April 4, 2025 • 26 mins
Linda is out there doing presentations of her books. In addition to writing awesome teen mysteries, she also produces a local TV Show in East Hampton called “The Writer’s Dream,” a series of shows with writers in many different aspects of the profession.Linda is a native New Yorker, born in N.Y.C. and a lover of the greatest city in the world.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Low. I almost said
the Ladystail podcast, but I caught myself. It's the writer's
class because we have a writer with although I could
be a Ladystelle podcast because she's on TV. So like,
if you're on here and you're running, why you heard
it twice? That's why I'm gonna get the best bang
out of my content. Yay, I've will known of by
(00:22):
the way, Yes, I remember to introduce myself. Hi thought
to me, I'm getting better at this after a few years.
I'm getting better and I'm one of the anti thought ladies.
You can find out everything that we are up to
www dot and I thought, ladies dot com, you will
while you're there, you will find our books that we
(00:43):
have written. And I thought divorce was bad and I
thought being grown up with ez if only I were
mee a Memoir and Verse, Foreign Coffee, Widdow's Web, and
Widow's Debt. You're counting that is six books, and no,
we have more than just six books. I mean, what
kind of writers would we be we only had six books.
We found out the rest of our thirteen books because yeah,
we just did number nineteen. I'm still not sure why,
(01:05):
but we did it. You can find the rest of
the nineteen books again at www dot and I thought
ladies dot com. And as the narcissists of the group,
I really do want to just keep on talking about
me because I like dang, the curls, the lips, the cuteness,
the non magazine in the back to show my own narcissism.
These things need to be discussed. But ah, we have
a guess, so, wonderful guests, you're not here to hear
(01:26):
about me. You're here to hear about our wonderful guests.
Wonderful guests, would you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I certainly would. I'm Linda Maria Frank and I am
the author of the Anti Tillery mystery series and the
Buccaneer books. I tell a really good story. It was
part of my persona as a teacher. I'm devoted to
the idea that the young people I write for need
to know about science and history, and I incorporate them
(01:53):
into my mystery as sort of romance stories. According to
my reviewers, while keeping those pages turning. As a teacher
and storyteller, I believe in our youth. I believe they
deserve the best we can give them knowledge, dreams, and
(02:13):
a sense of adventure. To read my stories, they're really great.
I notice there's one this is featuring. This is the
Mystery of the Lost Avenger, and it takes place in
two times. The Avenger is a real airplane manufactured here
on Long Island by Grumman Aircraft, flown by the Women's
(02:35):
Air Service pilots in World War II called the wasps
to the West Coast, where they're put on aircraft carriers
to fight the war. This is the plane that George
Bush Senior crashed him okay, but he survived because he
became president. Either that or it was his I don't
know who he was, so anyway. In the book, the plane,
(02:57):
one of these Avenger planes, on its way to the
West cast crashes, but it isn't found until the present day,
so NCIS has to come and investigate because it's a
Navy plane. They find a note that belongs to my
main character, Annie Chillery, belongs to her great grandmother, so
they have to get in touch with the family. Annie
finds out and of course she has to solve the
(03:19):
mystery why this plane crashed. So it takes place in
two times. I go back to nineteen forty three and
come back to the present. There's a ghost of romance,
love letters codes. It's really a cool story.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I feel like you do better than Nancy Drew right now.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Oh absolutely, yeah, You're like the new Nancy Drew. And
I was like, yeah, well, Nancy Drew made me a
lifetime reader. I didn't like to read until I read
my first Nancy Drew. So she made me a reader
and a writer. So there you go, thanks Nancy.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, so many people were learned how to be god.
They were enthralling books. They weren't just the books you
had to read for school, and then you pick them
up and you're like, oh, yeah, this is fun. This
is a lot of fun. Oh yeah, I am the narcissist.
So I'm going to talk about myself real quick right here,
just a quick thing. So I for my people you
already know, I just for you, like so like, the
(04:16):
thing that got me into really writing and really really
into reading was a Mickey Spalaine novel.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Well there you go. I mean, so, will you write
mysteries as well?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I do? I write noir? Yes, I do no histories?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, scary, okay, No, I try to make mine. Mine
are really for young readers, and I have two audiences.
I have young readers and I have old ladies like
me who love a mystery that's short because you don't write,
you know, three hundred and fifty pages for young readers,
because the first thing they do when they pick up
my book at affair is they go like this, how
(04:52):
many pages are there? You know you did that in
school when you had to do a book report. All right,
which one of these books has the least number of pages?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Right?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Oh? Badly? So that's that's the story. But my background
is science, so I put a lot of science. I
toyed forensic science, so I put that in the books,
and I like to incorporate history. So sounds boring, but
it's not.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
No, the way that you had said about any Tillery
having to figure out Annri, it's any tillery. I don't
know why, but an antietillery. I put an R right
in there, just boom, Annie Tillery.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Ernie is her brother.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Maybe I was thinking of Ernie having to figure out
how the plane crash. That's a lot of science, and
it's a fun way to learn science other than an experiment.
What else is fun? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Well, they also have to She and her boyfriend have
to figure out the code that they find in the
love letters and the addict of the house that the
great grandmother lived in. And the code is based on
a Latin textbook.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Uh huh okay, So when did you become the expert
in Latin on top of science?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
And I went to Catholic school three years of Latin.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yes, yes, you gotta know what they're saying.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
So in honor, you know, in honor of those nons,
I put the Latin in the book.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Nice And so did you learn anything about code breaking
while you were doing this?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yes? Yeah. I do a lot of research for my books,
and the research for this book was great. The way
I got into this book was we have a museum
here on Long Island. It's called the Cradle of Aviation
because that's what Long Island is. And I was there
one day with my son, and my son and his
family more off doing something and I come across this plane.
It's a huge plane, but there's a plaque in front
(06:46):
of it, and the plaque is all about the women
who built the plane, the Rosy Riveter, Rosy the Riveters
and the wasps. And so I read this this thing,
and that was one of the days where they let
you climb into the plane. So I clubbed into the plane,
which is no mean feet at my age, I want
you to know. And I'm sitting there. I can't even
see over the dashboard, okay, and there's like three dials.
(07:09):
I mean, have you seen the dashboard of modern Yeah, okay,
there's three dials on its thing. And I'm sitting there
and I'm thinking to myself, these ladies flew these planes,
and the plane you think it's a little, it's huge,
and I'm thinking, I got to write this story. So
then when I did the research, they haven't digitized all
(07:29):
of their files yet, so I had to go into
the old Mitchellfield hangars and go into the file cabinets
and I actually got to open up the blueprints for
the plane. I mean, it was like it was like
I was possessed the whole time I was going to research.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So it was like you were Indiana Jones for a
literary reason.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It was. It was great fun
to do this book. All my books were fun. The
one before that it takes place in Turkey, so I
had to go to Turkey. Oh that was terrible. The hardships, yes,
it was terrible.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, food, all the delicious food you had to eat.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Is awful.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Beautiful landscapes you must see. Yeah, did you go in Turkey?
What cities?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Oh, istanbul And which is really a fabulous city, and
then is mere an Anchor? I believe we went to
Anchor mostly in the boonies. We went to a place
called Cappadocia, which you see sometimes in the travelogs. It's
they have these strange geological formations and people take balloon
(08:40):
rides to see them and you always see that picture
and that that's where it takes place. It takes place
at an archaeological dig in this area of Turkey. So yeah,
it was That was interesting too.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So that's amazing. Okay, So let's ask the question that
everyone's gonna want to know, and that is how did
you get started writing?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Okay, the first thing for a literary agent?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Or did you self publish? And why?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Okay? I self published And the reason why I did
that was I started this game pretty late. But I'm
going to give you the advice that you have to do.
I don't care if you get an agent or not,
because you have to do a lot of the work yourself.
It's like when you go to a lawyer for a divorce,
you have to do all the work yourself and then
they go to court with you. All right, So okay.
(09:30):
The first thing you have to do is you have
to think of it as a business, as an investment,
like if you were opening a doughnut shop, you'd go
to the bank and you'd get money, right, So you
have to think in terms of how much money do
you want to spend on this, because you're going to
spend money. And then the next thing that you have
to do is, while you're writing the book, you should
get into social media and start telling people about this
(09:51):
book you're writing. Maybe put a few little excerpts in,
maybe read you know, make a little video, put it
on Instagram. Not a whole lot, because it's has an
intention span over nat So I'm sorry, I didn't say that. Okay,
So the then definitely do the social media thing, and
(10:13):
especially Facebook because Facebook's so easy. And then you'll get
into the other stuff. And when your book is published,
do a launch party and invite all the local people,
because your marketing starts on the local level. First librarians, teachers,
local newspapers. They're dying to get stories because they have
(10:37):
to fill their pages and there isn't always a lot
of local news, so get into that as well. You
could do book giveaways. Join good Reads, they do book giveaways,
join what is It? Or I can't think of the
name of it, I will mention. But get reviews. There
(10:57):
are some websites where you can go on and get reviews,
like Reader's Favorites. Reader's Favorites is one of my favorites,
and they have a book give away as well. So
you keep doing all these things, and reviews are important.
Once you write the book and you publish it. If
you're going to publish it, you should look at the
(11:20):
independent book publishers like I Universe and all the rest
of them. Look at them and look at the packages
they have, because they're not going to let you produce
a piece of garbage because it reflects back on them.
So you will at least get out a book that
looks decent and that is put together properly. If you
(11:41):
really know about publishing a book and you have a
graphic designer, go to Kindle Direct Publishing because it's free. Okay,
it all depends on your budget. How much you want
to spend. I mean, all of those self publishing companies,
they have marketing programs that you can buy. I mean,
they have one for twenty thousand dollars where they actually
(12:01):
teach you how to put your book on a website
that producers look at to find scripts for movies. Twenty
thousand dollars a lot of money, so, I mean, but
it depends on you know, it depends on your own budget.
But basically you have to be the marketer and why
(12:22):
you're doing all this. Then you can look for an agent.
All agents. The thing that I noticed is that the
books that I like are usually in the genre that
I write. So if you look at what the authors are,
the author's notes and acknowledgments in the beginning, they might
tell you who their agent is. Somewhere in there. They're
(12:43):
going to tell you their agent. All agents have a
website because everything now is submitted digitally, and they'll give
you the submission guidelines right on the so you don't
make a mess of it, you know, because you could
go and you can get that publishers whatever it is,
that guide that you every publishing company and magazine in
the world, and you're not going to have the submission
(13:06):
guidelines right there. So what you want to do is
if this agent wants it in this format, that's what
you want to do. You don't want to give them
something that they're going to reject out of hand. So
I mean you could, you could go both ways. But
the trouble is if you self published, they're going to
look to see how many books you sold. And I
have to tell you that on Amazon, I don't. I
(13:29):
don't sell a lot, sell a lot on Notable, but
not on Amazon, not paperback, but I sell them personally.
I mean I've sold over five thousand books, so I mean,
which is a lot for a person like me. So
it's not a lot for what's his name, James Patterson
who was a staff of writers, but but it is
for me. So that's my best advice.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
I love this, Thank you so much. I was not
expecting such a good practical marketing lesson. It's like we're
going to talk about aure but this these things I
love to hear about and I love to learn because
it's going to help you with your next book and
your next book, and you're going to get better at it.
Oh yeah, you're going to have an actual career if
you listen to these sorts of things like you'll make
(14:13):
money with it and have a career. Yeah, I don't
do so. I'm just oh you said so, so continue there.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
There's always this argument in my head of I want
to have a life other than this, you know, And
then I say, get up in the morning and get
on Facebook and put a post on Facebook. And you know,
it's work. You have to commit yourself. You want to
write a book, Everybody says, oh, I'd like to write
a book about blah blah blah. You want to write
(14:41):
a book, you have to commit. You have to commit money,
you have to commit time, and you have to commit spirit.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yes, and energy. But it takes a lot m h.
And I know all of my listeners know I've been
published professionally since I was ten years old and it's
taken a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
That's great, that's great. What are what are the names
of your books?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
We write the End I Thought series, the Misfit Guide series,
the Ladies tell you you.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Won't Amazon, Yes, I am all right, I'll find you.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
And then I write the Wittles Debt series. Yeah, none
of these things are important. Let's go back to the
important thing you. So you have a television show. You
are a star, madam.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, I have a lot of that happened. It's Local
Access and uh it's called the Writer's Dream and you
get from me twenty six minutes to talk about your book.
And I love a talker. I much prefer to have
somebody come on the show and when you ask them
a question, what inspired you about your book? My dog?
(15:56):
You know a one word answer, please speak you up
twenty six minutes. But at any rate, it's it's here
on Long Island. We have cable vision, and so I
have a cable vision spot on the local access spam
whatever it is. I also put it on YouTube so
you can find me. You have to look at my name.
(16:18):
I have to Lynda, Maria Frank. Don't look for the
Writer's Dream. You'll never find it. And I have probably
four hundred videos on there, So I have a lot
of I mean, I do mostly local because the studio
is out in the Hampton's and I like to go
out there because then I make a day of it,
(16:38):
you know, because it's very pretty out there and nice restaurants,
et cetera. But I also do zoom for people who can,
so I can do people like you can from all
over the country, and I've done people from Boston, California.
I don't know where else, but yeah, I asked them
(16:59):
the three things. So I ask them write it, publish it,
market it, tell me how you did it, and then
of course I ask the best advice. So I learned a.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Lot, yes, And I think that's the most important thing
about having the show. People are like, oh, you know,
what do you enjoy about it? And I'm like, it's
nothing that I really enjoy more than listening to how
other people did something. Because, as my friend says, a clock,
even a broken clock, is right twice a day. So
there's even information you can get from a broken clock.
So no matter how silly or how crazy you think
(17:33):
it is, there's something you can learn. Yeah, all that
it's so amazing. You love it.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And it's good to have a YouTube channel. I mean,
anybody can get a YouTube channel. So that's another thing
that you can do, is you can have that YouTube channel.
You can have your friend interview, you can read chapters
from your book and just put those on. You can
have somebody make a book trailer. That's the other thing.
Book trailer is a very because they're digital. You can
(18:03):
send them all over the place. You can put them
on your website. That's something I left out. You need
to get a website too, to put all your books
on the website and make sure that whoever is doing
your website knows how to connect to someplace where you
can buy the books. So you know, put a blog
on your website. Right now, I'm doing something here and there.
(18:26):
I don't spend my major time on it. But I
grew up in Queens, New York. Queen's is one of
the five Boroughs, so it's part of New York City.
But we had a flower farm and it was a
flower farm in the city basically, and at when my
grandparents started it, it was one of the called the
(18:46):
Outer Boroughs, so it was kind of rural at the time.
But by the time I left there at twenty one,
when I got married, it was a city. And so
what I'd do with this is I took about what
it was like to grow up at a flow on
a flower farm in Queens, and that's it's kind of fun. Yeah, yeah,
(19:07):
nobody thinks I actually, you know, I took me until
I was like fifty five to figure out. Oh, I
grew up on a farm. I didn't know that it
really wasn't farm, you know, so, but it was. It
was great. It was My parents didn't think it was great,
but I did.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
It's the best of both worlds. You got the city
around you on a farm.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Right there, we could see the Empire State Building. There
was a cemetery across the street, and if you climb
the hill in the cemetery you could see the Empire
State Building.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Oh that is cool. Yeah, I have to mention there's
great food nearby New York. Sorry, there's great food nearby.
New York has great food.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Oh yes, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Like the only thing I like, really like about that city.
How wonderful the food is.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Well, I grew up there, so you know. My first
kiss was in the Museum of Natural History, you know.
I I've walked over the Brooklyn Bridge several several times.
There's so much in New York City. It's it wears
you out if you try to do it all. But
you know, if you the pace of the city is
is something you have to get used to because it
(20:13):
really is wearing. It's the best I can say about it.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It's so fast. It's like you, I live in Maryland,
my son. Yeah, so it's like a nice pace for me.
Like when I go too far, I'm like, okay, this
is kind of real laid back. And then you go
up to New York You're like, this is just too fast.
You slow down, like right in the middle, this right
there in the middle. Yeah, I'm like, oh, this is
(20:41):
it's just too much.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Where do you live in Maryland? Asked that where do
you live in Maryland?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I live in Annapolis, Maryland.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Oh. I love Innapolis. My parents my mother is from Maryland,
and my father had family there, and then that's how
my my phone the met my mother and and then
in their retirement they lived in Annapolis for a while.
And my son lives in Windsor, which is and I'm sorry, Westminster,
(21:10):
which is if you come down eighty three, it's it's
right right right below Gettysburg. So yeah, yeah, big Ravens fans.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, who just lost?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Oh was that sad? Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
We okay, I'm gonna finish this interview so I can
talk about that.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Day.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Okay. So you've already given us so much advice about
where what we can do and how we can get started.
And how we can market. But if you had to
do it all over again, what three paces of advice
would you give yourself at the beginning?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I would I would send my manuscripts out to traditional publishers.
I would. I would start that way, I would give
it a certain amount of time, and then I would
go to selfishing. I went to self publishing because it
was a time when self publishing has always existed. It
(22:10):
was called vanity Press and you could just publish anything.
And then self publishing became like an industry. So I
talked to a friend of mine who self published that
I could see that it was very different, and that
I mean they put me through the ringer with my
first book of you know, changing things and making suggestions.
And I was very happy because I paid for the
(22:32):
editorial review and I learned so much about it. But this,
if I do, in fact, the book that I've just
finished with a friend, we're thinking about sending it out,
two traditional publishers don't if you're going to do traditional
publishers don't self published first because they don't want to
look at it. But that's what I would do. And
(22:53):
when I, as I said, I came to this game
late I already had a full career teaching. I mean
I taught everything from fis great to graduate school. Oh yeah,
And so I thought I'm too old, you know, I
stopt to wait all these years. I don't know if
I'll be alive then. So that's why I self published.
And here I am, like ten years later, and I'm
(23:14):
still here shoveling.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Your books are here and they're going to They're making
an impression on young minds. They're getting more people interested
in stem. They're they're out there, they're doing what they're
supposed to do. And they're fun. Yes, more important than anything.
They're fun.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yes, yeah, oh yeah. I enjoyed my books every once
in all read one.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Oh, I don't do that anymore. I picked my book
up by mistake and was reading and I was like, ah,
I meant to put this detail. You know, would have
been better if I had done. And I was like,
you know what, you can't do this anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, it's what I noticed. I was the the improvement
in writing style because I was I was not an
English major. I hated English, I really did. It was
my lowest grade always, and I had to really learn.
I had to take a course to learn how to
write a book. I had a learned way to put
(24:09):
the quotation marks seriously. So yeah, so I've come a
long way.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And that right there, you're like you're late in the game,
but you learn so much in ten years. Good gracious.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
What's nice? It's because I'm a teacher, and that's that's
really my soul is that I can get on that
show and I could talk to people and give them advice.
And in fact, I have one show that's just me
talking about my books and I go from inspiration to
marketing and it's I think it's informative. It's like this
interview pretty much.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Now, Where can people find out more information about you
to buy those books and to find out all the
tips that you have also to watch your show.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Well, you can go. My website is my name Linda
Marie not Marie Maria frank dot com. That's it, and
it has the blog with all of the tips on
writing and stuff like that. And also I believe has
a link to I know it has a link to
my TV show or my YouTube channel. I also know
(25:17):
that each book, if you click on the book, it'll
take you, you know, it'll give you a summary and
blah blah blah, and then it'll take your right to
Amazon so you can buy them from there. But I
also have an Amazon page again, Linda Maria Frank. Everything
that you look for from what is my name? It's
like the writer's dream is not the writer, it's Linda
Maria Frank. So if you if you google my name,
(25:41):
you're going all that stuff's going to come up.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I thank you so much for thank you. The amount
of information that I have received today is so enjoyable.
I feel like you should write an encyclopedia next to
help teach people out here how to do this from
go from first words to a marketing plan. That would
be great. You can find out everything that your ladies
(26:05):
are doing at www dot and I thought ladies dot com.
And while you're there, when you go down to the
bottom of the page, you can see the charities that
we proudly support. Be asked that you take a little
time out and support them as well. Recognize that I
just said time, not money necessarily. I mean they wouldn't
mind money either, but if you could give them some time,
get your hands dirty, or maybe get a little not
(26:25):
give them some knowledge or something they need to know.
About they would be happy with that as well. We
thank you in advance for that. Remember that wisdom is
all around you if you're open to finding it and
acceptance to peace and love you guys from well Nona
and the Missing Jade. Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Low. I almost said
the Ladystail podcast, but I caught myself. It's the writer's
class because we have a writer with although I could
be a Ladystelle podcast because she's on TV. So like,
if you're on here and you're running, why you heard
it twice? That's why I'm gonna get the best bang
out of my content. Yay, I've will known of by
(00:22):
the way, Yes, I remember to introduce myself. Hi thought
to me, I'm getting better at this after a few years.
I'm getting better and I'm one of the anti thought ladies.
You can find out everything that we are up to
www dot and I thought, ladies dot com, you will
while you're there, you will find our books that we
(00:43):
have written. And I thought divorce was bad and I
thought being grown up with ez if only I were
mee a Memoir and Verse, Foreign Coffee, Widdow's Web, and
Widow's Debt. You're counting that is six books, and no,
we have more than just six books. I mean, what
kind of writers would we be we only had six books.
We found out the rest of our thirteen books because yeah,
we just did number nineteen. I'm still not sure why,
(01:05):
but we did it. You can find the rest of
the nineteen books again at www dot and I thought
ladies dot com. And as the narcissists of the group,
I really do want to just keep on talking about
me because I like dang, the curls, the lips, the cuteness,
the non magazine in the back to show my own narcissism.
These things need to be discussed. But ah, we have
a guess, so, wonderful guests, you're not here to hear
(01:26):
about me. You're here to hear about our wonderful guests.
Wonderful guests, would you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I certainly would. I'm Linda Maria Frank and I am
the author of the Anti Tillery mystery series and the
Buccaneer books. I tell a really good story. It was
part of my persona as a teacher. I'm devoted to
the idea that the young people I write for need
to know about science and history, and I incorporate them
(01:53):
into my mystery as sort of romance stories. According to
my reviewers, while keeping those pages turning. As a teacher
and storyteller, I believe in our youth. I believe they
deserve the best we can give them knowledge, dreams, and
(02:13):
a sense of adventure. To read my stories, they're really great.
I notice there's one this is featuring. This is the
Mystery of the Lost Avenger, and it takes place in
two times. The Avenger is a real airplane manufactured here
on Long Island by Grumman Aircraft, flown by the Women's
(02:35):
Air Service pilots in World War II called the wasps
to the West Coast, where they're put on aircraft carriers
to fight the war. This is the plane that George
Bush Senior crashed him okay, but he survived because he
became president. Either that or it was his I don't
know who he was, so anyway. In the book, the plane,
(02:57):
one of these Avenger planes, on its way to the
West cast crashes, but it isn't found until the present day,
so NCIS has to come and investigate because it's a
Navy plane. They find a note that belongs to my
main character, Annie Chillery, belongs to her great grandmother, so
they have to get in touch with the family. Annie
finds out and of course she has to solve the
(03:19):
mystery why this plane crashed. So it takes place in
two times. I go back to nineteen forty three and
come back to the present. There's a ghost of romance,
love letters codes. It's really a cool story.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I feel like you do better than Nancy Drew right now.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Oh absolutely, yeah, You're like the new Nancy Drew. And
I was like, yeah, well, Nancy Drew made me a
lifetime reader. I didn't like to read until I read
my first Nancy Drew. So she made me a reader
and a writer. So there you go, thanks Nancy.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, so many people were learned how to be god.
They were enthralling books. They weren't just the books you
had to read for school, and then you pick them
up and you're like, oh, yeah, this is fun. This
is a lot of fun. Oh yeah, I am the narcissist.
So I'm going to talk about myself real quick right here,
just a quick thing. So I for my people you
already know, I just for you, like so like, the
(04:16):
thing that got me into really writing and really really
into reading was a Mickey Spalaine novel.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Well there you go. I mean, so, will you write
mysteries as well?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I do? I write noir? Yes, I do no histories?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, scary, okay, No, I try to make mine. Mine
are really for young readers, and I have two audiences.
I have young readers and I have old ladies like
me who love a mystery that's short because you don't write,
you know, three hundred and fifty pages for young readers,
because the first thing they do when they pick up
my book at affair is they go like this, how
(04:52):
many pages are there? You know you did that in
school when you had to do a book report. All right,
which one of these books has the least number of pages?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Right?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Oh? Badly? So that's that's the story. But my background
is science, so I put a lot of science. I
toyed forensic science, so I put that in the books,
and I like to incorporate history. So sounds boring, but
it's not.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
No, the way that you had said about any Tillery
having to figure out Annri, it's any tillery. I don't
know why, but an antietillery. I put an R right
in there, just boom, Annie Tillery.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Ernie is her brother.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Maybe I was thinking of Ernie having to figure out
how the plane crash. That's a lot of science, and
it's a fun way to learn science other than an experiment.
What else is fun? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Well, they also have to She and her boyfriend have
to figure out the code that they find in the
love letters and the addict of the house that the
great grandmother lived in. And the code is based on
a Latin textbook.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Uh huh okay, So when did you become the expert
in Latin on top of science?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
And I went to Catholic school three years of Latin.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yes, yes, you gotta know what they're saying.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
So in honor, you know, in honor of those nons,
I put the Latin in the book.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Nice And so did you learn anything about code breaking
while you were doing this?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yes? Yeah. I do a lot of research for my books,
and the research for this book was great. The way
I got into this book was we have a museum
here on Long Island. It's called the Cradle of Aviation
because that's what Long Island is. And I was there
one day with my son, and my son and his
family more off doing something and I come across this plane.
It's a huge plane, but there's a plaque in front
(06:46):
of it, and the plaque is all about the women
who built the plane, the Rosy Riveter, Rosy the Riveters
and the wasps. And so I read this this thing,
and that was one of the days where they let
you climb into the plane. So I clubbed into the plane,
which is no mean feet at my age, I want
you to know. And I'm sitting there. I can't even
see over the dashboard, okay, and there's like three dials.
(07:09):
I mean, have you seen the dashboard of modern Yeah, okay,
there's three dials on its thing. And I'm sitting there
and I'm thinking to myself, these ladies flew these planes,
and the plane you think it's a little, it's huge,
and I'm thinking, I got to write this story. So
then when I did the research, they haven't digitized all
(07:29):
of their files yet, so I had to go into
the old Mitchellfield hangars and go into the file cabinets
and I actually got to open up the blueprints for
the plane. I mean, it was like it was like
I was possessed the whole time I was going to research.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So it was like you were Indiana Jones for a
literary reason.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It was. It was great fun
to do this book. All my books were fun. The
one before that it takes place in Turkey, so I
had to go to Turkey. Oh that was terrible. The hardships, yes,
it was terrible.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, food, all the delicious food you had to eat.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Is awful.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Beautiful landscapes you must see. Yeah, did you go in Turkey?
What cities?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Oh, istanbul And which is really a fabulous city, and
then is mere an Anchor? I believe we went to
Anchor mostly in the boonies. We went to a place
called Cappadocia, which you see sometimes in the travelogs. It's
they have these strange geological formations and people take balloon
(08:40):
rides to see them and you always see that picture
and that that's where it takes place. It takes place
at an archaeological dig in this area of Turkey. So yeah,
it was That was interesting too.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So that's amazing. Okay, So let's ask the question that
everyone's gonna want to know, and that is how did
you get started writing?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Okay, the first thing for a literary agent?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Or did you self publish? And why?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Okay? I self published And the reason why I did
that was I started this game pretty late. But I'm
going to give you the advice that you have to do.
I don't care if you get an agent or not,
because you have to do a lot of the work yourself.
It's like when you go to a lawyer for a divorce,
you have to do all the work yourself and then
they go to court with you. All right, So okay.
(09:30):
The first thing you have to do is you have
to think of it as a business, as an investment,
like if you were opening a doughnut shop, you'd go
to the bank and you'd get money, right, So you
have to think in terms of how much money do
you want to spend on this, because you're going to
spend money. And then the next thing that you have
to do is, while you're writing the book, you should
get into social media and start telling people about this
(09:51):
book you're writing. Maybe put a few little excerpts in,
maybe read you know, make a little video, put it
on Instagram. Not a whole lot, because it's has an
intention span over nat So I'm sorry, I didn't say that. Okay,
So the then definitely do the social media thing, and
(10:13):
especially Facebook because Facebook's so easy. And then you'll get
into the other stuff. And when your book is published,
do a launch party and invite all the local people,
because your marketing starts on the local level. First librarians, teachers,
local newspapers. They're dying to get stories because they have
(10:37):
to fill their pages and there isn't always a lot
of local news, so get into that as well. You
could do book giveaways. Join good Reads, they do book giveaways,
join what is It? Or I can't think of the
name of it, I will mention. But get reviews. There
(10:57):
are some websites where you can go on and get reviews,
like Reader's Favorites. Reader's Favorites is one of my favorites,
and they have a book give away as well. So
you keep doing all these things, and reviews are important.
Once you write the book and you publish it. If
you're going to publish it, you should look at the
(11:20):
independent book publishers like I Universe and all the rest
of them. Look at them and look at the packages
they have, because they're not going to let you produce
a piece of garbage because it reflects back on them.
So you will at least get out a book that
looks decent and that is put together properly. If you
(11:41):
really know about publishing a book and you have a
graphic designer, go to Kindle Direct Publishing because it's free. Okay,
it all depends on your budget. How much you want
to spend. I mean, all of those self publishing companies,
they have marketing programs that you can buy. I mean,
they have one for twenty thousand dollars where they actually
(12:01):
teach you how to put your book on a website
that producers look at to find scripts for movies. Twenty
thousand dollars a lot of money, so, I mean, but
it depends on you know, it depends on your own budget.
But basically you have to be the marketer and why
(12:22):
you're doing all this. Then you can look for an agent.
All agents. The thing that I noticed is that the
books that I like are usually in the genre that
I write. So if you look at what the authors are,
the author's notes and acknowledgments in the beginning, they might
tell you who their agent is. Somewhere in there. They're
(12:43):
going to tell you their agent. All agents have a
website because everything now is submitted digitally, and they'll give
you the submission guidelines right on the so you don't
make a mess of it, you know, because you could
go and you can get that publishers whatever it is,
that guide that you every publishing company and magazine in
the world, and you're not going to have the submission
(13:06):
guidelines right there. So what you want to do is
if this agent wants it in this format, that's what
you want to do. You don't want to give them
something that they're going to reject out of hand. So
I mean you could, you could go both ways. But
the trouble is if you self published, they're going to
look to see how many books you sold. And I
have to tell you that on Amazon, I don't. I
(13:29):
don't sell a lot, sell a lot on Notable, but
not on Amazon, not paperback, but I sell them personally.
I mean I've sold over five thousand books, so I mean,
which is a lot for a person like me. So
it's not a lot for what's his name, James Patterson
who was a staff of writers, but but it is
for me. So that's my best advice.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
I love this, Thank you so much. I was not
expecting such a good practical marketing lesson. It's like we're
going to talk about aure but this these things I
love to hear about and I love to learn because
it's going to help you with your next book and
your next book, and you're going to get better at it.
Oh yeah, you're going to have an actual career if
you listen to these sorts of things like you'll make
(14:13):
money with it and have a career. Yeah, I don't
do so. I'm just oh you said so, so continue there.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
There's always this argument in my head of I want
to have a life other than this, you know, And
then I say, get up in the morning and get
on Facebook and put a post on Facebook. And you know,
it's work. You have to commit yourself. You want to
write a book, Everybody says, oh, I'd like to write
a book about blah blah blah. You want to write
(14:41):
a book, you have to commit. You have to commit money,
you have to commit time, and you have to commit spirit.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yes, and energy. But it takes a lot m h.
And I know all of my listeners know I've been
published professionally since I was ten years old and it's
taken a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
That's great, that's great. What are what are the names
of your books?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
We write the End I Thought series, the Misfit Guide series,
the Ladies tell you you.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Won't Amazon, Yes, I am all right, I'll find you.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
And then I write the Wittles Debt series. Yeah, none
of these things are important. Let's go back to the
important thing you. So you have a television show. You
are a star, madam.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, I have a lot of that happened. It's Local
Access and uh it's called the Writer's Dream and you
get from me twenty six minutes to talk about your book.
And I love a talker. I much prefer to have
somebody come on the show and when you ask them
a question, what inspired you about your book? My dog?
(15:56):
You know a one word answer, please speak you up
twenty six minutes. But at any rate, it's it's here
on Long Island. We have cable vision, and so I
have a cable vision spot on the local access spam
whatever it is. I also put it on YouTube so
you can find me. You have to look at my name.
(16:18):
I have to Lynda, Maria Frank. Don't look for the
Writer's Dream. You'll never find it. And I have probably
four hundred videos on there, So I have a lot
of I mean, I do mostly local because the studio
is out in the Hampton's and I like to go
out there because then I make a day of it,
(16:38):
you know, because it's very pretty out there and nice restaurants,
et cetera. But I also do zoom for people who can,
so I can do people like you can from all
over the country, and I've done people from Boston, California.
I don't know where else, but yeah, I asked them
(16:59):
the three things. So I ask them write it, publish it,
market it, tell me how you did it, and then
of course I ask the best advice. So I learned a.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Lot, yes, And I think that's the most important thing
about having the show. People are like, oh, you know,
what do you enjoy about it? And I'm like, it's
nothing that I really enjoy more than listening to how
other people did something. Because, as my friend says, a clock,
even a broken clock, is right twice a day. So
there's even information you can get from a broken clock.
So no matter how silly or how crazy you think
(17:33):
it is, there's something you can learn. Yeah, all that
it's so amazing. You love it.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And it's good to have a YouTube channel. I mean,
anybody can get a YouTube channel. So that's another thing
that you can do, is you can have that YouTube channel.
You can have your friend interview, you can read chapters
from your book and just put those on. You can
have somebody make a book trailer. That's the other thing.
Book trailer is a very because they're digital. You can
(18:03):
send them all over the place. You can put them
on your website. That's something I left out. You need
to get a website too, to put all your books
on the website and make sure that whoever is doing
your website knows how to connect to someplace where you
can buy the books. So you know, put a blog
on your website. Right now, I'm doing something here and there.
(18:26):
I don't spend my major time on it. But I
grew up in Queens, New York. Queen's is one of
the five Boroughs, so it's part of New York City.
But we had a flower farm and it was a
flower farm in the city basically, and at when my
grandparents started it, it was one of the called the
(18:46):
Outer Boroughs, so it was kind of rural at the time.
But by the time I left there at twenty one,
when I got married, it was a city. And so
what I'd do with this is I took about what
it was like to grow up at a flow on
a flower farm in Queens, and that's it's kind of fun. Yeah, yeah,
(19:07):
nobody thinks I actually, you know, I took me until
I was like fifty five to figure out. Oh, I
grew up on a farm. I didn't know that it
really wasn't farm, you know, so, but it was. It
was great. It was My parents didn't think it was great,
but I did.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
It's the best of both worlds. You got the city
around you on a farm.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Right there, we could see the Empire State Building. There
was a cemetery across the street, and if you climb
the hill in the cemetery you could see the Empire
State Building.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Oh that is cool. Yeah, I have to mention there's
great food nearby New York. Sorry, there's great food nearby.
New York has great food.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Oh yes, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Like the only thing I like, really like about that city.
How wonderful the food is.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Well, I grew up there, so you know. My first
kiss was in the Museum of Natural History, you know.
I I've walked over the Brooklyn Bridge several several times.
There's so much in New York City. It's it wears
you out if you try to do it all. But
you know, if you the pace of the city is
is something you have to get used to because it
(20:13):
really is wearing. It's the best I can say about it.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It's so fast. It's like you, I live in Maryland,
my son. Yeah, so it's like a nice pace for me.
Like when I go too far, I'm like, okay, this
is kind of real laid back. And then you go
up to New York You're like, this is just too fast.
You slow down, like right in the middle, this right
there in the middle. Yeah, I'm like, oh, this is
(20:41):
it's just too much.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Where do you live in Maryland? Asked that where do
you live in Maryland?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I live in Annapolis, Maryland.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Oh. I love Innapolis. My parents my mother is from Maryland,
and my father had family there, and then that's how
my my phone the met my mother and and then
in their retirement they lived in Annapolis for a while.
And my son lives in Windsor, which is and I'm sorry, Westminster,
(21:10):
which is if you come down eighty three, it's it's
right right right below Gettysburg. So yeah, yeah, big Ravens fans.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, who just lost?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Oh was that sad? Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
We okay, I'm gonna finish this interview so I can
talk about that.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Day.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Okay. So you've already given us so much advice about
where what we can do and how we can get started.
And how we can market. But if you had to
do it all over again, what three paces of advice
would you give yourself at the beginning?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I would I would send my manuscripts out to traditional publishers.
I would. I would start that way, I would give
it a certain amount of time, and then I would
go to selfishing. I went to self publishing because it
was a time when self publishing has always existed. It
(22:10):
was called vanity Press and you could just publish anything.
And then self publishing became like an industry. So I
talked to a friend of mine who self published that
I could see that it was very different, and that
I mean they put me through the ringer with my
first book of you know, changing things and making suggestions.
And I was very happy because I paid for the
(22:32):
editorial review and I learned so much about it. But this,
if I do, in fact, the book that I've just
finished with a friend, we're thinking about sending it out,
two traditional publishers don't if you're going to do traditional
publishers don't self published first because they don't want to
look at it. But that's what I would do. And
(22:53):
when I, as I said, I came to this game
late I already had a full career teaching. I mean
I taught everything from fis great to graduate school. Oh yeah,
And so I thought I'm too old, you know, I
stopt to wait all these years. I don't know if
I'll be alive then. So that's why I self published.
And here I am, like ten years later, and I'm
(23:14):
still here shoveling.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Your books are here and they're going to They're making
an impression on young minds. They're getting more people interested
in stem. They're they're out there, they're doing what they're
supposed to do. And they're fun. Yes, more important than anything.
They're fun.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yes, yeah, oh yeah. I enjoyed my books every once
in all read one.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Oh, I don't do that anymore. I picked my book
up by mistake and was reading and I was like, ah,
I meant to put this detail. You know, would have
been better if I had done. And I was like,
you know what, you can't do this anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, it's what I noticed. I was the the improvement
in writing style because I was I was not an
English major. I hated English, I really did. It was
my lowest grade always, and I had to really learn.
I had to take a course to learn how to
write a book. I had a learned way to put
(24:09):
the quotation marks seriously. So yeah, so I've come a
long way.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And that right there, you're like you're late in the game,
but you learn so much in ten years. Good gracious.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
What's nice? It's because I'm a teacher, and that's that's
really my soul is that I can get on that
show and I could talk to people and give them advice.
And in fact, I have one show that's just me
talking about my books and I go from inspiration to
marketing and it's I think it's informative. It's like this
interview pretty much.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Now, Where can people find out more information about you
to buy those books and to find out all the
tips that you have also to watch your show.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Well, you can go. My website is my name Linda
Marie not Marie Maria frank dot com. That's it, and
it has the blog with all of the tips on
writing and stuff like that. And also I believe has
a link to I know it has a link to
my TV show or my YouTube channel. I also know
(25:17):
that each book, if you click on the book, it'll
take you, you know, it'll give you a summary and
blah blah blah, and then it'll take your right to
Amazon so you can buy them from there. But I
also have an Amazon page again, Linda Maria Frank. Everything
that you look for from what is my name? It's
like the writer's dream is not the writer, it's Linda
Maria Frank. So if you if you google my name,
(25:41):
you're going all that stuff's going to come up.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I thank you so much for thank you. The amount
of information that I have received today is so enjoyable.
I feel like you should write an encyclopedia next to
help teach people out here how to do this from
go from first words to a marketing plan. That would
be great. You can find out everything that your ladies
(26:05):
are doing at www dot and I thought ladies dot com.
And while you're there, when you go down to the
bottom of the page, you can see the charities that
we proudly support. Be asked that you take a little
time out and support them as well. Recognize that I
just said time, not money necessarily. I mean they wouldn't
mind money either, but if you could give them some time,
get your hands dirty, or maybe get a little not
(26:25):
give them some knowledge or something they need to know.
About they would be happy with that as well. We
thank you in advance for that. Remember that wisdom is
all around you if you're open to finding it and
acceptance to peace and love you guys from well Nona
and the Missing Jade. Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
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