Lately I have felt compelled to give back for all the help and encouragement I have received over my long writing career. So, I am compiling a list of all the literary magazines, publishing houses, and agents with whom I have dealt, and I will send them all boilerplate copies of a rejection slip.
Literary Titan has issued the following press release regarding my new novel, The Swing Time Soda Emporium, which is scheduled for release early next year:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Swing Time Soda Emporium” earns Literary Titan Book Award for its unforgettable portrait of youth, memory, and first love. The Swing Time Soda Emporium, an adult coming-of-age novel by award-winning author Earl L. Carlson, has received the Literary Titan Book Award, recognizing the novel’s distinctive blend of historical fiction, literary humor, romance, mystery, and supernatural storytelling.
Set against the backdrop of small-town America during the 1940s, The Swing Time Soda Emporium follows a close-knit group of friends from childhood through college, marriage, and beyond. At the heart of the story is Poppy Jablonsky, a spirited, sharp-tongued young woman with an uncanny gift for finding broken people and helping put them back together.
Among those drawn into Poppy’s orbit are Cinderella Killian, a swing-dancing queen who finds the parental guidance she lacks at home in Sly Willy James, proprietor of the Swing Time Soda Emporium; Trixie Brindle, an abuse survivor longing for a family of her own; and the awkward Throckmorton Dalrymple Pennington-Jones, who has loved Poppy since kindergarten and must confront what life might mean without her.
The novel moves through friendship, first love, sexual awakening, grief, war’s lingering effects, and the strange persistence of memory. With the Swing Time Soda Emporium serving as a gathering place filled with conversation, music, humor, and longing, the story captures both the exuberance and uncertainty of growing up.
In its review, Literary Titan praised the novel for its lively character interactions, distinctive narrative voice, emotional depth, and unusual combination of comedy and grief. The review describes Poppy as an unforgettable presence whose personality is powerful enough to make even the story’s supernatural elements feel like a natural extension of who she is. Literary Titan also highlights the novel’s willingness to combine bawdy humor, tenderness, nostalgia, romance, and loss while exploring the lasting influence of the people who shape our lives.
Calling the book a spirited celebration of youth, memory, and enduring first love, Literary Titan recommends The Swing Time Soda Emporium for adult readers who enjoy historical fiction, coming-of-age stories, small-town narratives, ghost stories, romantic drama, literary humor, nostalgia, and swing-era fiction.
The Literary Titan Book Award adds another distinction to Carlson’s body of work and recognizes a novel that looks beyond conventional nostalgia to examine how friendships, loves, losses, and youthful choices continue to echo throughout a lifetime.
Readers are invited to discover the friendships, secrets, music, romance, humor, and heartbreak of The Swing Time Soda Emporium. Purchase your copy (early next year) through Amazon and experience Earl L. Carlson’s award-winning journey into 1940s small-town America, where first love can last far longer than anyone expects.
About the Author
Earl L. Carlson is an award-winning author whose lifelong relationship with literature began in a small logging community in northern Minnesota, fifty miles up a dirt road from the nearest public library. As a young reader, he immersed himself in works such as The Three Musketeers, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Drums Along the Mohawk, later discovering writers including John Steinbeck, Erskine Caldwell, Thorne Smith, Dostoevsky, Henry James, Voltaire, Aldous Huxley, and H. L. Mencken.
Carlson submitted his first handwritten story to boys’ Life at age twelve and continued writing throughout his life, first on secondhand typewriters and later on computers. His career has included producing a humorous newsletter, writing short stories and novellas, and publishing novels and story collections. His fiction has appeared in print and electronic magazines and journals. Known for humor, irreverence, memorable characters, and an affection for the complexities of human nature, Carlson continues to write stories shaped by a lifetime of reading, observation, and story telling.
www. earllcarlson.com
earlcarlson@hotmail.com
Country: United States
Website :https://amzn.to/4ieQdVvEND
On Receiving My First One-Star Rating on Amazon
Until recently, my novel, Diverging Streams, had garnered only one review on Amazon, a glowing five-star appraisal. Only one. But any book-title browsers who chanced upon my little novel would see five golden stars next to the title. They might not even notice that it reflected but a single review. But last week when I checked it, I saw to my horror a three-star average rating for the book into which I had poured my very soul and years of writing, erasing, rewriting, editing, fine-tuning, and formatting.
Now a single five-star review will not sell many books. Amazon bestows its favors on books with at least 25 good reviews—the more the better—and respectable sales. Anything less will condemn the book to the shadowed back pages where prospective purchasers seldom venture. Only readers specifically looking for that book are ever likely to see it.
But let me tell you what a three-star rating will do to a book. Whether by serendipity or purposeful search, when prospective book-purchasers happen upon a three-star rated book, they will have come looking for at least a four-star rating and preferably five-stars. If they see three stars adjacent to the title and thumb nail image of a book, they will casually reject it without a second glance. They will not scroll down to read the excerpts from editorial reviews. They will not read the first few pages to get the feel of the writer’s style and the substance of the story. They will not pursue it further by checking out the author’s website. They will not even follow through on the one, two, or three-star ratings to see what the reviewers disliked. A three-star rating will effectively kill any sales of the book.
When I had overcome the shock at seeing the fruit of my labors so ill-treated, I scrolled down to see what had caused the devastation and perhaps to discover the reason why—what it was that the reviewer had so disliked about the book that it warranted only one star, thereby rendering a three-star average rating. But I found no answer to my questions. The reader had left no review—had simply rated my baby and vanished without justifying or explaining the single-star rating. And I am left only to ponder the probabilities. Were the ideas I expressed or the tone of my prose somehow offensive? I have found that it is impossible to say anything of substance without offending someone’s deeply held beliefs. Or perhaps the fluidity of my phraseology had upset the reader. There is a faction among critics that loudly insists that literature must be simplified to a seventh-grade level. But more likely, the reviewer was simply one of those people who derive a pernicious pleasure from disparaging the work of others.
I have faith in my books—all of them. And I firmly believe that in time my work will receive the appreciation it deserves. Other more discerning readers will discover Diverging Streams and rate it to honestly reflect its true literary value—to bring the average star rating up to a respectable level. Though considering my advanced age, it may be futile to hope it will happen during my lifetime.