okay, so that didn't work

Not only did Counterpoint Press reject my manuscript, but the editor said that I had "a clever hand." Ouch. For the un-initiated, "clever" is the literary equivalent of "shallow." 

Oh, well. Back to the drawing board. 

endorsing the matriarchy

You should listen to your mother. Seriously.

A few weeks ago, my mom suggested I write to Wendell Berry's publisher. She reasoned that, given that Mr. Berry had given a piece of the book I was trying to sell such a resoundingly positive endorsement, it couldn't hurt to try to work that angle.

In the words of the Fox in Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby, "I shore am glad I thought of that, myself."

Easier said than done, though. Wendell Berry is distributed by a major publisher, Counterpoint Press, the sort that rarely look at new authors, and only when those authors are recommended to them by reputable agents (who are just about as difficult to seduce as are publishers). Still, I figured I'd give it the old forty-four-cent try, and today got back a letter from the Editor in Chief, Dan Smetanka, asking me to email him my material!

So this one goes out to Wendell Berry, Dan Smetanka, and most of all, mom.

Crossing fingers and toes. Wish me luck, pray me providence, but whatever you do... don't knock on any wood.

hard work

Writing is hard work, made all the more difficult by the fact that there is no one standing there making you do it. That motivation has to come within, and for a long, long, long time before you (maybe) get a (small) measure of commercial success. What also makes it hard is that having arranged the words, you must then go out and sell your arrangements to others, which is also hard.

I think I've begun to admit this. As part of this admission, I have begun, twice a week, to submit smaller pieces of my writing, twice a week, to various journals. I write, I polish, I send, I wait, I collect rejections and I send again. Marvelous.

I had quite hoped someone would walk up and drop a multi-book writing contract in my lap. This does not appear immanent. So I am doing the work. We shall see.

ring that bell

I think I'm going to try to work the system a little bit. I penned the following letter to Rob Bell, who I think could be convinced to give me a leg up. Wish me luck. 


Dear Mr. Bell, 

This is, of course, a violation. I am using your sense of obligation to your congregants (in this case, my childhood friend, Juanito) in hopes of getting you to read this letter. If that goes well, I’m hoping you will read the first few pages of my book, then all of it, and then hopefully help it in some small way towards publication. There is a process to these things and I am violating it, I know.

And yet, here we are. Second paragraph, and you’re still reading. Allow me to hit you straightaway, then, with the two reasons why I believe you will want to give this book a chance. First, there is this – in the course of some personal correspondence with shamokin-good author Wendell Berry last year, I sent him a somewhat rougher version of the last chapter of this book for his opinion. His response was as follows: he said that it was “painful, intelligent, finally hopeful, and, so far as I can see, probably about as right as we can hope to be about justice and mercy.” 

More important, though, is a second review I got from a stranger who’d read a blog post I wrote bemoaning the way gays were being treated and asking for stories from people who grew up in the Christian Church and self-identified as gay. This young lady wrote me, timidly, offering her story. It was as painful and as heart-wrenching as you can imagine, involving incest and all the warped “Christian” understandings of sexuality you’d expect. My heart broke for her. I didn’t know what to say. So I spoke a few words of love and attached my story. She wrote back the next day to say she’d stayed up all night, reading it from start to finish. When she was done, she said she put in some earbuds and went out “to dig her hands in some dirt… to feel connected again” and ended up under a bridge somewhere, sobbing. She told me that she felt more hopeful and at peace than she had ever felt before. She realized, at last, “that pain is not an alien experience.” 

This book can help people. It is visceral, honest, and it takes the piss out of me in a way that places it in the hinterlands between the “Christian” and “secular” publishing worlds. 

Mr. Bell, I am trying to pay my dues. I’ve been published in a number of smaller journals and last year sold fourteen pieces to GOOD magazine. But I also know it’s a vicious industry right now and that a well-placed word from an influential author could be just the nudge my book might need to get a real chance.

I ask, then, that you risk ten minutes of your time to read the first chapter. If it doesn’t grab you… fine – I’m sure Juanito would be happy to have the manuscript back (I made him promise he wouldn’t pass it on unless he truly believed in it). 

Good luck convincing the world that God is not a vindictive, cruel jerk. 

Cheers,

Josh

hakuna matata (it means "no worries")

Did you know that hakuna matata is actually the informal slogan of Kenya? It's true. It is, in fact, the real freakin' deal. So, when I get discouraged, when I find my aroma lacks a certain appeal (or whatever) I can just sing that Disney song, and all my worries go away. I forget about my Father, who was trampled by wildebeests at the behest of my uncle. I forget about my golden girlfriend, who loved me enough to accompany me to an elephant graveyard, and I just sing.

So, the Wipf & Stock dude didn't write me back, and I'm fine with that. Super-fine, actually. He may still do it, but I'm not sure it would have been the right fit for me, so I'm gonna say "no."

I've bought two books from them, one written by a friend and one by a guy I follow online, and both have cost nearly twenty dollars... and for pretty basic printing, too. So, as much as it would be nice to jump on with the first publisher who showed any interest, I'm not sure it would have been a great fit. I want to make this book available without being prohibitively expensive. I could self-publish on a print-on-demand basis and sell for thirteen dollars, and make about five times as much per book. I'd still like to find a larger, legitimate publisher who'll spread the word better and save me having to think about businessy stuff, but if I'm going to go small, I might as well do it myself.

There are a few other factors as well: 

One, I've recently gone back to the book after leaving it untouched for maybe five months, and it still needs a lot of work.

Two, I am starting to admit to myself that I can't just bypass the usual path-to-printing. I need to get my stories and essays out there into journals and such... to build up a resume, as it were.

Three, I am also beginning to feel that I do not want to just ignore the concerns I anticipate one of the persons mentioned in the book might have over the publication of such a personal story. I want to tweak it a bit more so that it focuses even more on me and my problems, rather than anyone else's, and then I want to lovingly convince  that person that it's a story that can help people and is worth printing. This will take time.

So, that's where I sit. Back to the writing table. I'm sick, possibly feverish this morning, so I'll need to rest a bit, and then it's out with the manuscript and let the slashing and cutting begin.

newsflash...

Alrighty, then. The editor at Wipf & Stock picked the past while to inconveniently get married, but has at last informed me that the editors do not believe my memoir will fit with the book series to which he submitted it. He has now agreed to consider it for publication at Wipf & Stock itself, and will get back to me within a week. So...

allow myself to introduce... myself

I have recently discovered a superb website that takes a lot of mystery out of the process of publishing-on-demand, the latest/best manifestation of the self-publishing market.

Self-publishing has traditionally been synonymous with "vanity publishing," wherein an author - desperate to see his or her words on a page - pays someone an exorbitant fee to publish a sizable run of a book, which (chances are very good) will end up in his or her basement.

New printing technologies and the ease of internet distribution, however, have changed the playing field. "Print on Demand" is exactly what it sounds like, and although the return-per-book is a bit lower, the risk is basically nil. When I researched the option previously, the company I looked into had a horrible set-up. The payoff per book was roughly the same as I'd get from a publisher, except I would be doing all the work.

Money isn't everything (it's close to nothing, in fact) but if I'm going to be doing all the work, I want to get paid for my time. This new site, however, suggests a return of more like fifty percent of the sale price, with very little ongoing effort.

While a traditional publisher has the advantage of offering wider distribution, for a first-time author they are unlikely to do much marketing. The goal is to get my story to as many people as possible, something I am starting to suspect I can do just as well myself with grassroots internet networking. And because of the odd, cross-market niche appeal of my book, it is unlikely that I would be able to hook up with a publisher who could offer the broader distribution and marketing that would make up for the fact that I would only be making about a dollar per book sale.

All of this to say, I have decided that if the good people at Wipf & Stock are not sufficiently excited about my book and end up demanding that I make greater changes than I am comfortable with, then I will look very seriously into the print-on-demand option.

Which is to say that I may be looking, at some point, to hire a razor-sharp line-editor to proof-read the manuscript to perfection. If anybody knows one, let me know.