Carla Emery: Author of the Old Fashioned Recipe Book
(Page 10 of 17)
May/June 1975
By the Mother Earth News editors
Well that, got her attention. And—unknown to me while I was down to my last five dollars and trying so desperately to find some way, any way to sell a few books in California—Millicent had called Mike in Idaho and said that, for $1,000, she'd get me on some radio and television programs. And Mike said OK . . . so when I called Mike he said, "Call Millicent. She's going to do something for you."
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So I called the agency but, by that time, Millicem was in Israel . . . so I got Julaine Konselman instead and she's a lovely gal. She's a farmer's daughter from Wisconsin and she identifies strongly with me and she's just made up her mind that this book is going to go. She really works on it.
Anyway, she got me on the Ralph Story morning talk show in Los Angeles.
PLOWBOY: That's the biggest television talk show in L.A., isn't it?
EMERY: Yeah, I think so. I was on for something like seven minutes and, back home, a whole lot of orders for the book came in. And, while I was still in California, the producer of the Ralph Story Show called up and asked me to be on the program again in two weeks.
Julaine said it was very unusual for the show to have someone back that soon but I went back and I got in the studio with Ralph and I said, "What do you want to talk about?" And he said, "Oh, just about you."
And then we got on camera and he says, "I want you to meet the person who, out of the 5,000 guests we've had since the beginning of this show, has drawn the biggest audience response."
Well I started to cry and everything was very beautiful—like hearts and roses—and that really got a response. Back home, two days later, we received 3,000 letters in one day. Seven thousand dollars' worth of orders . . . and that finally put us over the top. We finally had enough money to hire a bookkeeper who-unfortunately—promptly—announced that we'd been steadily going into debt for the past nine months and the only thing that had kept us afloat had been the loans we'd been getting to finance our expanding business. At last, though, we were on our way.
PLOWBOY: But this is the spring of 1975 now and you're still on the road.
EMERY: Oh yes. I still have to promote the book. We need the money, you know, for the School of Country Living.
PLOWBOY: Yes, I want to know more about that. First, though, please tell me more about how you travel. Do you go out on the road alone?
EMERY: Oh no. I always take all five of the children with me. I couldn't bear to be without them. And I spend a lot of time on the telephone to Mike back in Idaho.
The children and I have been on the road now, almost constantly, since May of '74. The first six months we slept in the car and it was pretty grim. It was very tight financially. We generally went out with enough money to buy the gas we'd need to get where we were going and we'd eat our first meal after I sold a few books. That really made me work hard to sell those books, you know. And we always got along somehow.
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