We're Overseas about "Overseas"

Today I'm in Greenwich, Connecticut, for the roll-out of my daughter Beatriz Williams' debut novel, Overseas.  There's an event at the Greenwich Library tonight at 7pm EDT, but right now we are listening to an author interview on "The Business of Living" AM1490 WGCH.  It's a delight: Beatriz comes across as knowledgeable, confident, articulate, with a good radio voice.  Just how you'd want your daughter to come across.

So what's Overseas all about?  Here is an interview in the Greenwich Citizen.  Says Beatriz:

"Overseas" is a sweeping love story about a First World War infantry officer who follows the woman he loves across time to contemporary Manhattan. It really crosses over genre lines, with elements of historical fiction, mystery, contemporary romance, and a touch of the paranormal.

Or, as I like to pitch the book: Overseas is about young Kate Wilson in Manhattan in the 2000s.  She's fallen in love with this guy Julian that runs a $20 billion hedge fund, but then she gets a book in the mail about a family in World War I.  And her Julian looks exactly like a British infantry officer that was killed in the Battle of the Somme!  What gives?

Real estate, they say, is all about three things: location, location, location.  Book publishing is similar.  It all comes down to three things: publicity, publicity, publicity.  So whatever people are saying about the book, whether it's on your website, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Twitter, Facebook, GoodReads, radio, newspaper, it's all good.  The only thing that's bad is when nobody is talking about you!

But publishing a book is not all fun and games.  Being the father in question you have to expect a little gentle ribbing.  You find that your fatherly advice comes back to haunt you.  Here's where I come in, the sorrowful father with gloomy advice as recalled by Beatriz Williams:

If you must write, he told me, with a sorrowful shake of his head, go off and do something else first. Otherwise you'll have nothing to write about except writing.

Well.  Thank goodness that my daughter took my advice.  Children very often do, you know, for better or worse.  So you should be careful when you dish it out.  They are listening, even when they are teenagers and pretending that they don't hear a word you say.