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Publishing

Extra Innings Press Release

I thought for this blog I would share my press release.  This will be sent to three different northeast Ohio newspapers:  The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, The Akron Beacon Journal and the Canton Repository.  The goal is for them to print an article in a Sunday edition to help advertise the release of my first novel Extra Innings: The Diamond Thieves.  Shown below is what I wrote for the press release.  Anyone who has field experience in writing these I would love to hear some feedback.

Local Author Releases His Debut Novel

Every teenager will face a life-altering crossroads when they struggle to do what’s right in the face of steep pressure to do wrong.  For Author Brian Gibson of Akron, Ohio, this becomes a personal message in his debut novel Extra Innings, The Diamond Thieves.

Diamond Thieves is the first of three fictional books in his Extra Innings trilogy that chronicles the teenage lives of identical twin brothers Jimmy and Billy McGee. The twins who, along with an entertaining cast of friends, are being challenged by their arch enemies for exclusive domain over their neighborhood baseball diamond.

Set in the late 1940’s Deep South, the boys must deal with a very adult ethical dilemma that intensifies the conflict: in the face of opposition from the town and their rivals, should they allow their best friend and team spark plug, who is black, to play in the deciding game?

‘My goal with this story was to connect with all individuals and inspire them in a way that improves their life and way of thinking’, said Gibson who goes by the pen name B.W. Gibson. ‘I feel like I have accomplished that.’

The Diamond Thieves conveys a strong unfiltered message about life during a period in history when racism was still a way of life in small-town southern communities.

Gibson displays a writing style that will transport you back to the sights, sounds and even smells of this Cold War period in U.S. history.

Please find enclosed a review copy for your consideration. For more information visit Brian Gibson’s website www.bwgibson.net.

 

 

 

June 13, 2014 by
Publishing

My Mission

Recently, I attended a marketing conference in Akron, Ohio.  The primary topic of this conference was how to create a valuable mission statement.  A mission statement defines what an organization or business is and why it exists.  Mission Statements are only effective if they are communicated throughout the organization and reinforced by its leader(s).  This inspired me to think about why I exist as an author and singer/songwriter.  Why do I write?  What am I trying to accomplish with my writings?  Pinpointing this objective was really quite simple.  MY MISSION IS TO CONNECT AND INSPIRE.   I wish to connect with individuals and inspire them in a way that improves their life and way of thinking.

The origin of this objective comes from one of the first songs I ever wrote.  The song is called “Runaway.”  It’s a mostly-acoustic rock ballad that was inspired from a television special my UMASS roommates and I were watching in our apartment in Puffton Village in Amherst, Massachusetts.  The program was on teenage runaway girls.  These inner-city girls had ran away from home for various reasons and were living in poverty on the streets.  With no work experience and little education these girls were resorting to prostitution in order to survive.  As soon as the program was over, I went into my bedroom, picked up my 6-string Ibanez guitar and wrote “Runaway” in about 15 minutes.  The story focuses on one girl and how helpless and trapped she feels needing to “work the streets” to make money.  The song also talks about the girl’s family who is searching for her to bring her back home where she is loved.  One night after performing the song on campus, I told a friend that I hoped that one day “Runaway” would hit the radio.  I imagined that someone would be playing the song on their car radio and a girl who was thinking about running away from home would overhear it and change her mind.  If I could positively inspire just one teenager, I would feel the song was a huge success.

The same is true for my song “Mornie Rivers” which is a edgy rock tune about a friend of mine who overcame his heroin addiction.

As for the Extra Innings trilogy, although my goal was to tell a story that had never been told, I began to discover that Jimmy and Billy McGee’s lives were progressing into a path of constructive value.  I envision many readers extracting a positive life lesson or two from the experiences of these fictional identical twins – I know I have.  Of course, these lessons are not learned overnight and in this case cover the course of 3 books.  I suppose this is true of most people that life lessons are learned over a period of time fashioned by a string of ups and downs.  I look forward to hearing about any inspirations my readers gain from reading the Extra Innings trilogy.  And I hope I have done a good job of painting a realistic picture of the story’s setting and its characters so its readers feel connected throughout every page.

 

June 7, 2014 by
Uncategorized

With A Little Help From My Friends

What what you do if I wrote out of tune … would you pull my book off your shelf on me?

Recently, my caddy-cornered neighbor read the first installment in the Extra Innings Trilogy (“The Diamond Thieves”). My neighbor’s name is Allison and for 21 years she was the Librarian at the Temple Israel Library in Akron, Ohio. Allison has read over 1,000 books in her days and through recent conversations I’ve shared with her, I’ve gathered that she prides herself on being a fast reader. So when I asked her: “Did my book read fast?” I was delighted to hear a “Yes!” Together, we sat on her front porch and talked, at length, about her impressions of twin brothers Jimmy and Billy McGee, their friends, the book’s setting and its plot. Perhaps the most poignant feedback I received was that, although, the books’ main characters are young adults, Allison suggested that I market the book as an ADULT Fiction. She said “I would go all the way with marketing to an adult audience” considering the mature topics discussed throughout the story. This was great feedback and I agreed with her, especially considering the issues tackled in books 2 and 3. Thank you Allison for your time and experienced guidance. Both are greatly appreciated!

June 9, 2013 by
Publishing

Origins of Extra Innings

Teenage TWIN brothers Jimmy and Billy McGee are fictional characters, from a fictional town in Eugene, Mississippi.  The story begins on their 13th birthday in their attic bedroom of their parents home.  I was nineteen years old when I began writing Extra Innings.  The plot begins with the twins and their friends confronted by the neighborhood bad boys threatening to take full possession of the school’s baseball diamond.  A dispute of this gravity can only be settled but one way … the boys would have to play for it.   Whichever team wins the game will claim dominion of the baseball diamond forever.

After the game, I took a few years off to focus on college.  Then I moved to Massachusetts to start the Rock ‘n Roll band that was intended to launch my musical stardom!  I had one particular semi-successful run before our brotherhood fell apart after which I escaped to NYC for a brief blink of an eye until the tragedy of 9/11 overhauled my perspective on the importance of family and I moved to Ohio to be with my parents, sister, brother-in-law and newborn nephew Brevan.

I was broke, living back with my parents and heavy-hearted from a soul searching quest for my identity.  Finally, I landed a decent paying job. . That’s when my creativity got squashed by small-corporate America and I began craving a therapeutic outlet from the Real World.   Being a few years older and more mature, I felt ready to tackle the heavier subject matter of the latter half of the twin’s teen years and finally, Extra Innings, the book, was completed in 2008.

Most authors probably don’t require ten years to write a modest 600 + page novel … but maybe they do.  I loved the story and the characters but the storytelling did not meet my vernacular standards for a “smooth and easy read.”  I wanted a piece of work that readers would breeze through without feeling any sort of burden from its length.  Many sentences and paragraphs were awkward and clumsy.  Perhaps this is from my lack of experience as a reader.  I’ve only ready maybe 10 or less books in my entire life (including all school literature reading assignments as most of them I didn’t actually read … shhh! – don’t tell anyone) so, as a result, revising Extra Innings to make it more reader friendly took years!

The book is now being edited.  I can’t wait for everyone to read a finished copy!

February 1, 2013 by