Giacomo & Slick

What is Thanksgiving?

We celebrate a lot on Thanksgiving. I thought about all I had to be thankful for and decided that every now and then I’d dedicate my blog to someone special on my list of those who need to be thanked. My wife is always at the top of the list, and my family is there, of course, but there are many others. I’m going to talk about one of them today.

An Internet Friend

After being rejected by about every agent in the world, I decided to publish my own books early this year. I had no clue what to do. I had a Facebook account with about three friends and maybe four posts to my name. I had no Twitter account, didn’t know what Google+ was, and had never heard of Pinterest or Tumblr, or any of the other social media networks. In short, I was lost.

It reminded me of when I was 13 years old and took my first trip to Philadelphia to buy a suit, a young kid wowed by the big city. The difference was that at 13 years old you are “wowed” by new experiences, at 59 years old you are skeptical, even frightened.

Where to Start

One of the first things I needed was someone to design a book cover. Anything involving design or artistry in any form scared the hell out of me. If it involved more than a stick man, I was lost. I saw a few books with covers that looked good. One of them was a person whose name I recognized from an online writing group I had been involved in a few years back when I was writing fantasy. I emailed the author and asked if she could tell me who did her covers. It turns out she did her own covers, but she gave me some pointers on what to consider regarding covers and a few recommendations of people who might do the kind of cover I wanted.

That suggestion didn’t work out for me, but, since she had been helpful, when I needed a copy editor I asked again for a recommendation. This time I struck gold. I found the best copy editor ever! Okay, I don’t know if she is really the best ever, but I never will know because I’m not going to try anyone else. I’m perfectly happy with who I have in every sense. For anyone interested I use Precision Editing Group.

I wasn’t through using and abusing this wonderful new friend, though. I asked for information on blog tours and a recommendation. She referred me to Partners in Crime Tours. That’s where I met up with Cheryl Masciarelli, who runs PICT. There isn’t much I can say about Cheryl—other than she is one of the most competent and meticulous people I know. If you do a tour with Cheryl, you are going to be happy. Period. Plain and simple. I’ll have more to say about that in another post.

So back to my internet friend. I have never met this lady. I have never even spoken to her. All communications have been via email or comments on blogs. But I know I like her. I know she likes animals because I can feel it in her writing. I know she cares about quality and doing things right because I see it in her books. I know she has a good heart because it bleeds when one of her animals is hurt, or lost, or dying. I know she has a good husband because she brags to the world about him. And I know she is a good person because she reached out and helped someone she never met, and had no reason to help, other than to be nice.

By the way, her name is Maria Zannini. She’s my friend. And on this special day of Thanksgiving, I’m glad I met her.

Check out her blog.

Ciao, and thanks for stopping by,

(I plan on eating a lot of my son’s Thanksgiving Ravioli)

Giacomo

Giacomo Giammatteo is the author of Murder Takes Time, and A Bullet For Carlos. He lives in Texas where he and his wife have an animal sanctuary with 41 loving “friends.”

Filed under: Family, Life Lessons, Uncategorized by Giacomo