I'm a musician, teacher, and writer. I've toured for over 30 years, produced 12 albums, published 2 books, and written 200 plus magazine articles and blog posts.
Please help me publish my third book, Drive All Day. It's a continuation of my first memoir, Drive All Night. This collection of true-life stories shows what it’s really like for a working musician. Only Taylor Swift gets her own jet.
I rant about Spotify who paid me ten cents one quarter. I tell you about a gig at a hospice where they didn’t want soothing instrumentals and candlelight but upbeat Beatles music. There's the show where a woman climbed on stage with me and threw pennies at me. I include reviews of women's music festivals, and a chapter about the Head Lesbian, Alix Dobkin.
I'm a guitar teacher, too, even though any image search engine will tell you that guitar instructors are all young guys leaning over a smiling woman who can’t possibly know how to form a G chord without his manly instruction. On my popular YouTube channel where I teach, viewers ask about lesson details; they also want to know if I'm married and tell me I'm pretty. There are thousands of men who teach online and not one of them is told that the blue in his shirt matches his eyes.
It’s not all about music, like the chapter about a ride from a New York City airport. It wasn't until we were doing seventy down the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that I realized he wasn't really an Uber driver. Fortunately, he didn't murder me and throw me alongside the highway; in fact, he turned out to be a nice guy. I also include a story about my walk through a Canadian winter to get to a twice-weekly yoga class. Even when it's below zero, there is much beauty.
I give you behind-the-scenes stories about my last book, An Army of Lovers; it took 8 years to write and research. I was honored to interview women like Holly Near and Mary Watkins.
With so many self-publishing platforms, I decided to publish Drive All Day myself. I figure if I can produce twelve albums, I can certainly do this.
What I Need and What You Get
My budget:
$4027.54 Book Baby -- formatting, printing, distribution, ISBN, and general hand-holding
250.00 editing
500.00 promotion and misc.
$4777.54
I'll get 250 paperbacks and unlimited eBooks. They'll be available in stores, online, and at my concerts. I've included miscellaneous expenses because as I learned with producing albums, there are always unanticipated things that come up. I've never self-published so as far as I know, I may have to pay my own airfare when I get booked on The Tonight Show.
If you fund me, you'll get cool perks: copies of Drive All Day before anyone else (paperback or eBook), CDs or downloads of my original music, and music lessons.
If I don't raise all the funding I'll print fewer copies or use free promotion. If I raise more than my budget, I'll get additional copies printed, spend more on promotion, and book first class airfare when I do The Tonight Show. (I'm kidding about that last one but hey, it's a sad dog that doesn't wag her own tail.)
The Impact
How often do we hear from lesbian singer-songwriters who've toured for over thirty years?
I'll wait.
Our voices are important. And you know how singer-songwriters are. We can't help but talk about ourselves. Fortunately, it's done in a poignant and sometimes funny way. If you know my previous books and music, I'm not above writing a marriage proposal to Rachel Maddow or engaging MAGA supporters on a New York City street even though the straight folks beside me fearfully said they couldn't do it. I am lesbian, hear me roar.
My fans have always been supportive. Since the eighties I've raised thousands of dollars for my albums and I've sold over 20,000 of them. I sold several hundred copies of my earlier books and I'm sure I'll do at least that with Drive All Day.
Here's what writer Dorothy Allison (Bastard Out of Carolina) said about my last book:
“I stood in those crowds, sang along with Meg Christian and Casse Culver and women who played rock & roll and bluegrass and all the music that echoed in my bloodstream. Jamie Anderson has caught the lightning and put it on the page.”
I aim to catch some more lightning.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you don't have the dough to help I get it, believe me. Letting people know about my new book can help, too -- post on social media, tell your friends, and drop flyers from airplanes.