Ice Cube Press | Midwest Book Publisher

The Simple, Yet All-Powerful Phrase, “Once Upon A Time”

steve — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:04:56 +0000

Is there a more powerful set of words than, “Once upon a time,” or, “In a land far, far away”, or maybe, “On a dark and stormy night?” What are all these? Each of them excite and trigger in each of us the anticipation of a coming story. The thrill of hearing a new story causes next to everyone to stop what they are doing and pause with excitement in hopes of a surprise, of a wonderful bit of knowledge, or detail about life we did not know about before being shared.

I have, like most story tellers and authors, watched the eyes of, and attention of, both children and adults as they pause for an approaching story. The catch-22 is that anyone can utter the all-powerful beginning such as, “You will never believe what I saw today…” Proving of course that we can all be storytellers (I would say we all should be), but of course we have all witnessed how quickly the same children and adults move from rapt attention to boredom as we add just five more words to our story. We can lose people’s attention in as little as three seconds can’t we? Why is this? Well isn’t this the million dollar question for both author and publisher? Learning how to maintain the flow of a story once you have your reader’s attention is what we want to discover.

There is a lot going on with the simple phrase then of, “Once upon a time…” It is clear we all crave a good story. In fact, I love the old phrase, “What’s truer than the truth? The story, of course.” History, knowledge, love, all things ride the rails of story. We listen, or read a book, go to an author reading to be told about an adventure, to discover a tidbit of knowledge we did not know before. But, we have all had the experience of losing interest, of having our minds go blank and become bored. So, for invisible reasons story telling is really difficult.

We know we truly value story tellers though and it follows that we need publishers to find and share great stories. A publisher, after all, is someone who discovers good stories, is someone that allows readers to put their trust in. It is clear we are all addicted to good beginnings and helping fulfill this need is useful.

Author and publisher alike come to realize that it is the use of details, of inspiration, creativity, and passion that are what are needed. Elusive talents, I know. When you write ask yourself if you’re entertaining yourself, surprising yourself. Have you considered lots of view points, lots of angles?

In future articles I’ll consider the elements of getting past, “Once upon a time…” but for now isn’t good to know that people crave stories and that there is no end in sight to this craving. Until next time, write on!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6873377

One-man shop publishes books from the Midwest

steve — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:09:23 +0000

from the Gazette, January 18, 2012, Business 380, MyBiz by Rebecca Groff, correspondent

(weblink: http://business380.com/2012/01/18/one-man-shop-publishes-books-from-the-midwest)

NORTH LIBERTY — It’s not unusual for Steve Semken to find rap songs recorded on his answering machine.

“I guess people find Ice Cube Press out on the Internet and think I’m the famous rapper,” laughed Semken, whose independent publishing company has been in existence since 1993.

The formula for becoming a publisher might look like something like this.

A young man with a love of literature and a dream to be a writer goes to college. He earns an English and a history degree, then adds a graduate degree in English education for junior high and high school levels.

But teaching doesn’t cut it for him, so he enters the work world and finds himself working in customer service — and one day he’s training people in sales.

“Telemarketing sales,” he says, “which I’m a little embarrassed to admit because I’m sure everyone hated me.”

Buy this photo

IceCube Press Publisher Steve Semken packs up books for shipping at his home office in North Liberty. (Brian Ray/ The Gazette)

But this somewhat unusual path was excellent training ground for entering the book business, which requires skilled sales.

“There is sort of a distance between writers and creativity and business,” he says, “but I guess I’ve been lucky to learn it all from the bottom.”

Ice Cube Press sells up to 20,000 books a year.

The name for the company came from a short fiction story he’d written.

“In the story there was a place called the Ice Cube Café,” Semken recalled.

He said the story came about at the same time he was getting ready to launch his writing newsletter, Sycamore Roots, in which he shared his writings, interests and book reviews. Subscriptions kept on, pages were added and the company’s first book came out in 1996 — Semken the writer became a working publisher.

He handles every facet of the business, from reading manuscript submissions, working through edits and cover creation, setting up book readings and arranging media events for Ice Cube Press’s authors.

Semken contacts bookstores around the country to set up markets for his finished products.

“We hand-wrap each order, write thank-you notes, drink coffee and talk about our book projects with our authors,” he added.

It was only last year that he started using someone to help him with his website and enlisted distributors to assist him with taking book orders — “so I don’t have to be on the phone 24 hours a day.”

In 2011 he published 9 books.

“That’s just ridiculous for one person. I’m planning to do 6 books for 2012,” he added, noting that he’ll be doing his first young-adult novel this year.

“It’s a story about the orphan trains in the late 1800s that carried children out from New York to the Midwest. The author has written a really entertaining, but historically accurate book.”

Do You Really Have A Good Idea For A Book?

steve — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:17:43 +0000

I receive lots and lots of queries and even more face-to-face questions regarding the idea of what makes a good book. People want to know if I’ll accept their book idea for publication. Sometimes I even wonder myself: how do I know what is good or not? How can an author know if they have a good idea or not?

The goal of an author is not much different than the goal of a publisher, a bookstore, a publicity or literary agent, or a reader really. All of us want to take our everyday life and make it somehow larger than life. We want to believe that the way we see the world is unique, yet understandable. We want to feel that our stories hold unexpected surprises in them. We want to feel that when we get to a situation we’re writing about that we examine all the myriad options that could occur and pick, as the great Robert Frost line goes, “the one less traveled by.” We want to be rewarded with praise for how we interpret what can be common experience.

So, what seems to me to make a book good? What makes the start of a good book is deep inside an author. Authors that write with others in mind, or primarily wanting to have their book published than merely enjoying the thrill of writing are at a disadvantage in my mind. There is a deep, and lonely, isolated part of writing that simply can not be avoided. Every writer needs to be fully immersed in the process of creation whether it’s fiction, or nonfiction.

If you, as the author, aren’t seeping with passion as you create then I suspect your book won’t be one others want to read. If you are writing fiction and feel you’re becoming the characters in your novel, you’re on the right track. If you’re doing a nonfiction work and all your thoughts are suddenly tied to your subject, from groceries to taking out the trash, you are on the right path.

A good book like a good life is overcoming fear and doubt. It is knowing that when revealing who you best want to be has happened. When you know that your words ring true you are at perched to move on to the next phase of publishing, but not until then. A good book must include heart and soul before anything else.

I Might Become President: Doing Creative Work For People Is Good

steve — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:51:57 +0000

I Might Become President: Doing Creative Work For People Is Good

In this day and age of the internet the cutting-edge business community spouts off constantly about the value of what you can give away for free. There is much ado about something regarding podcasts and YouTube videos. There is a theory certainly that there is a need to tweet frequently each day. As well there are many many podcasts and websites devoted to the production of creativity, to the reaping what your sow principle. Good begets good and so on and so forth.

I have always been captivated by Richard Florida’s book The Rise of the Creative Class. I both like it’s content and like the meaning of the title. I am a fan of creativity and, in a natural progression to this idea, the role that the environment and the natural world play in creation. As a result I am quite fascinated as well by Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods which talks about the idea of their being a nature deficit disorder. I hear this and naturally think, this is a creativity loss. Frequently older people rail on and on about how they used to play outside all the time, then I ask, well, it is under your supervision that nature deficit disorder has developed, so obviously you didn’t like the outdoors that much. Conversely, creativity has been the butt of people for ages, lose your artistic hopes and dreams and make sure you get a real job. What the older folks don’t understand is that success is a result of creative thinking, by creative we mean problem-solving, figuring out a way to prosper despite the odds.The trick is discovering how this creation/environment model can be merged with the business of the creative person.

But there’s more: I have been known to say, more than a few hundred times that I believe the environmental crisis to be a crisis of our souls. So you can imagine the variety of things that come to my mind when I start thinking about creativity, soul, and nature.

Okay, I digress. Sometimes I think I may become President with thoughts about creativity, the creative person and creation. Why? I am a self-employed book publisher who deals with creative people, I am at heart a creative writer attempting to do “business.” However, the reason I may become President is because what I offer people is the chance to realize their dreams. What I role-model is that you can do what you hope to do. When I encourage people to write I do so by telling them to “ride” the creative spirit of writing first. I may be President because my advice to others is that you can be happy doing what you most want to do. How’s that for a platform? Do I have your vote?

from: http://ezinearticles.com/?I-Might-Become-President:-Doing-Creative-Work-For-People-Is-Good&id=6726754

Brother’s Blood: Stranger than Nonfiction

steve — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:43:33 +0000

review from The Iowan magazine, Dec, 2011

Stranger Than Nonfiction

by Nick Bergus

The line between fiction and nonfiction seems clear. In the kingdom of books, it’s the most basic distinction, akin to the one between plants and animals, drawn by nearly every library and bookstore I know. To me the difference is simple: Did the author make up anything? Any work answering “yes” goes directly to fiction, does not pass go, and (except in the case of writers like James Frey who purposely misrepresent their work) does not collect an advance of $200,000.

Books like Scott Cawelti’s Brother’s Blood: A Heartland Cain and Abel, however, make drawing the line between fiction and nonfiction tricky. Cawelti’s book is the story of one brother’s cold-blooded murder of another in his home near Cedar Falls more than three decades ago. The author reconstructs the events from premeditation to prosecution to imprisonment. The convicted murderer, Jerry Mark — who drove a motorcycle from California to Iowa to kill his younger brother, his brother’s wife, and the couple’s two young children — still insists on his innocence.

The book graphically depicts the murders and comes nowhere near the definition of light-hearted. (When my editor heard my proposal for the topic of this issue’s column, she replied via email — so I can only assume she was being sarcastic — “Perfect for the holidays!”) But that’s not at issue. My conclusion is not that Cawelti’s story isn’t compelling or that he didn’t do his research. Affirmative on both counts.

Cawelti, by his own admission in a note preceding 60 pages of police, trial, and interview transcripts, employs poetic license by introducing private thoughts, detailed conversations, and even dreams to “create a readable and engaging narrative.”

By my definition, the book is fiction.

This literary line in the sand is important to me because expectations matter. I want to know if the universe of the book I’m reading is my own or another, even one ever so slightly separate. And while I appreciate the author’s giving me his sources to pick through and make my own decision as to the accuracy of the story, I want to take the truth of nonfiction for granted when I’m wrapped up in a story. And I want nonfiction to remain synonymous with truth.

If I toss this onto the nonfiction pile because of the slight use of poetic license, then I surely have to do the same with Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood — and Brother’s Blood follows in the footsteps of that classic recounting of another Midwestern murder. That I am hesitant to do.

Maybe the problem is solely mine. Maybe I just don’t like having to be skeptical while I read. Maybe I just don’t like wondering if I’m being duped. Maybe I just want the line between fiction and nonfiction to be less permeable than it can or should be.

Maybe I need to rework my definition. Instead of “Did the author make up anything?” perhaps the more appropriate question is “Did the author make up anything implausible?” Still a simple, fairly easy-to-answer question.

Reading Brother’s Blood in the light of that revised criteria, I am happy to report that Cawelti’s book is still compelling. And I have no doubt of its truth.

Buy The Book

Brother’s Blood: A Heartland Cain and Abel
Scott Cawelti
Ice Cube Press, 2011

Writing, Publishing, Creativity, and Thanksgiving

steve — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:34:17 +0000

As Thanksgiving rolls around this year I am thinking about a talk I just gave to a group of writers. I was telling them about my decisions and struggles to become a writer myself, the efforts to write during breaks at work, the need to promote my writing and how I finally made the jump to become a publisher nearly twenty years ago.

I am constantly telling authors about the need to embrace rejection. About the need to take chances and connect with authors you really respect. I speak about how I am a self-published author and have not, for a day, or a moment ever regretted that decision. I am such a better book publisher because of self-publishing my work. I explain the trials of balancing work life, and passion. The lack of training I have as an author, a publisher, a marketer, or a business person has been a hurdle, but I have truly learned through the School of Hard Knocks. What inspires an entrepreneur is what makes for a good author: passion and drive. The ability to forge ahead with no attention paid to what might go wrong is vital. Any good sales person knows you have to wade through NO to get to YES.

People ask how long to make a novel? A short story? An essay? I say, as long as it takes to best tell it. People ask what I look for in a submission: I tell them lots of things, not too long, not too short, can I work them? Are they open to suggestions. They ask how many submissions I get a year? I say, lots. How many do I accept? None, I say to a crowd of moans and gasps, then I utter, maybe one every three years. I am asked what’s an ISBN number? I reply, a unique number to identify a book (but in my mind, I have to admit I think to myself, who cares, what do you need to know that for? I am asked what books I wrote. I tell them and explain how I have had two books done by other publishers and lucky for me too, for these publishers taught me a lot about how to be a better publisher. I am asked what’s a good topic to write about? I reply, something you know something about and have passion for. I answer lots and lots of questions. Why and what to do about e-books. Book design, letter presses uses, etc. and I always have a good time and joke a lot and confess things and keep people entertained. I do not do “talks” or speeches. I ramble about the publishing and writing world.

Finally I get to the most important questions of all and it is one I ask. I ask how many of you have experienced the individualized and silent thrill of writing? Been engulfed by the creative process? When lots of hands go up I know publishing has a bright future. When not many hands go up I get discouraged and become a cheer leader for the creative process.

I am thankful this Thanksgiving for being able to be a publisher and thankful for the talents of authors, the passion of booksellers and future of story telling.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6713167

Daily Iowan on Native Soulmate by Zachary Michael Jack

steve — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:24:55 +0000

Zachary Michael Jack has racked up some 219,000 miles on his Toyota Echo commuting back and forth between his home in Jones County, Iowa, and North Central College in Naperville, Ill.

For Jack, these daily journeys are worth being able to live in the place he loves — Iowa.

“I like the thinking and the stops along the way and the world as seen with pavement underneath you,” Jack said. “Ever since I was a kid, I have enjoyed the feeling of travel.”

The author will read from his newest book, Native Soulmate: A Season in Search of a Love Homegrown, at 5 p.m. Saturday at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St. Admission is free.

Native Soulmate is a sequel to Jack’s work What Cheer, and he described it as a combination of a love story, an adventure story, and an exploration of current issues that concern rural and small-town Iowa and the Midwest.

“One of those issues is the courtship process that folks who choose to live in rural face, particularly young people,” Jack said. “The book deals with, and looks at, and explores in a participatory way — not spouting statistics, but [it's] more of a hypothesis.”

Iowa is the subject of much of Jack’s work. He said he has a long-standing relationship with the state, being a seventh-generation Iowan, and he wants to use writing as a way to learn about Iowa and develop a clear-eyed view of what it is.

“What I find in my writing about Iowa is that I am in that tradition but in a new generation,” Jack said. “My answer my be different or pitched in a [different] way, but my problems are the same. I’m not unique, I am [part of] a larger pattern, and a larger patchwork … I find that really comforting.”

The concept of place translates to Jack’s life as an educator as well. He teaches classes in creative writing and demographics and place at North Central College.

Tom Dean, the University of Iowa senior presidential writer and editor, similarly teaches classes in the Leisure Studies Department on place, and he is a friend of Jack.

“I think a connection to place is very important for people emotionally; it is an emotional commitment that we all have,” Dean said. “Not all people admit they have it … but I think for me, and for Zachary, too, Iowa and the Midwest have just been places that we have responded to emotionally, and then we go ahead and make those other commitments — one of which is writing about it.”

Dean and Jack met several years ago through Steve Semken, a publisher with Ice Cube Press who has worked with both writers.

Semken described Jack as determined and unswerving, yet adaptive to change. He said Native Soulmate teaches how to live the best way possible in the place where one calls home.

“It’s definitely him trying to take what’s here [in Iowa] and harvest it,” Semken said. “He’s spent that growing season looking for love. The homegrown aspect is kind of what this story is about. He’s revealing a lot about himself in this book, [and] that, to me, is to be admired.”

Another aspect of Jack’s writing that Semken finds valuable is that he provides an example of stories worth telling about Iowa. He said it proves to aspiring writers that moving away from “home” is not an necessary part of finding inspiration.

“One of the important things to me, what I am able to realize in my writing life, is a kind of commitment to a place and a set of a concerns that I continue to live and will probably continue to live for the rest of my life,” Jack said.

Daily Iowan newspaper 12/1/2011 http://www.dailyiowan.com/2011/12/01/Arts/26173.html

Review of Becoming Real: Authenticity in an age of distractions

steve — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:35:22 +0000

by Jeff Charis-Carlson, Nov. 27th, Iowa City Press-Citizen media

In his new book, “Becoming Real: Authenticity in an Age of Distractions,” Iowa City author Robert Sessions distills a career’s worth of insight from his 26 years teaching philosophy at Kirkwood Community College.

Halfway through the book, the professor poses the very question his students must have asked him most often: “But why … should we make the effort to listen to philosophers? They tend to write in technical and often opaque jargon and style, and their ideas seem far away from the kinds of realities we discussed.”

Sessions’ answer to that question is the polished retort he must have provided hundreds of times. But it also offers fresh insight into the questions about “freedom,” “authenticity” and “autonomy” he has been struggling with since his dissertation days.

“Here is where you need to trust me a bit,” Sessions writes. “I believe that without going through some philosophical rigors we will not find a satisfactory understanding of that which we seek — answers to how to lead an authentic life in a world swirling with confusing and alluring distractions that take us from ourselves instead of helping us find and be who we are.”

Sessions, in fact, is striving to be the type of philosopher described by Henry David Thoreau: “To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts nor even to found a school but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically but practically.”

“Becoming Real” does include Sessions’ treks alongside the philosophers one might expect to see in a book about authenticity — Søren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, Jean Paul Satre, Martin Heidegger, Martha Nussbaum and the most upliftingly optimistic reading of Friedrich Nietzsche you’re likely to find anywhere. But the book also sojourns and saunters with Thoreau (“Walden”), Kathleen Norris (“Dakota” and “Acedia and Me”), Phil Cousineau (“Once and Future Myths” and “The Art of Pilgrimage”), Jane Kenyon (“Happiness”) and other spiritually-attuned, poetically-aware, cultural critics.

Most refreshingly, Sessions also draws upon the subtle inspirations from his own life: his experiences as an early home-schooling advocate, his “devastating” divorce, the thrill he and his Kirkwood students have watching leatherback turtles during an annual trip to Costa Rica.

Sessions is careful to identify the dead ends and blind alleyways into which the search for authenticity can lead people — from religious/political fundamentalism, to the eternal adolescence of “Guyland,” to the purposelessness of “Leisureville,” to the helplessness brought about by many self-help approaches. But he unironically and unabashedly offers “Becoming Real” as a means of calling people to begin “a pilgrimage to a more authentic self.”

To hear Sessions offer his call in person, come listen to him read from “Becoming Real” at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Prairie Lights Books.

Brother’s Blood on KWWL TV

steve — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:30:30 +0000

Here’s the link to the piece on Brother’s Blood shown on KWWL TV Channel 7

Exploring the Concept of Local Again: Why It Means Next To Nothing Most of the Time

steve — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:42:50 +0000

Buy local, support local, go local, shop locally… these campaigns have all the potential in the world, but they are normally thin and lack much thought. They sound encouraging and many people see the “local” aspect and believe that just going to a farmer’s market will be enough, that just shopping at an independent bookstore will be enough. Where does the bookstore stock their books from? Where does the flower shop get their flowers?

An even better scenario in my mind is news. We all know about national news, USA TODAY, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS. Then there are specific yet national news sources, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, entertainment news such as People, or cooking such as Bon Appetit. There are really national and then even state sources for news.

In Iowa we frequently consider the Des Moines Register, or Iowa Public Radio to report on state-wide issues. Then we reach the local television, radio, newspaper sources. This is where we discover many ideas of the local. Local can embrace themselves as such, or strive to be what they are not.

What do I mean?

I constantly tell authors that have a new book out that they should practically demand that their local radio and newspaper do a story on them. After all, some author are natives of their hometown, have lived and shared their life with those around them if the so-called local paper is not the one to do a piece on them then they have truly failed their calling. There are lines to be drawn of course involving quality and perhaps repetition of actions. Too many activities can go one of two ways, the same thing over and over thus the newsworthiness maybe gone.

Or, a local region and can embrace the commitment that a local citizen has shown for where they live that rather than ignoring them we should exalt in what they do. There are a variety of excuses the local news goes through to avoid doing what they are intended for, often I think they don’t even notice they are behaving inappropriately.

In the end I guess I praise the local news as a way to discover how “local” your community is. Does your local paper include mostly national events, try and behave in a “national” ways, or do they embrace the unique details that make the local the most important details of our everyday lives. Do they celebrate the heroic lives of those we live beside?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6651704