bosses and associates relentlessly hit on her. There wasn’t a week that
went by when some man wasn’t flirting outrageously with her. She thought it was
because being a woman in the business world was not perceived as anything
important. As far as they were concerned, the business world belonged to men—they
were the ones responsible for anything significant that happened. They needed
the women who worked for them to act as support staff and “worker bees” only. Zena
knew she was an excellent “worker bee”—everyone knew that. But the leadership
skills that she craved to develop were not demanded nearly as often as her
computer skills and intuitive business acumen.
One
day, Zena decided she was no longer going to dwell on the negative aspects of
working in the business world for male chauvinistic bosses, with female co-workers
who constantly gossiped about her. Just how was she going make her mark in this
world? She thought long and hard about it until she finally decided to write a
book, due to the fact that she had always been an exemplary writer who now had
a relevant history of events in her life worth writing about. Her first book
would contain short stories about people and relationships, things to which she
had had tons of exposure. Since good writing results from drawing on things you
know about, this book was going to be “a piece of cake” compared to going to
work every day for people who would never appreciate her innate talents. So
instead, she would appreciate her own talents and build up her own confidence
to the point where it no longer mattered what anyone—even her own family—thought
of her. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was
going to be worth it.
Her
first book had received fair-to-good reviews—not great, but not bad—and she
resolved to do better on her next book. It was a good first effort, but she
knew she could improve. She resolved to write more short stories about juicier,
meatier topics that people found irresistible. She also decided that only the five
most populated cities in Canada and the United States would be included in her
Authorhouse News Maker Publicity campaign
that she would help plan; she resolved to follow up religiously on every
interested media outlet with e-mail messages containing links to her author
website and blog, and finally, she would send a complimentary copy of her book
to every bookstore, public library and hospital gift shop in her residential metropolitan
area whenever they requested one—and sometimes even when they didn’t.
When
Oprah had first approached Zena about doing a radio interview, she couldn’t
believe her good luck. She had always known Oprah had great influence over
people, women in particular. People listened to Oprah whenever she recommended
a movie to watch, a book to read or a career path to take. Oprah had a magical
way with people. She made her guests on her former TV show feel at home,
comfortable and willing to share with others in a public forum. Not many talk
show hosts had this ability; in fact, some hosts wanted to create controversy
on their shows—for example, the Jerry
Springer Show, where people sometimes got into physical fights right on TV.
But Oprah took the attitude that if she “kept it clean,” so to speak, people
would not only tune in to watch her show, they would be willing guests. Thus
Zena was thrilled to get such an invitation from Oprah, in person, to be
interviewed live on radio in prime time. If there was something that was going
to help promote her book to the top of the charts, this was it. She could not
wait for the blessed event to occur.
But
this radio interview was definitely not the only vehicle Zena planned to use
for promoting her book. During her News Maker Publicity campaign, she also
resolved to have the nations’ top newspapers promote her book: the LA Times, the New York Times, the Chicago
Sun-Times, the Toronto Star and
the major newspapers in Vancouver and Houston. She did not want to leave any
stone unturned; if there were also any prominent magazines or websites that she
could access during her publicity campaign, she would include them too. It was
extremely important to Zena to ensure thorough media coverage of this book, and
to do it properly, she had to do her part as a writer to ensure that the things
people wanted to read about most would be covered in her book, and they were,
as far as she was concerned. She reflected on how her latest book, The Vixen, came to be created …
Zena had pondered long and hard about the theme for her latest book. It would take the form of a novella, based on an early short story she had written called “A Marriage Made in Heaven.” This novella was originally made up of three short stories and was later renamed The Vixen.
Zena had pondered long and hard about the theme for her latest book. It would take the form of a novella, based on an early short story she had written called “A Marriage Made in Heaven.” This novella was originally made up of three short stories and was later renamed The Vixen.
Zena’s radio interview with Oprah turned
out to be everything she’d hoped for and more. Because of Oprah’s influence, the
world now knew who Zena Brennan was; they knew about the two books she’d
already published and about the book that was going to be released later this
year. Not only that—they looked forward to it. From now on, only fate and the
gods would determine what would happen next in Zena’s blossoming career.
copyright - Anne Shier, 2013, all rights reserved, published by Authorhouse, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
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