A Brief Pause for Some Narcissism

(Warning: the following post is mostly self-indulgent treacle. Read at your own risk.)

As some of you know, and most of you don’t, I’ve had a novel in the can for some time. It is, I like to think, a good novel, one that’s at the very least entertaining. I tend to be harshly critical of my own work, so I’m actually surprised that I think this is a good piece, but I really do.

The problem with The Valkyrie’s Tale is that it isn’t neatly categorized. Is it fantasy? Mostly — there’s a lot of swords and a bit of sorcery. But there’s also a bit of sci-fi, a little bit of political thriller, and a cameo by former FEMA chief Mike Brown. (Yeah, I wrote in a cameo for Brownie; what’s it to ya?) It’s kinda, sorta young adult (my lead protagonist is 19), but I didn’t write it specifically for YA, and frankly, it’s even more out of place as a YA novel than as a fantasy. Probably it falls unders speculative fiction, I guess…but really, it doesn’t belong anywhere.

Writing a novel that defies easy categorization is a bad business decision, because unless you’re already very famous, no publishing company wants a book that straddles genres. They’re too hard to market, and frankly, given the volumes publishing companies deal in, they’re not really in the mood even to pick up a novel that’s easy to market, not from a new writer with nothing but blogging in his background.

I was pondering this conundrum a few weeks ago, as I tried to decide what to do with a manuscript I’ve poured thousands of hours and not inconsiderable effort into. Quite frankly, I believe the book is worth publishing. I don’t care if it sells 25,000,000 copies or 25; I think it’s something that people would actually read, and something that people would actually enjoy. And at some point, I’m just tired of having the manuscript sit there, like a lump. I feel like I’m betraying my characters, frankly. They deserve better.

I have long been a believer in the potential of the DIY revolution. There are an awful lot of signed musicians, published writers, and working actors who aren’t making enough money to pay the rent. In an age when we can record a song and upload it onto the internet in a day, the old model of having the media conglomerates serve as gatekeepers isn’t the only model that can work. When I finish this post and press “publish,” it’s going to go online, and theoretically anyone in the world could see it — and really and truly, thousands of people will see it, since I’m cross-posting it on Alas, a Blog and Blog of the Moderate Left, sites that between them get thousands of hits per day (the former several thousand more than the latter, of course).

And at this point, anyone can publish a book print-on-demand, if they so desire.

Would everyone reading this post want to buy a copy of a book I wrote? Undoubtedly no. One in ten thousand? Perhaps.

It was in considering all of this that I decided, at long last, to place my book’s destiny in my own hands. Which is why I’m now in the final stages of the process of publishing my book through Lulu. I’m targeting a release date on September 9, but that will depend on how the proof looks. Once I’ve set an exact date, I’ll let you all know, over and over and over again, and doubtless most of you will note it without much interest. But maybe a few of you will be interested in knowing just how I manage to work Mike Brown into a Hero Quest story about a 19-year-old apprentice Valkyrie and her friends. And of those few of you, maybe one or two of you will actually be kind enough to buy the book.

Hey, a guy can dream.

Maybe it’s a dumb decision. I’m certainly guaranteeing that I won’t be selling J.K. Rowling-like units. The book won’t make me a household name, and won’t have a mighty media conglomerate behind it to muscle through sales. There won’t be a movie featuring Katie Holmes as Miia. In the end, the best I can hope for is slightly less obscurity.

And yet I know that by self-publishing, the book is mine. No editor is going to tell me to cut Mike Brown out, or make Lorelei and Iorwerth’s love scenes explicit, or drop the character of Malcolm because nobody knows what an Uruisg is. For better or for worse, the book is mine, and somehow, that gives me a comfort that I wouldn’t have even if it got picked up.

Lulu says their business model is about a million authors selling ten books each, not ten authors selling a million books each. I’d like to sell a few more than ten copies, of course, but in the end, fundamentally I agree with the Lulu model. I know my book won’t be a bestseller; it probably won’t be even a worstseller. But in the end, my book is mine, and there’s a certain satisfaction to that. It will sell as well as I can market it, and we’ll see how I do at that; I’ve never marketed a book before, so if any kind soul out there has marketing ideas, drop me a line.

But when the book does sell,I’ll get the lion’s share of the profit. It won’t allow me to retire, or even quit my day job, of course, but I didn’t start writing to make money. For goodness’ sake, I’ve been blogging for damn near six years now; in that time, I had a 2-year paying gig and I’ve made about $1000 off of ad revenue and begging via Paypal. No, I write because I have to write, because in the end, Lorelei’s story was going to come out of me whether anyone wanted to read it or not. I actually share what I write under the belief that some of you care what I have to say, and I’m still stunned and amazed that some of you really do. And so I’ll share what I have to say with this book, and who knows? Maybe some people will be interested in what I have to say there, too.

I’ll put my book out into the world, and I’ll make sure you all hear far too much about it, and you’ll all get annoyed with me and either ignore me or buy a book to shut me up. (I encourage you to do the latter.) Whether it sells 25 copies or 25,000, in the end, it’s my book, the way I wanted to write it, down to the comma. And there’s a pride in that I couldn’t get any other way.