An Author and a Family Tree Break the Rules
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Address: House of Corrections |
Monice Mitchell Simms doesn’t take no for an answer. During our interview she was buoyant, oozing with the panache of self-determined woman. “They said the demographic for the work [her work] doesn’t read literature, I disagree,” she said resolutely, speaking of her attempts to launch her new book, Address: House of Corrections, through traditional publishing houses. Monice has long been a writer, but one of a different ilk. Her career is paved by screenplays and journalism, featuring reportage with Newsweek Magazine and a debut film which aired on the Showtime network. But to the literary publishing world – she was as green as clover. After two years of constantly pushing her work, she decided to take another path: publishing, marketing and publicizing the book herself.
This is how we met, because Monice became a fan of Family Tree Builder.
Last year, Monice stamped the accelerator. Her agents were replaced by the tireless interface of web 2.0, and the books future heaved into the sweeping market of social networking. This allowed Monice to practice more control over her release and guard the book in its integrity. The first step: fashion an intricate cyber reality for Address: House of Corrections. Monice states that her bold embrace of modern outreach is her way to “simply [pull] together all of the technological resources and taking everything one step further to hopefully turn the stagnant publishing industry on its head and empower authors to take their careers into their own hands.” To accomplish this task Monice developed a YouTube channel, a WordPress page and Facebook fan pages. She is working on releasing an audiobook of the novel (currently in production with 14 character actors to be released on Itunes), she plans on digital release for tablet readers and Kindle, as well as promoting the novel through Flower Girl Productions. It was during this snowballing of plugs that Monice came across Family Tree Builder. She was a looking for software to help readers visualize the connection between characters. Her goal was to create a family tree built around her heroine Merry. The tree would serve as visual aid to help her and readers keep track of the character relations. A tool that can be of great use as Address is the only first installment in a trilogy and features characters that will be figured more prominently in the subsequent installments.
Upon her use of Family Tree Builder, Monice was amazed by the software’s ability to “fill in all the gaps”. It now serves as a tool to help her readers. MyHeritage.com is thoroughly impressed by her innovation and her use of tools to help promote and create higher value for her art.
The book Address: House of Corrections is based on Monice’s grandmother, who she tells, “lived fast and hard.” The trilogy is fiction, though it novelizes real events. The next installment, The Mailman’s Daughter, will focus on her mother and the final, Quick To Lie, is on the life of her great-grandmother.
You can find out more information about Monice’s new novel through the following links:
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Address: House of Corrections
