Beverly Eckert's Love Story in New Book Sparks (Accidental) Interest in 'No Truer Hearts'

Many people know about Beverly Eckert, but very few know about her biography. So I was momentarily surprised by a somewhat mysterious email I received last week from the owner of a small bookstore in Upstate New York asking if I could send her copies of No Truer Hearts.

Huh?

I replied that I would be happy to send copies of the book -- once it was published! After thinking about the possible reasons for such a query, I lit upon the probable solution: people were confusing the new book, All There Is (see previous blog post) with mine somehow. Not long after, a woman from the Small Press Department of Barnes & Noble Inc. (!!) emailed me with a similar message: could you send us a copy of your book? It was nice to get the attention, but frustrating not to be able to ship out copies of the finished volume. (Lord knows I've been trying hard to get it done!) Plus, it gave me a big boost to know people were interested in Beverly's story, even now.

Finally, a few minutes ago I received confirmation of my initial theory by putting myself in the shoes of a potential Upstate New York reader who had heard in the news that a book telling Beverly's story had just come out. How would this reader look for the title of this book? Ask Mr. Google, of course! So I googled "Beverly Eckert book", and the first three results were to this blog and to my web site, anthonytoth.com, which has information on Beverly and No Truer Hearts. Mystery solved.

Just proves the importance of having a strong online presence for an obscure (but talented) writer. It's called building a "platform," all this non-writing self-promotion. In plain English, it's simply spreading the word, which is what writers desire anyway.

Now to get on with the writing! (And then to send a copy to that nice lady from Barnes & Noble once I'm done.)