LOS ANGELES – Coined “the Roots of her family,” Monice Mitchell Simms– a 13-year screenwriting veteran and award-winning filmmaker – quit her job as a Hollywood executive assistant to pen Address: House of Corrections, the first novel in a trilogy series inspired by the lives of her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. One year later with her finished manuscript in hand, Mitchell Simms serendipitously landed a determined literary agent. Then, the “no’s” started rolling in.
“We always knew it was going to be a hard sell. My novel, ultimately, is a story about the complicated relationships of mothers and daughters. Literature, not street lit. But folks, especially African American folks – the audience that publishers felt my book would only appeal to – supposedly don’t read literature,” said Mitchell Simms, who runs the film company, Flower Girl Productions, with her husband, relationship coach Ryeal Simms.
“We knew that wasn’t true, but convincing publishers to gamble on an unknown African American female author named Monice, not Toni or Maya – Good luck with that.”
Motivated by rejection and the declining publishing industry, Mitchell Simms decided to publish Address: House of Corrections through her imprint, flower girl publishing and implement an avant-garde marketing and distribution strategy using Amazon.com, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to promote and sell directly to a global audience of readers, listeners and viewers.
Currently, she’s in production of the novel as a dramatic audio book and audio serial for the Internet. Dramatized by Joy DeMichelle Moore, Toby Smith, Quincy Lenear, Ryeal Simms, Joel Steingold, William Johnson, Carl Gilliard, Bruce Simms, Cheryl Francis Harrington, Taji Coleman, Tangie Ambrose, Zachary Barton, Scott Peat, Davikah Parikh and Sean Hill and scored by Spencer Barefield and songtresses Shanie Evans, Jazzy Rita and Penny Wells, Flower Girl Productions will broadcast the novel in the vein of radio soap operas.
On sale on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com since March 2010, Address: House of Corrections is scheduled to begin broadcasting as a mini series pilot in September 2010. Readers will also be able to subscribe and purchase Address: House of Corrections in downloadable written and/or audio form as individual chapters and a block of chapters. For those who can’t wait, they can purchase episodes from the website.
“We’re fortunate to live in this time of technology and I’m excited about the possibilities of Address: House of Corrections – the novel, audio book, Web serial and soon, stage play and movie,” said Mitchell Simms, a journalist for 20 years.
“Truth is, this model isn’t really new. Independent musicians have been successfully using these tools for years. We’re simply pulling together all of the technological resources and taking everything one step further to hopefully turn the stagnant publishing industry on its head and empower authors to take their careers into their own hands.”