Waiting for Paul Revere

by Libby Sternberg

Okay, I'm no longer embarrassed to admit it. When I was a kid, I didn't fall in love with the Beatles. I wasn't a Rolling Stones fan. I didn't even care for Elvis that much. I liked really silly bands. Like, uh, The Monkees. And, well, Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Before you dissolve into disdainful laughter, let me tell readers who don't know me that I was trained as a classical singer, and in that area I'm not at all attracted to cheap imitations. Subtle Faure and Debussy songs call out to me in that field, and song cycles by Mahler and Schubert speak to my heart.

No, it's just popular music that brings out my inner lowbrow.

So, when I was a mere lass, I developed crushes not on John, Paul, George or Ringo, but on those guys in silly satin breeches and tights. Don't ask me which one in particular. I can't remember.

I used to have this girlish dream. It went like this--the band would be playing in my hometown, Baltimore, see? And they'd be driving around the city and its environs looking for their hotel or their venue or whatever, right? And whaddya know, they end up on my suburban street, and I happen to be out and about, and...

Pretty lame, huh?

That daydream brightened many a boring class, though. And it didn't seem outlandish to me, to believe that my favorite band would just happen to drive down my street. Crazier things have happened, right?

As I grew older, I let go of that dream, thank goodness, but I also came to realize that waiting-for-Paul-Revere could be a syndrome of sorts with no good end. That is, waiting for something to just fall into one's lap instead of setting a goal and pursuing it with vigor leads only to frustration and bitterness.

Setting appropriate goals (uh, meeting a popular band is not one of mine any longer) and working with all one's might to achieve them, however, leads to fulfillment and success.

In publishing, it's easy to live variations of the waiting-for-Paul-Revere syndrome. You wait for the right agent to say yes, the right editor to offer a contract, the right marketing plan to make you a bestseller. You wait and wait and wait. Years pass while you wait, always thinking that Paul (the contract, the breakout novel, the perfect marketing plan) is just around the corner.

In the world of ePublishing, however, a lot of that waiting can disappear. You can offer your books directly to the public yourself, or you can work with an e-publisher such as ours, Istoria Books, to make it happen.

But you don't need to sit there anymore, waiting for your dream to come true.

Istoria Books is now open to submissions -- read our guidelines below or find them on our website at www.IstoriaBooks.com. We only publish fiction (most genres) and want to see good stories, well-told.

Stop waiting...start submitting! We want to hear from you!