I had the pleasure of reading Robert Toonkel’s book, Chappaqua, in August as part of our Back to School focus.  Just yesterday, I noticed Robert’s book had gone live on Amazon since the review.  I decided to cross post our review to his Amazon page and also noticed the book had a new cover.

I was so impressed by it I decided to email Robert to let him know about the review and to congratulate him on the new cover.  Robert quickly replied to let me know what’s happened to Chappaqua since it was reviewed here at LLBR.  His news immediately put a smile on my face and is a quick reminder of what POD and this blog is all about.  I’d like to share Robert’s email with you now…

Shannon:

I keep meaning to e-mail you to update you and other Lulu Book Review readers on where Chappaqua has gone since you so kindly reviewed it. I’m not sure how you find the time to do your regular job, publicize Stealing Wishes, write, and review all those books. I can barely find the hours to handle the first two of those.

There have been so many times where I’ve just wanted to put Chappaqua away with the publisher rejection letters it received, but as I know you felt with your book, I couldn’t let go of the time and effort I had put into it. So I’ve been self-promoting like crazy, borrowing some ideas from your blog (Thanks!), adding some of my own. I don’t know where Katie Fitzpatrick is going to go from this point, but regardless, I can say that I’ve basically done everything I could for her.

Just some of the things I’ve done – you’ve done a bunch of these – but in that case, I just want to reiterate how helpful they are:

Lulu – Sure, Lulu doesn’t have the reach of Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but it isn’t a dead end either. Chappaqua went from the 30,000th best selling book in September to the top 3,000th in December, placing in the top 100 one week. I’m not going to get rich off the royalties, but people are buying it. And more than a dozen people (more than half of them unknown to me) were kind enough to write reviews.
Cover – You have a brilliant idea with helping to design covers. I paid a college girl $200 to design Chappaqua’s current cover and it says so much more than the quick one I did “just to put a cover on it.” No one has to pay a “professional designer” thousands of dollars to make a cover. But a small investment will go a very, very long way.
Amazon Kindle – I haven’t sold a single copy in the ten days it has been on the site, but having it out there offers potential (and also makes it more legitimate). Telling someone your book is on Amazon is instant recognition.
Facebook – In August, I gave Chappaqua a Facebook page – which has gathered more than 100 fans and 2,000 views. A great way to keep people in the loop about the latest developments, and also to publicize events and happenings.
A “Trailer” – Not as hard as it seems. Download Google’s “Picasa 3,” arrange a series of photos with text, put it to music and put it up on the web. It can be done in under two hours, even by someone as design-impaired as me. It’s on the Facebook page. Several hundred people have viewed it.
A “Baby Book” – Photos of Chappaqua’s development from the original idea to the current edition. Posted as an album on Facebook. People love to see the nuts and bolts behind the finished product, and understand that a book, like Rome, wasn’t built in a day.
A Website – I bought a domain for less than $10 a year, use a simple web-building tool, and gave Chappaqua a website (www.chappaquanovel.com). Everything you need to know about the book, with a sample, pictures, reviews (including a link back to you), and thanks to PayPal, an easy way for people to order the book directly. I set it all up in less than a day. More legitimacy.
Publicity – I’ve used a printing company for Valentine’s Day and Christmas cards in the past, so I turned to them to make postcards, bookmarks and small (11×17) posters for Chappaqua. They turned out to be very valuable for…
Local Bookstores – I went to the local bookstore in Chappaqua and offered them a chance to be the only storefront to carry the book. I told them I would put their name on the postcards and bookmarks. They grudgingly agreed to take 5 copies on consignment for 60 days. Those sold in 59 days. They asked for 5 more. Those sold in 6 days. They asked for 13 more. Those sold out in a weekend. They have the postcards and bookmarks at the checkout counter and people become interested. Recently, they expanded the “few books on a shelf” into a complete display. (A side note: I had offered the book to a second local bookstore and was told that they did not accept POD books under any circumstances. Three months later, they called me to ask for a dozen books because people kept coming in and asking for it to the point that they had created a waiting list).
Libraries – My local library scheduled a book talk about Chappaqua for 19 December. Unfortunately, New York was hit with a massive snowstorm that day, so it was postponed until 19 March. According to the program director at the library, a few members of the media had called to make arrangements. The library is another place where I left postcards and bookmarks.
“A Press Kit” – Bio, press release and one-pager on the book. As a communications person by trade, I can vouch for the importance of this.
A Unique Angle – It goes without saying that you have to explain what makes your book different/special than anything out there. I’ve come up with a unique way of talking about Chappaqua to people who don’t read books or who lie well beyond my target audience. When my fourth grade teacher invited me to speak to her class, I brought up some of the facts from this section of the Chappaqua page (http://mysite.verizon.net/res11mw5h/id71.html) to their attention. They might not be interested in the subject, but they’re always amazed that I know how many times I used certain words, which leads to creative exercises like trying to write a paragraph without using “the” or avoiding words that begin with “s.” Then they go home and tell their parents about this interesting lesson they had. It also gives adults an interesting fact to remember. In the long run it might be worthless, but I think it’s fun.

That’s where Chappaqua stands as of now. Who knows what will happen in 2009?

Thanks again for your e-mail, your review and all your efforts to promote books such as Chappaqua. I hope 2009 brings you all kinds of good things for Stealing Wishes and for the new novel that you’ve been mentioning from time to time.

Rob

When I read the part about what happened in the bookstores, a smile came across my face!  It just goes to show what word of mouth can do for your book right in your own community.  Congratulations to Rob on his success!

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DeGrassi Junior High, DeGrassi High, Saved by the Bell, 90210, Dawson’s Creek…the list goes on and on of irresistible melodramas which have sought to capture the essence of teen life through the years, often with a high school setting since those four years of a teenager’s life can certainly be ever changing.  I know mine were.  These days, our brains can’t fathom these made up tales and we wanted to hear from real people, people like us, so we handed kids a camera and told them to go film their “real” stories.  But we’ve discovered reality isn’t any better.  But that’s television!  What books were your reading in high school?  Were there any that stick out in your mind, that possibly changed your life at that time?

I was stuck in a Stephen King phase in high school, determined to read every word he’d written even if it took me four years to do it.  So, to research what kids are reading these days, like any computer literate American, I Googled it.  When googling “teen novel,” I was quickly redirected to several best selling lists composed by various people at Amazon.com….Princess Diaries, some girl named Alice, Harry Potter, the Twilight series…what ever happened to Blubber, Freckle Juice, and It’s Me Margaret?

Back then, it was “just say no,” pimples, and popularity.  These days it’s teen pregnancy, guns in school, and more drugs.  And even though more stories these days are based on fantasy and vampires, there is one theme that hasn’t changed through the years. Acceptance. Kids till vy for popularity and attention.  They all want to be #1.  That’s why I found Robert Toonkel’s book, Chappaqua, to be a classic take on those old themes from what teens were reading yesterday but still a timeless fresh, and eye-opening, look at teens in today’s high school setting.

Based on the cover alone – a pale robin eggshell blue with a picture of a statue, obviously some important dignity somewhere, and dark blue letters with a subtitle that reads “Slight imperfections in America’s perfect town” – you’d probably think this was going to be a history lesson on some corrupt political figure or East coast war that textbooks forgot.  Even the simple title, Chappaqua, sets you up for either an unknown community piece no one but locals would care about or some piece of Kennedy-like Peyton Place gossip.  But all of these assumptions are completely wrong.

Instead, it is the story of Katie Fitzpatrick.  She’s about to be a senior, and she’s the girl everyone else desires to be.  She has perfect grades, great looks, lots of friends, she’s an all-star athlete and writer for the school paper.  She’s the center of attention among the girls and the guys. It’s the all-American dream for any teen on the verge of their final year of high school.  But sometimes people like that probably wish they were dreaming.

Now, Katie may sound like a predictable character sketch we all know (or personally knew while in high school), but Toonkel paints his characters with such realism and belief that it makes this story new all over again. The author pushes his narrative forward with excellent use of dialogue, interesting description, and a touch of humor.  Imagine over hearing bits of a hundred conversations in the hallway between classes or at prom, but being able to understand everything with great accuracy.

The mod system, which always included “J mod” for homeroom, had given rise to a new language on the Greeley campus, one whose mastery required both time and skill. Visitors from other schools might think they were on another planet when they heard students asking one another, “Can we do this during QRS?” or “Do we have five-mod biology today?” Plenty of Greeley students had graduated with an advanced knowledge of calculus or chemistry, but no idea whether a TUV class began at 12:50 or 12:55.

Toonkel uses his setting, the town of Chappaqua, as an ideal place where such a perfect student can grow up in the perfect town.  But, he throws a wrench into its well oiled wheels which sends Katie’s real life dream spinning out of control.  Conflict builds as Katie falls deeper into trouble after one single “life-altering” event, and seeks understanding and guidance from the very community that denies anything could be wrong.  After all, they’ve put Katie on a pedestal and made her the center of attention (imagery conveyed quite beautifully on the book cover).  How could anything be wrong?

There are valuable lessons here for both parents and teens, as we experience one young girl’s drastic fall from the top.  Sure, most of us didn’t like the cool and the popular if we weren’t part of them, but they may still need people to turn to when they aren’t crying wolf.  Regretting reaching out to them after it’s too late is not something any teen should suffer from. After all, no matter how much we excell at, we still all breathe the same air and need a friend to count on from time to time.

Although quite long and still in need of a bit of editing, Toonkel’s story is original and well thought out. The last chapter alone will have you thinking about Katie for a long time after you’ve closed the cover. Thanks to Robert Toonkel for creating an excellent and inspiring read for teens of today, and yesterday.  This book is a lesson in life every teen shouldn’t learn the hard way.