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!
No comments:
Post a Comment