Call for Submissions: First Round of The LLL LOST Mailbag

Hello my dear friends -

How have you been? How has 2011 been treating you all so far? Good, I hope. For those of you checking in for the first time in a long time, my finale recap can be found here.

Things continue to be nutty on this end, but I'm determined to follow through on my plans to post at least monthly here on Long Live Locke. While I know this realization probably hit all of you quite a while ago, for me it was just last Tuesday when I finally came to terms with the fact that Lost isn't coming back. The depression sank in while I was watching V, which of course stars Elizabeth Mitchell, aka Juliet. It was like all of a sudden it dawned on me that I'm not going to see her doing anything new as Juliet ever again -- I'm not going to see any of the Lost cast doing anything new as their characters ever again. There aren't going to be any episodes I haven't already watched. There aren't going to be any new mysteries. There's not going to be that thrill of anticipation every week before the show comes on... because the show's not coming on again.

Damn.

If you're sitting there thinking, "Geez, e, why'd it take you so long?", my response would be that we're actually just now entering the time period when Lost would usually return. In fact, the one-year anniversary of my trip to Oahu for the Season Six Sunset on the Beach premiere is about a week away. So perhaps, for me, the reality of Lost's conclusion didn't sink in because the series would normally not be back on the air yet anyway. At this time last year, however, we would have already been bombarded with "spoiler alerts" and promo photos and episode titles to ponder over and dissect... and man, do I miss all of that. I miss it horribly. Many of you have written to me asking if I've found another show to take Lost's place. The answer is no. The answer is I don't think that will ever happen.

Over the past few months it's become clear that nothing motivates me to write quite like Lost did. I freaked out during Season Six because my manuscript was due right as Lost was coming to an end, and I didn't know how I'd be able to juggle both this blog and my responsibilities to my publisher. But now I realize that if Lost hadn't been on during that time, I probably wouldn't be as pleased with how my book turned out. The show got me in The Zone -- the writing zone. And it just hasn't been the same since.

On that note, I'm hoping that by starting to discuss Lost again on a regular basis, I'll be more inspired to write about other topics, too. I'm assuming there won't be nearly as many people as there were before who are still up for reminiscing and debating, but quite frankly I don't care. All it takes to ignite the spark on my end is one other person who is willing to send in a question or theory they'd like to discuss. (Though I have a feeling -- and hope -- there are more mega-fans out there than that.)

Speaking of mega-fans, I was psyched to be able to meet up with three other Losties last week. Here we are, in the midst of drinks and dinner in Chicago:


You've got me, ObFuSc8, Lottery Ticket, and Anna in Indiana (from the Jacob's Cabin podcast). Yes, Ob is wearing a Geronimo Jackson shirt. Lotto and I were also sporting Lost tees (mine was actually made by Lotto), but you can't see them in the picture. Does that mean Anna wins the Least Nerdy award for choosing a Normal Person shirt?

During dinner we discussed how it was going with my book. Truth be told, it's been extremely tough. I am so, so, so incredibly proud of the book and thrilled that everyone who reads it seems to enjoy it, but I've been running myself ragged trying to get the word out. And so I am going to do something that is against my nature (remember how I revealed in my finale post that I most closely associate with Jack?) and ask for your help. It would mean so much to me if you (yes, you) would buy a copy of my book. But only if you've got about $20 (or $14.99 for the e-version) to spare -- I don't want anyone going into debt on my account!



In the two months the book's been out I realized that I was wrong about who I thought would like it. I have heard from students, veterinarians, homemakers, health-care workers, church officials, lawyers, consultants, auto assembly plant workers, and tons of other people who don't ever deal with the financial services world -- but who have all followed my pop-culture-related writing for some time -- and the feedback has blown me away. They liked it, they really liked it!

At the risk of sounding desperate, I'm bringing this up because I know that I owe it to myself -- after trying to get this freakin' thing published for three years -- to not sell Zero-Sum Game short. It's a story, from my perspective, about my totally bizarre final year working for The Man. It mostly revolves around a historic merger (one that affects all of us... which I explain in the book) that I was lucky enough to have a front-row seat for, and it's also very much about the people I worked with, who I dare say are just as interesting as many of the characters on Lost. Definitely more compelling than Nikki and Paulo... and only slightly less fascinating than Ben or Locke.

So there. I've shown my vulnerable side and confessed that I really want you to buy my book if you have the means. While the links I provided above are for the US Amazon site, it is also in most bookstores in the US and also available on Amazon in other countries. If you do buy it, remember that my personalized bookplate offer still stands. I've got a fun little Lost-related message that I'll mail to you if you let me know you're a LLL reader. Details about all that can be found here. And by the way, to all of you who already bought Zero-Sum Game -- you ROCK. Thank you thank you thank you!

OK, enough begging. So now what?

Oh yeah, the entire point of this post was to ask you to send in questions, ideas, topics, or anything else you'd like me to cover in my first official LLL Lost Mailbag post. (Should I call it the L4 Mailbag? Is there some other, obvious name for this thing I'm missing?)

My goal is to look over what's on everyone's minds until January 28. Then I'm hoping to have a post up during the February 4th weekend, as that will be the one-year anniversary of the Season Six premiere on ABC. Right now I have no idea if I'll just cover one question, or multiple topics, or what. We'll just see how it goes.

Sound good? OK -- let's hear it! What burning questions do you have?

And one more thing -- THANK YOU for sticking with me! What would I do without you?

- e

I'm Sending Out Personalized Bookplates...

... to any awesome-cool people out there who bought my book for themselves or are buying it for someone else as a gift. There's no expiration date on this offer, either!

Details on how to get one are over on the Zero-Sum Game blog.

I really appreciate the support of those who've purchased the book. And I've been especially pleased to hear from several Long Live Locke fans who are far, far removed from the financial services world, yet still enjoyed reading about my co-workers' exploits at the Chicago Board of Trade. To me, that means I did my job as a writer. Phew!

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season so far. I still intend to start the Lost Mailbag in the New Year, so stay tuned for a post in early January requesting questions!

Until then,
- e

Every Day, Every Day, Every Day... Every Day I Wrote The Book

Hello my dear friends -

Before anybody freaks out... if you're looking for my Lost series finale analysis, you can find it by clicking here. You didn't think I'd have the nerve to try and peddle my book without finishing The Mother of All Posts first, did you?

Even though it has absolutely nothing to do with Lost, I decided to share a little bit about my book, Zero-Sum Game, here on Long Live Locke because: 1) finishing its manuscript, and then going through several rounds of editing that manuscript, and then working on pre-publication marketing and PR efforts for the book were some of the main reasons why my final Lost post was so late, and I didn't want you guys to think I was making all that stuff up, and 2) I have gotten a ton of questions about the book's subject, but haven't been in the position to be able to share many details until now.

First things first, though. As always, I've got to keep it real and tell you up front that I'm pretty sure 80% of you would not have much interest in my book if you weren't already familiar with its author. (Can you see why I had no business working for The Man? I'm not very good at sales.) There is a chance, however, that you might like it... or that you may know somebody else who would dig it... so if you would like to help me continue my writing career/avoid returning to Corporate America, read on.

What is Zero-Sum Game about?

On September 1, 2006, I started working at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). I wasn't a trader or anything, I was the Managing Director of Marketing. CBOT is a futures exchange (like in the '80s Eddie Murphy/Dan Aykroyd movie Trading Places), and the contracts traded there affect all of our lives on a daily basis. The book explains why that is.

During my fifth week on the job, I was called into a secret meeting along with a small number of other senior managers. Our CEO told us that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) -- CBOT's main rival for over 100 years -- had made an $8 billion offer to buy the company, and we needed to work on the merger announcement documents over the next 11 days before the news was made public. Five months later, a small energy exchange in Atlanta came out of nowhere and offered $1 billion more for CBOT, thereby upending our planned merger with CME... and kicking off an absolutely crazy bidding war. All of the above is what my book is about. And, as regular LLL reader "Garry UK" pointed out after reading the Chapter 1 preview on Amazon, I mention Ferris Bueller's Day Off on the second page. You can rest assured that my love of pop culture is sprinkled throughout the rest of the story as well. This is NOT a boring business book!

And yes, I am a "character" in it, for lack of a better term. It was written from my first-person perspective, and several of my co-workers, as well as executives in the futures industry and banking industry at large, make an appearance. Since it's a true story and real people are in the book, I had to keep things under wraps for a while. No one I worked with in 2006/2007 knew I was doing this until I called them on February 4, 2010. (That was the date of the Lost Season 6 premiere, by the way -- I couldn't stand to have the guilt hanging over my head any longer and wanted to have the weight of these calls off of my shoulders before my premiere party that evening.)


Who would want to read Zero-Sum Game?

Besides my immediate family members, anyone who has read and enjoyed any of the following books will most likely be interested in Zero-Sum Game: Liar's Poker, Barbarians at the Gate, When Genius Failed, Too Big to Fail... are you seeing a pattern? All of these books are "nonfiction narratives" (a term I learned during this process) that are set in the financial services industry. Now, I'm not trying to say that my book is as good as any of those -- they were all bestsellers written by brilliant journalists -- but after receiving positive feedback from a lot of hardcore investors, traders, and professors, I feel very confident in saying that the story I have to offer is comparably entertaining and informative. (I personally think it's also a lot funnier, if I may be so bold.)


What might convince a Long Live Locke reader to pick up a copy of Zero-Sum Game if they would otherwise never want to read anything even remotely associated with the financial services industry?

All right, here it goes: I'm going to try and be a saleswoman!

• Although you may have never met me in real life, you do, in fact, know me. The longer you've been reading this site, the better you know me. As I mentioned earlier, the book is written from my point of view and it's about my year at the Chicago Board of Trade during a very tumultuous bidding war, so it might be interesting for you to read about who I worked with, conversations I had, things I experienced, etc.
  
• To the above point, part of the book takes place during Season 3 of Lost, so you can also marvel at how in the hell I was able to still write my posts about the show while chaos was erupting all around me at work!
• Like it does in Lost, Australia plays a big role in Zero-Sum Game. Dun-dun-dunnnnnn!
  
• What's more, there is a powerful character who doesn't appear until the second-to-last chapter (Jacob, anyone?).
• NEW POINT (added in a few hours after I originally published this post): Shout-out to LLL reader Heidi R, who observed that the CBOT logo (above right) totally looks like the Dharma logo! Another dun-dun-dunnnnn!
  
• Although the story is told in my voice, my writing in the book is a little more formal than what you're used to in this blog. That being said, there are a few conventions I carried over from Long Live Locke, and -- as I mentioned above -- I did my best to infuse a bit of pop culture into the story whenever possible.
  
• My mom was my "test reader" to see if all of the educational parts made sense to someone outside of the financial services industry. While she said that she did have to read some sections over a few times, she was surprised by how much she grew to like certain characters (and dislike others), as well as how much she got into the story of the bidding war, even though she already knew how it ended.
  
• I would say that Chapters 1 - 3 are the "heaviest," because I had to front-load explanations about what futures exchanges do and how futures contract work. But those same chapters also include some of my favorite stories in the entire book, so there's a healthy mix of education and pure entertainment. Once Chapter 4 hits, almost all of the educational content has been covered and the true drama begins. 70% of the book is story, 30% is educational. But since when did Lost fans NOT like to learn new things?
  
• You are all collectively thanked in the acknowledgments. There are some other names you might recognize in that section, too...
  

If someone wasn't interested in buying a copy of the book but still wanted to help, what could they do?

As I made clear at the beginning of this post, I realize that Zero-Sum Game might not be every Long Live Locke reader's cup of tea. The good news is that there are several things you could do -- that cost nothing -- to support the book and in turn help me avoid returning to The Man. When you are not a cast member of a reality TV show, a politician, or an already famous journalist, it's quite an uphill battle to promote your book. So I would truly, truly appreciate if you could do any of the following:

• Think of friends, acquaintances or family members who would be into this sort of story. They'd be people who either work in the financial services industry, watch CNBC all the time, read the Wall Street Journal/Financial Times/BusinessWeek/Fortune/Forbes/etc., enjoy books like Liar's Poker or the others I mentioned above, or are really into investing/trading/the markets. Then pass them the Amazon link and/or the book's title (it is already in bookstores across the US and Canada), along with a note about how cool the author is. Hee hee.
• Become a fan of Zero-Sum Game on Facebook
  
• Share the Fan Page link -- www.facebook.com/ZeroSumGame -- on your Facebook wall.
  
• Follow Zero-Sum Game on Twitter: @ZSGame
  
• Follow me on Twitter: @erikaolson
• Visit the book's web site: ZeroSumGameBook.com for updates
  
• Retweet / repost any messages I send out about the book.
• Leave me a message through the blog/Facebook/Twitter/email if you have a connection to someone in the media who might be interested in covering the book. I do have a PR firm helping me out for the next few months and we have most of our bases covered, but personal referrals are still critical in helping Zero-Sum Game get press attention.

Will there be autographed copies for sale?

Unfortunately I don't have the logistical set-up needed to be able to sell books on my own, sign them, and then ship them out. I will, however, personalize and mail out bookplates to anyone who bought the book -- details on how to get one are here.

Will you be going on a book tour?

If there's anything I learned during this process, it's that book tours don't really sell books and usually cost more money than they bring in. (I actually learned MUCH more than that, but you get my point.) Further, most publishers don't pay for that sort of thing if you're not already a bestselling author or member of the Jersey Shore cast. So as of right now I'm assuming I will only have signings in Chicago and New York, as I already know I'll be in both of those cities.

The Facebook fan page, the @ZSGame twitter feed, and the book's web site -- ZeroSumGameBook.com -- will be the best places to check for updates on media appearances and signings over the next few months.

Will there be an electronic version of Zero-Sum Game available (for Kindle, iPad, etc)?

Yes! It's now available in eBook version on all major online book-selling sites.

Will the book be sold outside of the US and Canada?

Yes. It's available on most country-specific Amazon sites outside of the US and Canada.

How do I buy the book in the United States or Canada?

Zero-Sum Game is available in bookstores, and online it is available on all major book-selling sites.

Here are a few:

Amazon (Amazon has the most up-to-date information about the book, including descriptions, jacket quotes, etc.)

Borders

Barnes and Noble

And here is a link for my Canadian friends:

Amazon Canada



How did you get this book published? Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

The process I went through will be detailed across three blog posts on my personal site, "According to e":

Part 1: From idea to agent
Part 2: From agent to contract (still in the works)
Part 3: From contract to publication (still in the works)

I think my fellow writers will find a ton of valuable information in those posts -- so stay tuned, I'll be working on them soon now that my Lost finale post is complete.

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I think that covers everything!

Thanks again for your patience and support during what has been quite a wild ride.

I have one last favor to ask of you: WISH ME LUCK!

- e