seeking a publisher - four

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Seeking a Publisher in the 21st Century

Part Four: Where I’m At

I had this conversation with an academic friend of mine a little over a year ago.

He’d had a nonfiction book in his field published some months before by a British publishing company. There had been some initial marketing done, resulting in a favourable review in a well established, respected English periodical. The project was something of a joint effort, in that the company printed and distributed the book, but my friend paid for the expensive illustrations and photographs used in the book.

The point being he was taken on by an established publisher and he was still out of pocket on the deal. Naturally he had a vested interest in ensuring the book sold well. You’d think the publishing company would too.

His experience was that after an initial toss of a card at an upside down top hat, the publisher completely dropped the ball on the marketing. There had been some reaction to the book, and my friend wanted that followed up. To the point where he prepared the necessary promotional material needed himself and offered it to the publisher, as well as volunteering to distribute the material himself. No, no, they told him. We have a promotions department that looks after that sort of thing. So he offered the material to their department. Thank you, very much.

And that was as far as it went. They didn’t use his material, didn’t send out any material of their own, and what buzz there might have been created over his book died a stillborn death.

It wasn’t so much that his publisher didn’t want to work with my friend. It was more like they had become completely disinterested in their own profession.

My friend’s conclusion was that he might as well have self published the book. It probably would have reached a larger market with him doing the promotional work himself. And at the end of the day, he had still lost money on the project anyway.

In the meantime I’d been trying to find myself an agent, and still sending manuscripts out myself to Canadian publishers. It’s worth mentioning these are almost completely government grant driven industries in this country. You don’t need best sellers to survive in Canada. I would dare say that you don’t even need good books.

First off there are only about twenty-five agents in all of Canada, and none of them operate out of Manitoba, where I live. Of those twenty-five, I tracked down five that might be remotely interested in what I do. Since I certainly do not fit the profile of the genre-expectation CanLit author. Two of them got back to me, politely informing me “forget it”. I think submitting electronically to one of the others gave my computer a virus.

The publishers I mailed material to all refused to accept multiple submissions and offered nothing less than four month waiting periods to reply. Some only accepted submissions certain months of the year. None of them got back to me in four months. The ones who did bother to reply usually took about nine months to let me know once again to “forget it”. The last one I sent something to is actually in the same city where I live. That was last July. Still waiting to hear what they think, ten months later.

I couple this with my experience of actually getting a published hard copy book placed in a bookstore. When I went to look for it, even I couldn’t find it. Picture one title on the spine of a book, in a bookstore full of how many other volumes acting as camouflage?

What’s our goal in all this again?

However the book must really have been there, as I actually sold two copies. At least two people found it.

Unfortunately, I think I know both of them.

And then there’s the Internet. The way of today, let alone the future.

I tried two different “literary” sites, where authors are encouraged to post their work. I got maybe seven or eight hits in as many months. Usually along the lines of “I’ll read yours if you read and critique mine.” And then I finally discovered blogging. In fifteen months I’ve had 5,800 hits on my Reality Fiction site, doing no promotion at all.

That’s satisfying. I’m not making any money, but at least I’m being read. And that’s very important to me, because I’m way past where I only write this stuff for myself. The piece isn’t finished until somebody reads it.

My son’s had over a quarter of a million hits on his video channel over the last three years or so. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvx-wjl5q64)  But how can a writer cope with a videographer these days? As he pointed out when I told him my blog was doing better than the poetry sites I was thinking of sending material to, who’d had less hits in ten years than I’d had in one, that’s a fair indication of my Internet presence on a medium that has a primary audience not interested in reading anything more than a few words long. Let alone over a thousand pages.

I’m in a position where I don’t need to make money to continue writing. It would be nice, but it’s not necessary. Audience is more important to me. But thanks to having health issues my entire adult life, I’m also at a stage where I’m very selective concerning how I occupy the time I’ve got now. I’d rather be working at producing as much as I possibly can than spending over half my time trying to draw attention to myself on the Internet. And I’ve already given up on regular methods of marketing in the hardcopy press as being a complete waste of time.

That’s my choice, and in that context, the blog methodology is not working badly for me. I won’t stop trying to break through in some other context. But I certainly have less enthusiasm for trying these days.

So my advice to others is, if I’m realistic: don’t bother trying to get published, just buy a lottery ticket. The odds are about the same.

But since when have writers been realistic? You never know when it all might come together …  

Live Event! Coming Soon!

Cinco De Mayo Poetry

A people’s holiday event featuring Mexican Poetry

Read in Spanish by Liliana Romanowski and in English by John H. Baillie

And new and selected poetry by Winnipeg activist poet Ron Romanowski

author of Incantations from the Republic of Fire

Monday May 5, 2014 7PM

McNally Robinson Booksellers

1120 Grant Avenue, Winnipeg

In the Atrium

Admission is free

*******

REALITY FICTION UPDATE!

And what is Reality Fiction, you may well ask?

Simple. The concept of the Reality Television Series translated to the printed page. 40 characters from my backlog of generally unpublished material are gathered together to compete in a different theme each Episode, with one or two characters being eliminated each sequence until there are only two left to fight it out in the final. The winner gets a short novel of their own as the grand prize.

But somehow, things always seem to go horribly wrong ...

What’s happening now? 

The results are coming in for Episode Twenty-Eight: Lovecraft. Which leaves only one qualifying Episode to go, and then the big finale! The villainous shapechanger Natalie Von Boehm has already secured her position there, but which two of the remaining four legitimate Contestants will join her? For that matter, who will be the legitimate remaining four Contestants? Find out Friday at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

REALITY FICTION TOO! EPISODES TO DATE

EPISODE TWENTY-EIGHT:     LOVECRAFT

“The Small Paned Window”

EPISODE TWENTY-SEVEN:     GIANT INSECT

“That Was No Lady Bug! That Was My Wife!”

EPISODE TWENTY-SIX:     SUPERHERO

“The Professor Evil Sessions”

EPISODE TWENTY-FIVE:     JUNGLE ADVENTURE

“The Third Eye of the Many Legged Python”

EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR:     PULP FICTION

“The Red Moon of Pango Pango”

EPISODE TWENTY-THREE:     STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The Imp of the Reverse

EPISODE TWENTY-TWO:     FAIRY TALE

Princess NoName

EPISODE TWENTY-ONE:     THE WEDDING

Dearly, Beloved

EPISODE TWENTY:     EXISTENTIALISM

Face the Hangman

EPISODE NINETEEN:     ABDUCTION

Abduction/Apperception

EPISODE EIGHTEEN:     MELODRAMA

“Terror in Tarnation! A Thrilling Narrative in Three Acts”

EPISODE SEVENTEEN:     POETRY

“landescapes”

EPISODE SIXTEEN:     SILLY EUROPEAN SPY SPOOF (DUBBED)

“Diet Ray of the Stars!”

EPISODE FIFTEEN:     EROTIC SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE     

“The Shadow of Her Passion”

EPISODE FOURTEEN:     FLYING:

“Sky Calling”

EPISODE THIRTEEN:     SLAPSTICK:

“The Phantom of the Werewolf”

EPISODE TWELVE:     DAIRY FARMING:

“Early One Morning”

EPISODE ELEVEN:     BURROUGHS:

“Chapter Nine”

EPISODE TEN:     WEREWOLVES:

“The Silver Solution”

EPISODE NINE:     WRESTLING:

“Suckerslam XIV”

EPISODE EIGHT:     JANE AUSTEN ROMANCE:

“The Proud and the Senseless”

EPISODE SEVEN:     THE JAZZ AGE:

“The Bucky-Dusky-Ruby Red Hop!”

EPISODE SIX:     SUBMISSION:

“Re-Org”

EPISODE FIVE:     MASQUERADE:

“The Eyes Behind the Mask”

EPISODE FOUR:     SELF HELP:

“Sausage Stew for the Slightly Overweight Presents:

Some Several Suggestions Guaranteeing Success for the Mildly Neurotic”

EPISODE THREE:     NUDIST:

“If You Have To Ask ...”

EPISODE TWO:     FRENCH BEDROOM FARCE:

“Un Nuit a Fifi’s!”

EPISODE ONE:     STEAMPUNK:

“The Chase of the Purple Squid!”

A J.H.B. Original!

Seeking a publisher - three

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Seeking a Publisher in the 21st Century

Part Three: Self Publishing

Self publishing is a ton of fun.

Up to a point.

Here’s a quick summary of the publishing process:

1.     Write a book.

2.     Edit the book.

3.     Format the book.

4.     Print the book.

5.     Distribute the book.

6.     Market the book.

Here’s a quick summary of how the process usually unfurls.

1.    Write a book.

This part people love. That’s why they got into this mess in the first place, right? They have a story they urgently need to tell. Get it down on paper or into that computer! What a buzz! The publishers will be beating down my door to get it to the millions who’ll want to read it, just cuz it’s so cool!

Then when your door remains ominously silent, you decide, well I’ll just have to do it myself. That’ll show them.

2.     Edit the book.

But if you’re going to take things that seriously, then maybe you have to give the story that flowed out so magically in such a rush a second look. This is the first point a lot of people lose interest in the project. What, I have to worry about spelling, and grammar, and the plot flowing properly, and all kinds of other annoying details like clarity and style? Bag that! That’s work!

But for those who persevere, you end up with an even niftier sounding piece than you started off with. And that feels good.

3.     Format the book.

This is being creative again. A lot of people like this bit. Playing with fonts and layouts, planning covers, taking pictures, being arty again … Anyone who can survive editing doesn’t usually mind this stage.

4.     Print the book.

A few people fall apart here. For the first time, you’ve got to spend some money. But it’s obvious the piece is brilliant, so others like to print plenty — and I do mean plenty — of copies. Gonna sell out that first printing for sure, after all.

And after this stage, a remarkably large number of ardent self publishers grind to a complete and ignominious … halt.

How many unopened boxes of self published books are sitting in closets, basements, porches, and attics even as we speak? More than are actually on the market in total, I’m betting.

Most people get the book printed, have a book launch party, sell copies to their immediate circle of family and friends, and then spend the rest of their publishing careers wondering why they thought it was such a smart idea to start off by printing a thousand copies of their magnum opus? Which they wrote so long ago they don’t necessarily even care about anymore.

The fact of the matter is, it is the rare individual who demonstrates a similar talent for the creative process of writing and the down to earth process of marketing. Yes, it’s true, absolutely true, that modern technology has rendered traditional publishers practically obsolete for the first four steps of the publishing process. But for most of us, they are absolutely vital for the final two: distribution and marketing.

Just like the publishers didn’t come beating down your door when the manuscript was finished, the book store owners don’t come knocking when your book is ready to go on the shelf, and reviewers and literary journals overwhelmingly do not get in touch with you on their own to tell the world and more importantly the book buying public how wonderful your writing is.

And even if you can manage to summon up the intestinal fortitude to track down thirty or forty addresses of people who nominally review books to let people know you exist, and you bite the bullet and absorb the costs of giving away thirty or forty review copies of your work and the postage to get them to the reviewers, there’s no guarantee anyone is going to look at what you send them, let alone write about it. And as well, if they do write about it, there’s always the chance they won’t like it. Even though the climate’s changing, there’s still a stigma about “self publishers”. A lot of journals won’t give your piece a second look after it’s established you put it out yourself.

Now, as I mentioned in an earlier instalment, there are any number of websites and agencies out there willing to help you — for a price — self publish your work today. I don’t doubt they willingly take you through steps one through four, and may even be quite helpful in the editing stage. I trust that they’re also quite helpful in getting you through the confusing economics of creating a marketable book, such as setting mark ups on the printing costs and the like so you can at least hope to break even some day on all the cash you’re putting out up front. I would hope some of them might even take things further, and help you through the distribution stage as well.

But I wonder how many of them do a thing for you marketing wise, or even give you anything resembling good advice on how to approach the task. I’ve been given plenty of good advice regarding the marketing process over the lifetime of the books I’ve had to push myself. Not a bit of it has ever paid off worth a damn. I don’t know what the answer is to promoting yourself, but I strongly suspect it means having a completely different personality than the one I do. Not that that’s a bad thing for those who do, but it does create rather an insurmountable obstacle for those like myself.

It seems you have to take just as much time or even more time than you spend actually writing working to get yourself noticed today, whether on paper or on the Internet. It’s not important to get your writing out there, it’s important to get your name out there, somewhere where people are going to see it and maybe follow it back to some of your genuine literary work. Writing is an art, being read is a business. The compromises between the two used to be clearer than they are today. For those on top of the developing scene, there is a wonderful world of opportunity unfolding for them. For the rest of us poor confused souls, there seems to be more frustration and rejection than ever.

Is there any way around this? I haven’t found one yet. So where does that leave me today, in the face of the modern publishing industry, combined with the fact that I’m writing more and better material than I have at any other time in my life? Ready to self publish, ready to dwindle away in obscurity, or still trying to find some other legitimate way to have my voice reach the readers that I’m certain must be out there? Tune in next week for what isn’t an answer but what’s happening anyway.

Live Event! Coming Soon!

Cinco De Mayo Poetry

A people’s holiday event featuring Mexican Poetry

Read in Spanish by Liliana Romanowski and in English by John H. Baillie

And new and selected poetry by Winnipeg activist poet Ron Romanowski

author of Incantations from the Republic of Fire

Monday May 5, 2014 7PM

McNally Robinson Booksellers

1120 Grant Avenue, Winnipeg

In the Atrium

Admission is free

*******

REALITY FICTION UPDATE!

And what is Reality Fiction, you may well ask?

Simple. The concept of the Reality Television Series translated to the printed page. 40 characters from my backlog of generally unpublished material are gathered together to compete in a different theme each Episode, with one or two characters being eliminated each sequence until there are only two left to fight it out in the final. The winner gets a short novel of their own as the grand prize.

But somehow, things always seem to go horribly wrong ...

What’s happening now? 

The engaging mistress of all things Steampunk, Scintillisha Evans-Holyrood has been holding back her personally chosen category since Episode One. Finally, the cat’s out of the bag. But what else was lurking in that bag that might be coming with it? Tune in for the beginning of Episode Twenty-Eight: Lovecraft, this Friday at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

REALITY FICTION TOO! EPISODES TO DATE

EPISODE TWENTY-SEVEN:     GIANT INSECT

“That Was No Lady Bug! That Was My Wife!”

EPISODE TWENTY-SIX:     SUPERHERO

“The Professor Evil Sessions”

EPISODE TWENTY-FIVE:     JUNGLE ADVENTURE

“The Third Eye of the Many Legged Python”

EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR:     PULP FICTION

“The Red Moon of Pango Pango”

EPISODE TWENTY-THREE:     STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The Imp of the Reverse

EPISODE TWENTY-TWO:     FAIRY TALE

Princess NoName

EPISODE TWENTY-ONE:     THE WEDDING

Dearly, Beloved

EPISODE TWENTY:     EXISTENTIALISM

Face the Hangman

EPISODE NINETEEN:     ABDUCTION

Abduction/Apperception

EPISODE EIGHTEEN:     MELODRAMA

“Terror in Tarnation! A Thrilling Narrative in Three Acts”

EPISODE SEVENTEEN:     POETRY

“landescapes”

EPISODE SIXTEEN:     SILLY EUROPEAN SPY SPOOF (DUBBED)

“Diet Ray of the Stars!”

EPISODE FIFTEEN:     EROTIC SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE     

“The Shadow of Her Passion”

EPISODE FOURTEEN:     FLYING:

“Sky Calling”

EPISODE THIRTEEN:     SLAPSTICK:

“The Phantom of the Werewolf”

EPISODE TWELVE:     DAIRY FARMING:

“Early One Morning”

EPISODE ELEVEN:     BURROUGHS:

“Chapter Nine”

EPISODE TEN:     WEREWOLVES:

“The Silver Solution”

EPISODE NINE:     WRESTLING:

“Suckerslam XIV”

EPISODE EIGHT:     JANE AUSTEN ROMANCE:

“The Proud and the Senseless”

EPISODE SEVEN:     THE JAZZ AGE:

“The Bucky-Dusky-Ruby Red Hop!”

EPISODE SIX:     SUBMISSION:

“Re-Org”

EPISODE FIVE:     MASQUERADE:

“The Eyes Behind the Mask”

EPISODE FOUR:     SELF HELP:

“Sausage Stew for the Slightly Overweight Presents:

Some Several Suggestions Guaranteeing Success for the Mildly Neurotic”

EPISODE THREE:     NUDIST:

“If You Have To Ask ...”

EPISODE TWO:     FRENCH BEDROOM FARCE:

“Un Nuit a Fifi’s!”

EPISODE ONE:     STEAMPUNK:

“The Chase of the Purple Squid!”

A J.H.B. Original!

seeking a publisher - two

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Seeking a Publisher in the 21st Century

Part Two: A Short History

Just for the record, I am a published writer.

I’ve had poetry and short stories published in a number of journals and magazines, in four anthologies, and I’ve sold one book of short stories and one book of poetry. The only thing I find irksome in this list is that I think of myself primarily as a novelist, and I’ve yet to sell a novel.

I was on a bit of a roll between 2000 and 2005, getting stuff out onto the market regularly and meeting with more success than rejection. Then I got ridiculously sick, requiring emergency open heart surgery, and I kind of lost my momentum …

When I sat down to write again, things were different. Actually having blood flow to your brain changes the nature of your imagination. Things were richer than ever in every way, but by the time I got back to examining the markets again, two things had changed. I was older, and the publishing world was very different. Ask any bookstore owner.

I started sending out material in 1978. Reality check: in 1978 you didn’t own a personal computer and word processing software was a thing of the unimaginable future. So you manually typed everything you wrote and sent it out into the world only by snail mail. There were photocopiers, so you didn’t have to type anything more than once, but still. Think about that for a moment.

On the upside, publishers were remarkably accommodating by today’s standards. You went to the Library, checked out the Publishers Guides in the Reference Section, they told you who was interested in what and where to mail your manuscript. No restrictions. And they were interested in original ideas … Migod, even the nonconventional.

I don’t remember exactly when, but sometime in the late eighties or nineties the cost of paper went through the ceiling for publishers. At that point, things changed …

Suddenly companies who were open to anything before only wanted to hear about new versions of exactly what had worked well for them before. And the big companies demanded you have an agent submitting your material for you, before they would look at it anymore.

Through the nineties and into the new century these restrictions multiplied. Many publishers started listing that they no longer accepted new material; unsolicited manuscripts of any kind became practically verboten, query first please; the number of companies stating they only accepted submissions from agents multiplied; simultaneous submissions to more than one publisher went right out the window; which coupled with increasingly long reply waits meant you were lucky to hit three publishers in a year with the same manuscript; and some companies began specifying they would only accept new submissions certain times of the year.

At the same time the Internet arrived, and e-publishing slowly grew, expanding the industry in a new direction. But very few people seemed to have a clear idea of how all that actually worked. As I illustrated last week, for every market that stays on the web, nine disappear in a month or two. Chain bookstores are now where you go to buy hand cream, tea, and tacky little crafts, because the sale of hard copy books isn’t going to cut it for them anymore. As the drive continues to have everyone reading some electronic tablet you can hold in your hand rather than something with physical pages, radical changes in the face of publishing follow suit.

According to one e-newsletter on the writing industry I receive, 2013 marked the first year in modern publishing history where self-published books represented more than fifty percent of all books published. Even the august Writers Union of Canada voted two-thirds in favour in March of this year to admit “qualified” self-published authors for membership.

So, like it or not, more and more the answer of where to seek a publisher for your work lies in the image looking back at you from your own mirror.

Live Event! Coming Soon!

Cinco De Mayo Poetry

A people’s holiday event featuring Mexican Poetry

Read in Spanish by Liliana Romanowski and in English by John H. Baillie

And new and selected poetry by Winnipeg activist poet Ron Romanowski

author of Incantations from the Republic of Fire

Monday May 5, 2014 7PM

McNally Robinson Booksellers

1120 Grant Avenue, Winnipeg

In the Atrium

Admission is free

*******

REALITY FICTION UPDATE!

And what is Reality Fiction, you may well ask?

Simple. The concept of the Reality Television Series translated to the printed page. 40 characters from my backlog of generally unpublished material are gathered together to compete in a different theme each Episode, with one or two characters being eliminated each sequence until there are only two left to fight it out in the final. The winner gets a short novel of their own as the grand prize.

But somehow, things always seem to go horribly wrong ...

What’s happening now? 

Clambering out of the radioactive past, when scientists were mad, the women were lovely, and the monsters were black and white … The Giant Insect Episode! Thursday, at …

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

REALITY FICTION TOO! EPISODES TO DATE

EPISODE TWENTY-SIX:     SUPERHERO

“The Professor Evil Sessions”

EPISODE TWENTY-FIVE:     JUNGLE ADVENTURE

“The Third Eye of the Many Legged Python”

EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR:     PULP FICTION

“The Red Moon of Pango Pango”

EPISODE TWENTY-THREE:     STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The Imp of the Reverse

EPISODE TWENTY-TWO:     FAIRY TALE

Princess NoName

EPISODE TWENTY-ONE:     THE WEDDING

Dearly, Beloved

EPISODE TWENTY:     EXISTENTIALISM

Face the Hangman

EPISODE NINETEEN:     ABDUCTION

Abduction/Apperception

EPISODE EIGHTEEN:     MELODRAMA

“Terror in Tarnation! A Thrilling Narrative in Three Acts”

EPISODE SEVENTEEN:     POETRY

“landescapes”

EPISODE SIXTEEN:     SILLY EUROPEAN SPY SPOOF (DUBBED)

“Diet Ray of the Stars!”

EPISODE FIFTEEN:     EROTIC SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE     

“The Shadow of Her Passion”

EPISODE FOURTEEN:     FLYING:

“Sky Calling”

EPISODE THIRTEEN:     SLAPSTICK:

“The Phantom of the Werewolf”

EPISODE TWELVE:     DAIRY FARMING:

“Early One Morning”

EPISODE ELEVEN:     BURROUGHS:

“Chapter Nine”

EPISODE TEN:     WEREWOLVES:

“The Silver Solution”

EPISODE NINE:     WRESTLING:

“Suckerslam XIV”

EPISODE EIGHT:     JANE AUSTEN ROMANCE:

“The Proud and the Senseless”

EPISODE SEVEN:     THE JAZZ AGE:

“The Bucky-Dusky-Ruby Red Hop!”

EPISODE SIX:     SUBMISSION:

“Re-Org”

EPISODE FIVE:     MASQUERADE:

“The Eyes Behind the Mask”

EPISODE FOUR:     SELF HELP:

“Sausage Stew for the Slightly Overweight Presents:

Some Several Suggestions Guaranteeing Success for the Mildly Neurotic”

EPISODE THREE:     NUDIST:

“If You Have To Ask ...”

EPISODE TWO:     FRENCH BEDROOM FARCE:

“Un Nuit a Fifi’s!”

EPISODE ONE:     STEAMPUNK:

“The Chase of the Purple Squid!”

A J.H.B. Original!

seeking a publisher - one

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Seeking a Publisher in the 21st Century

Part One: An Incident

I’ve written a new poetry manuscript, and I’m looking for a publisher for it.

Here’s how one day spent doing this went for me, to give those of you who may never have attempted such a thing a sense of the experience.

Sitting down with the Internet, I found three sites listing poetry publishers on the web and in paper form throughout Canada, the States, Great Britain and Australia. I went through fifty likely leads.

I think my special moment with Poetry Canada Magazine best summed up the day for me. This is the magazine that claims “Poetry Canada Magazine is Canada's Global magazine bringing you poetry, art and photography from around the world in the global promotion of poets and poetry.” If you go to their guidelines section, you are faced with this statement, which I have copied and pasted here:

Poetry Canada is no longer accepting poetry.

Thirty-two of the fifty sites were no longer active. Easily half of those thirty-two had had their web presences bought out by a service that offered to help you self publish your poetry, for a price.

Of the eighteen remaining sites, nine were the same sort of thing. Here’s how to self publish your poetry, let us help for the low, low price of …

Of the remaining nine, four took Poetry Canada Magazine’s approach to accepting submissions. In other words, they didn’t.

So five of the fifty actually published people’s poetry. That was a ten percent return on my search effort.

Of those five, one you could only access by subscribing to their site for the low, low price of forty dollars Canadian. A Month.

Of the remaining four, three were recognizable as sites that would accept and publish poetry, but they weren’t going to pay you anything for it. Plus, on all three, I checked the hit counters. One of them had received a fifth the number of hits in ten years I’ve received in less than a year and a half putting my stuff up for free on my realficone blog. The other two had both also received fewer hits in their much longer existences than I’m gathering on my own.

Which left one viable prospect. A two percent return on my search effort. I couldn’t find a hit counter on this site, but I actually enjoyed what they were doing. Plus they were open to submissions. So I spent the rest of the day’s worth of work hours putting together a contribution. They got back to me within two days. I can’t emphasize enough how unusual that is. A point I will return to later in this series.

They weren’t interested in the particular piece I had sent them, but invited me to send something else. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to follow up on that as they are a selectively post modernist site, and I don’t think I’ve really got anything else appropriate.

Certainly not the manuscript I originally set out to find a home for, and never found a single likely prospect to send it to.

All in a day’s work, seeking a publisher in the 21st Century.

For the record, the one reasonable site I found can be located at:

http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/

I recommend the site. They’re good people.

*******

REALITY FICTION UPDATE!

And what is Reality Fiction, you may well ask?

Simple. The concept of the Reality Television Series translated to the printed page. 40 characters from my backlog of generally unpublished material are gathered together to compete in a different theme each Episode, with one or two characters being eliminated each sequence until there are only two left to fight it out in the final. The winner gets a short novel of their own as the grand prize.

But somehow, things always seem to go horribly wrong ...

What’s happening now? 

Episode Twenty-Six: Superhero ran on Monday, introducing the world to Professor Evil and his strange files on serving as Psychiatrist to the Parahuman. Explaining to people why they don’t really want to rule the world, and what that skimpy outfit and those augmented breasts really mean. With a touch of danger thrown in for laughs as well, of course. Find out the results this Friday.

Continuing at: http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

REALITY FICTION TOO! EPISODES TO DATE

EPISODE TWENTY-SIX:     SUPERHERO

“The Professor Evil Sessions”

EPISODE TWENTY-FIVE:     JUNGLE ADVENTURE

“The Third Eye of the Many Legged Python”

EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR:     PULP FICTION

“The Red Moon of Pango Pango”

EPISODE TWENTY-THREE:     STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The Imp of the Reverse

EPISODE TWENTY-TWO:     FAIRY TALE

Princess NoName

EPISODE TWENTY-ONE:     THE WEDDING

Dearly, Beloved

EPISODE TWENTY:     EXISTENTIALISM

Face the Hangman

EPISODE NINETEEN:     ABDUCTION

Abduction/Apperception

EPISODE EIGHTEEN:     MELODRAMA

“Terror in Tarnation! A Thrilling Narrative in Three Acts”

EPISODE SEVENTEEN:     POETRY

“landescapes”

EPISODE SIXTEEN:     SILLY EUROPEAN SPY SPOOF (DUBBED)

“Diet Ray of the Stars!”

EPISODE FIFTEEN:     EROTIC SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE     

“The Shadow of Her Passion”

EPISODE FOURTEEN:     FLYING:

“Sky Calling”

EPISODE THIRTEEN:     SLAPSTICK:

“The Phantom of the Werewolf”

EPISODE TWELVE:     DAIRY FARMING:

“Early One Morning”

EPISODE ELEVEN:     BURROUGHS:

“Chapter Nine”

EPISODE TEN:     WEREWOLVES:

“The Silver Solution”

EPISODE NINE:     WRESTLING:

“Suckerslam XIV”

EPISODE EIGHT:     JANE AUSTEN ROMANCE:

“The Proud and the Senseless”

EPISODE SEVEN:     THE JAZZ AGE:

“The Bucky-Dusky-Ruby Red Hop!”

EPISODE SIX:     SUBMISSION:

“Re-Org”

EPISODE FIVE:     MASQUERADE:

“The Eyes Behind the Mask”

EPISODE FOUR:     SELF HELP:

“Sausage Stew for the Slightly Overweight Presents:

Some Several Suggestions Guaranteeing Success for the Mildly Neurotic”

EPISODE THREE:     NUDIST:

“If You Have To Ask ...”

EPISODE TWO:     FRENCH BEDROOM FARCE:

“Un Nuit a Fifi’s!”

EPISODE ONE:     STEAMPUNK:

“The Chase of the Purple Squid!”

A J.H.B. Original!