Can I Get a Witness
I just heard on the radio that 8 million people blog. The commentator went on to point out that it's not the politest society either and that some comments are downright nasty and unsavory. Which led me to the thought--someone other than my family might be reading my blog--perish the thought. My feeling is that my family barely cares about my musings, what other person out in space can possibly want to waste the few key strokes that it takes to open it. And yet, I'm careful about key words without even breaking a sweat and since I know Dad will probably be reading, I'm try to be scrupulous about spelling. If only I had that grammar thing down.
I do like to toy with the idea of writing a book. It seems like a great adventure out there on the horizon. What better way to gear myself up for that adventure, then to write as much as possible, like exercise. Yesterday, Cliff Cate, my good buddy in Kiwanis was our speaker to tell us about his adventure in becoming a published author. We already have one pulished author in our club and both of them are Lawyers, so you know the old brain sat up to hear this talk. He started writing a long time ago and then had just hit a wall of writer's block and stopped. About two years ago, a friend in the club asked to read the manuscript that he had so far and after he read it apparently said, this needs a lot of work and so Cliffy got over his writer's block and got to work. He showed it to a bunch more of his friends who all made suggestions and changes and cleaned up the grammar and spelling and language. When he was finally ready, he bought a big book called how to get your book published or something to that effect and started sending the manuscript out to every publisher in the country. He described it as a lot of big thick envelopes going out and all but one big thick envelopes coming back. One publisher offered to let him pay to have it published, but he declined. Then he said to himself, I must need a literary agent--someone to fight for my book and really sell it. So he got another really big book that told would be authors how to find a literary agent. He sent out 130 really big envelopes to literary agents and got 130 back. Self publishing was begining to sound more savory. So he looked into self publishing houses--he wanted one on the West coast, but they can't compete pricewise with the East Coast and Midwest, so he finally settled on a Midwest house. He had a terrific call with their rep and started to feel really good about the decision. Two days later, that rep no longer worked there and he was talking to someone new. He went through five reps at that House. When you self publish, there's no editor--it's just you and your book. He wrote the thing in Word Perfect, the publisher house pulled it up in Microsoft Word and his draft was a mess. He hired an artist to do the book cover illustration for a lot of money and hated the end product. He ended up illustrating it himself (and he hinted that he gave away the story with the picture on the front, but I haven't read the book yet to tell how much). So he's put up all the money, did all the editing, the illustrating and now is hawking the book to the world. The publishing house is supposed to sell the book to bookstores which are selling it for more than Cliff was selling it for to us at our great Kiwanis Club discount.
Somehow that almost sounds worse than running for political office--I don't think I'm cut out for adventure, but I'll keep practicing just in case.
I do like to toy with the idea of writing a book. It seems like a great adventure out there on the horizon. What better way to gear myself up for that adventure, then to write as much as possible, like exercise. Yesterday, Cliff Cate, my good buddy in Kiwanis was our speaker to tell us about his adventure in becoming a published author. We already have one pulished author in our club and both of them are Lawyers, so you know the old brain sat up to hear this talk. He started writing a long time ago and then had just hit a wall of writer's block and stopped. About two years ago, a friend in the club asked to read the manuscript that he had so far and after he read it apparently said, this needs a lot of work and so Cliffy got over his writer's block and got to work. He showed it to a bunch more of his friends who all made suggestions and changes and cleaned up the grammar and spelling and language. When he was finally ready, he bought a big book called how to get your book published or something to that effect and started sending the manuscript out to every publisher in the country. He described it as a lot of big thick envelopes going out and all but one big thick envelopes coming back. One publisher offered to let him pay to have it published, but he declined. Then he said to himself, I must need a literary agent--someone to fight for my book and really sell it. So he got another really big book that told would be authors how to find a literary agent. He sent out 130 really big envelopes to literary agents and got 130 back. Self publishing was begining to sound more savory. So he looked into self publishing houses--he wanted one on the West coast, but they can't compete pricewise with the East Coast and Midwest, so he finally settled on a Midwest house. He had a terrific call with their rep and started to feel really good about the decision. Two days later, that rep no longer worked there and he was talking to someone new. He went through five reps at that House. When you self publish, there's no editor--it's just you and your book. He wrote the thing in Word Perfect, the publisher house pulled it up in Microsoft Word and his draft was a mess. He hired an artist to do the book cover illustration for a lot of money and hated the end product. He ended up illustrating it himself (and he hinted that he gave away the story with the picture on the front, but I haven't read the book yet to tell how much). So he's put up all the money, did all the editing, the illustrating and now is hawking the book to the world. The publishing house is supposed to sell the book to bookstores which are selling it for more than Cliff was selling it for to us at our great Kiwanis Club discount.
Somehow that almost sounds worse than running for political office--I don't think I'm cut out for adventure, but I'll keep practicing just in case.
posted by KathrynVH @ 9:06 AM
2 Comments:
At May 19, 2005 at 2:54 PM,
marty said…
There’s a reason it’s called Vanity Press. Wait, make that there are reasons. You have to start with the hubris that you know more about recognizing a worthwhile piece of literature that the hundreds of people who, doing this for a living, have rejected it.
Then you have to look at the market you are entering and over look the fact that books are not published because of their value to society or their intrinsic worth. They are published because they can be sold, and they can be sold because they can be promoted. The book or the author has something that can be a marketing ploy.
It follows then that your book, for one reason (or lack of) or another, won’t sell in any quantity. If there were any odds you can be sure the greedy publishing house would be after a share. Here again you need hubris.
The bottom line is that when all is said and done, you can say that you are ‘a published author.’ You can sell the book to you friends or at local events. But you can never recover the cost unless you offset you monetary debit with a credit to you VANITY.
At May 20, 2005 at 7:33 AM,
EZ Travel said…
Yes, I am always very dubious about self-published. I used think being published was being published, but now working in an environment where being published is a necessity I also find out that "where" you publish is highly scrutinized.
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