My popular and sought-after pseudonym has 2.5 million reads and makes much more money than I do. No field of study is more complex, ancient, and intellectual than astrology, and few things are more symbolic, metaphoric, and collective-unconscious, so my interest in it seems to me part of a continuum. I’ve spent many enjoyable years studying astrology and meeting and talking with astrologers. About 25 years into it I realized I had this vast fund of specialized knowledge I wasn’t writing about. I held back because I thought people would call me nutty. Astrology is not a religion. I’m not a psychic or a witch and I don't let astrology run my life. I'm curious, and fascinated because there seems to be something to it, and I realized there are many others just as curious.

I planted a second career seed by taking a pseudonym who writes about astrology. Began it in 1993, in a small way. It grew. I learned about the market, which is enormous yet demanding. The Internet has educated readers about astrology in the way newspaper columns and books never did, so today they know what's fake and know what's genuine. They know what sign the Moon is in today; they know what Mercury in retrograde means. And I found a niche. I got my toehold writing articles exposing "astrologers" and "psychics" who charge thousands of dollars but whose "readings" I can prove are fake and canned. I've saved many people their hard-earned money. It's satisfying. An editor read what I wrote and offered me a steady gig. So I have monetized a specialty I had, and the pseudonym allows me to separate literary work from popular.

How about you? What do you know about that you might monetize by writing about it?

Yes, you can still deposit and cash checks written to your pseudonym -- simply tell your bank, and on the account they’ll put “doing business as” or d/b/a. No, you needn’t register a pseudonym with the state or federal government, although I registered mine as a dot.com right away.

• Open the paper with the treasured five Ws: who, what, when, where and why. Or start with an anecdote. Be reader-friendly.
• Cross-pollinate with techniques of creative nonfiction such as:
• Suspense. Yes, suspense in scholarship. That’s how to make people read and remember it. Save the conclusion for last.
• A great title is worth its weight in gold. Brainstorm until you extract the right title from the universe. Don’t be hasty.
• One must define terms. Imagine a non-scholar reading it. Would he or she understand?
• Specify. For example, what does "she paid attention to her studies" mean? That she did homework? For hours? What was she studying?
• There’s room, just a little, for personality.
• Humanities scholarship is about people (duh).
• Seek feedback. Scholarship is a conversation.
• Always, the spirit of inquiry.

A rave review for client Andrea Jackson's book Who Am I and Where is Home? An American Woman in 1931 Palestine from The Midwest Book Review. Reviews of "privately published" books are rather rare. The book has to be of more than personal interest, and well edited ("a book is judged by how well it is edited, and nothing else"). Congratulations to Andie and a pat on the back for BookEval.com. The book was published May 29, 2017.

The Biography Shelf

Who Am I and Where Is Home?

Andrea Jackson
Privately Published
9780692872383, $10.00, PB, 264pp.

Critique: An absolutely fascinating, deftly crafted read from cover to cover, Who Am I and Where Is Home?: An American Woman in 1931 Palestine is an extraordinary, candid, engaging, account of an inherently interesting woman in an inherently interesting time. While very highly and unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library biography collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that Who Am I and Where Is Home? is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $2.99).

Copies of your new book have arrived, a whole box full. Now’s the time to plan your book launch. Now? Not six to 12 weeks before? Not before.

Publishers give publication-date estimates and advisers tell authors to plan launches far in advance, but anything can happen before a book is ready to sell. Before planning a book launch, please:

1. Have the hard copies on hand.
2. Check them all thoroughly for any printing mistakes.

35 Tips for Writing Powerful Prose Poems is the second in a series by writer Kaye Linden, the “35 Tips” series. She sent me the manuscript of the first book, 35 Tips for Writing a Brilliant Flash Story, to edit two years ago; it now sells well on Amazon.com. I found that no such books existed (!) so Kaye's books satisfy a need.

Veteran of many creative-writing courses and programs with an MFA in writing, and an editor for a literary magazine, Ms. Linden distills what she has learned about writing into easy-to-read instructional texts. Step by step, her book helps new and student writers gain skill and confidence in writing prose poems.

I like her advice: “When in doubt, keep it simple.” Simple is good: A middle-schooler could use these books as easily as a college grad.

Ms. Linden drafted the 35 short chapters. As editor, I arranged them in an order starting from square one, total novice, with lessons and challenges that keep the student growing toward success. How do I know which chapter is square one is? I taught writing and creative writing for 31 years. The book answers questions such as “How long should a prose poem be?” “Are prose poems stories?” “How do I know whether my prose poem is good?” 

The result is excellent--a beautiful, useful, evergreen book that fulfills a need.

If your book fulfills a need—it markets itself!

Xu Fangfang was 18 when Red Guards tore apart her family’s house, defacing artworks by her famous father, Xu Beihong, and destroying their classical record collection. Under Chairman Mao and especially the violent Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) all works of music, art, and drama, and their creators, teachers, and performers, had to meet strict ideological standards. A classically trained concert pianist, Xu Fangfang was among the many young artists Mao sent to farms to be “re-educated.”

Part biography and part autobiography, Xu Fangfang’s book Galloping Horses describes how Xu Beihong, one of the first Chinese artists to study in Europe, modernized Chinese painting and how his widow, son, and daughter, denounced as “bourgeois,” realized his hopes for them and preserved his contributions to art and art education. The Xu Beihong Memorial Museum in Beijing is the first government-funded museum in China devoted to the work of one artist. Xu Beihong is internationally known for his iconic ink-brush paintings of free-running horses. See his artwork here.

Galloping Horses is available in English in paperback and in Chinese as an e-book. Born and raised in Beijing, China, Xu Fangfang graduated in piano performance from Beijing’s Preparatory Music High School affiliated to the Central Conservatory of Music. She moved to the U.S. in 1981 and earned a B.A. in history from University of California, Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. She now lives in St. Louis. Her website is BeihongChinaArts.com.

BookEval: Now that the book is published, have you been surprised by anything? If so, what surprised you?

Xu Fangfang: During my book signings, I was surprised by the responses of some Americans with no Chinese background. They were passionate about Xu Beihong’s art, believing his talent should be recognized by all the world, not just in China. 

BookEval: Galloping Horses took years to complete, requiring several trips to China for fact-checking and interviews. What motivated you?

Xu Fangfang: My book honored my mother’s wish for me to write about these things. She read what I wrote and gave me feedback. I am hoping the spirit of our family and the stories of other artists and music students under Mao will inspire readers to persist in attaining their own goals. My widowed mother, Liao Jingwen, worked for more than six decades to sustain the Xu Beihong Memorial Museum.

BookEval: How and why did you choose self-publishing?

Xu Fangfang: I was offered contracts by an academic and a non-academic publisher, but decided to self-publish because I wanted to control the credibility and accuracy of my stories. I needed to discourage potential attempts by some mainland Chinese people who might publish a Chinese translation without my permission. I wrote my own Chinese translation and simultaneously published the Chinese e-book and the English paperback.

BookEval: What was the hardest thing about writing or publishing this book?

Xu Fangfang: The hard thing was being objective about my emotions in order to tell the most accurate story while writing from the heart the trauma my family and I had lived through. I tried my best to document Xu Beihong’s experiences under Mao so historians and art historians can quote from my book.

Photograph of Xu Fangfang copyright Xu Fangfang