Joel Frey

KAAL-TV

Congrats are in order to my friend/recent college grad, TJ Werre. He's landed a job in the sports department at KAAL, the ABC affiliate in Austin...Minnesota. The new gig will involve work on and off camera so hopefully it won't be too long before he makes his first YouTube-worthy blooper for all the world to see. And while it might be challenging for a lifelong Packers fan to be moving to Viking country, TJ is currently more worried about finding a good winter coat. Best of luck Bro!

Have a safe Halloween everyone! I may or may not pick up the tips next week.

Self Publishing Tips: #9

Heather returns from a business trip tomorrow evening. She's been gone since Sunday morning when we awoke in the middle of the night to get her to El Paso International for one of those awesome 6:00 a.m. flights. Megan and I have managed to keep the house in relative order during her absence - our dogs Cinder and Schuster haven't missed a meal, the dishwasher has been emptied and I've managed to throw a couple of loads of laundry into the washer/dryer. Despite these feats, we could not function much longer without her. Honey, come home!

#9 Open up your vault (yes, I'm borrowing from Seinfeld here - my apologies if you're sick of the re-runs)

An old friend of mine, who is known as Carter or Dong in Cypress Walls, is perhaps the most prolific writer I know. Over the years, he has tackled poetry, sitcoms, short stories and good-old fashioned stream-of-consciousness. Most of his work was either scratched out in longhand or banged out on one of several classic typewriters he owns. Three years ago, our paths crossed in Orlando and I shared with him a bunch of pages from my book. He, in turn, brought with him some of his latest work and we stayed up late into the night reading and critiquing each other's words.

By then, I had decided that anyone who wanted to read Cypress Walls would have the opportunity to do so provided I had the fortitude to produce the book. Carter and I talked about what that meant and he asked me if I was hesitant about putting myself out there.

"Nope," I said without hesitation.

Before I wrote the first sentence of Cypress Walls I knew that I would a) have to be willing to share certain parts of my life that now make me cringe a bit and b) have to possess a thick enough skin to handle critiques along the lines of "This book sucks." Despite his passion for writing, Carter couldn't come to terms with these notions.

It's been a while since I've spoken to Carter. I hope his sentiments have changed and others have discovered his talent. If you're working on a book right now and have not let anyone else read it, don't wait too much longer. I promise that it won't hurt too much.

Self Publishing Tips: #10

TGIF from lovely, sunny El Paso. This is my first desert autumn and the climate is as good as advertised. Heather put up our Halloween decorations last night as I watched the Red Sox's improbable comeback against the Rays. Full disclosure: before our nuptials, the Halloween decorations were Heather's though now that they are mine too, I have firmly embraced them. If you're in our neighborhood between now and Halloween you should come and check them out.

For several weeks, I've been contemplating a post on what I've learned as a one-man publishing house, but I've put if off knowing that it would be too exhaustive to write in the hour or so I usually allot to an entry. So I'm going to take a slightly less daunting route and spread my thoughts out over a few shorter posts. My goal is simple. I want to give any of you who want to write a book of your own someday a reality check and, hopefully, some encouragement too. Onto the countdown!

#10 You can't go it completely alone.

Even if you decide to publish a book on your own terms, you'll still need at minimum an editor, a proofer, a designer, a type-setter, and a printer. Depending on what you are writing and the scope of the project, you might need a loan officer, an accountant, an attorney and a therapist too.

As you think about the people you want on your team, there's a single word that should stand above all others: trust. I ascribed to the trust factor more than any other in putting the pieces of Cypress Walls together and it paid off for me. A little more than a year since I thumbed through a copy of my book for the first time, I still couldn't be more pleased with its look and feel. I attribute this directly to the people I entrusted with my dream.

In my case, Team Joel was comprised mostly of family and friends. I was fortunate because they all knew how significant this project was to me and they didn't want to let me down. Thankfully, I didn't suffer through too many days of "Will this book ever get finished?" and, thereby, saved a ton on therapy. Bottom line: your book is going to need a few trustworthy friends. If you don't have any right now, you'd better start making some - quickly.

Okay, I now realize that I'm going to have to come up with nine more tips. Hopefully, it won't take me nine months to complete this and I won't have to make any up along the way. Have a great weekend!

Tuesday night football

Cypress Walls has been re-stocked in Barnes and Noble's distribution center in New Jersey. If you don't believe me, just click on the link to your right. Go ahead, I dare you. And then I double dog dare you to write a review. I don't even care if you tell the Internet that my book sucks. Just embraceyour inner Roger Ebert and do me a small favor. I'm saving my triple dog dare for some other time though.

Happy October everyone. A quick congrats to the MTSU football team for stealing a sweet victory from Florida Atlantic last night. I haven't exuded that much joy at a TV set in a long time.