When I was a boy, I wanted to be Ernest Hemingway when I grew up. Oh, how I wanted to write fiction. I took two typing courses in public school, classes that were normally taken only by girls headed for secretarial pools (ask your parents) because those were the only people who needed to be able to type. Well – them and famous fiction writers, banging out the pages of their latest bestselling novels on the verandas of exotic foreign hotels between paralyzing shots of tequila. I’ll bet I’m the only kid you ever met who saved up lawn-mowing money to buy a typewriter.
I got to be a pretty damned good typist, too – which ironically led very directly to my first tech writing job, decades later, when everybody was expected to know how to type but few auto mechanics could.
Unfortunately I never became a particularly good fiction writer, and even when I did good I never became a (conventionally) published fiction writer. I should have settled for hunt’n’peck and taken marketing courses instead. Sigh – but who knew? I’ve been making it up as I go along all my life. And there are more poor decisions embedded in that statement than I can possibly count at this late date.
Anyway, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been whining about losing my comfy career as an equine excrement engineer. And all my friends (I haven’t managed to scare them all off) have pounded on my head and said, “You’re a writer! So write!” Yeah, easy to say. I can write. I can’t sell. And after all these years, the only thing I do better than writing is fail to sell my writing. At some point you stop wanting to try. Then people stop listening to your excuses, and you can relax.
The first of the neuroses is fear of rejection. I’ve been rejected by some very high-dollar people over the decades. The nice thing about being a shit-shoveler? All you need do is show up and shovel shit. Nobody expects anything more of you than that. In the past few years I’ve dabbled here and there, ghost-writing or sharing a byline. But I’ve rejected any gentle suggestions that I do more than that because it’s hard. Labor over a draft until you can’t see it with objective eyes anymore, submit it, get it sent back as a piece of shit, look at it the next morning and realize it really is a piece of shit because you completely lost the train of what you were supposed to be doing. Repeat. Finally get it right, get paid (that part’s nice) and see your beautiful baby disappear unremarked. I will never be Hemingway. I don’t even make a very convincing Mencken. And now I just want to be an old burn-out who follows along behind horses with a rake and a wagon.
But that’s coming to an end. I’m not ready to lay down and quietly starve. And one thing going-on-eight years in the boonies has taught me? You never completely succeed, but you never completely fail until you stop trying. And I may not be Hemingway or even (shudder) Steinbeck but I do know how to string words together, and I have gathered some experience in a unique area. And there is one market for people who write about that area, and I know somebody who knows somebody in that market.
So I spent this morning banging out a first draft, and I begged my friend to give me a recommendation. That recommendation has been sent, and I’ll take my hope in my hand and polish the draft while I wait to hear back.
And here we go again.
🙂 With my other hand, I made bread!
Outstanding, Joel. If you ever want a proof reader/editor, you know where I am. Gratis. I don’t have much money, but I’ve got skills and time… a definite plus. I always find real value in what you write. 🙂
Write a Louis L’Amour-style Western about a misanthropic desert rat, whose small cabin and plot of land are standing in the way of a cattle baron land scheme. Desert rat is shot and left for dead, vows revenge.
JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books was rejected loads of times( they are awful bilge, stuff cribbed from everywhere) now she’s worth a few hundred million. Just got to hit the market at the right time I guess!
Gads, how predictable.
How about this instead: Desert hermit discovers gummit moving to confiscate many thousands of sq. miles of land which will include his little abode. Starts the “Sons of Liberty” thing to alert the neighbors (far and near) and major landholders. Runs into some who stand to profit from the gov. land grab. Comes fully out of hermit mode to lead the 4th gen. movement to convince those grabber neighbors of the error of their ways.
Fades into the sunset to hermit abode as gummit foiled again… Resumes discussion with friends about chickens and solar systems…
Yah! You could name the desert rat Biven Clundy, or something similar! 😉
Can the hermit at least have a square, dimpled chin?
Yep… you’d just have to shave regularly to show it. 🙂
For what it’s worth, there seems to be a reasonable market for independently published novels about individuals or small groups standing up to the government on Amazon. I though “Walt’s Gulch” and “Songs of Bad Men and Good” were both entertaining and well-written, which actually puts them way, _way_ above average compared to other books in the genre…
Sex sells. You can never go wrong, Joel, with a steamy pot-boiler about a desert rat and…um… nevermind. Seriously, good luck.
The good news is you don’t really need to be a successful author in the traditional sense. Selling all of your books on Lulu to two people a month would replace your work (and I would encourage anyone to pick them up, they are a great read). If another book was released and you sold tens of copies it would set you up the year. Shoot I’ll put in my pre-order now.
If you’ve learned anything about surviving out there these last 8 years, write a piece for Survivalblog.com. There’s decent stuff given away for the first 3 winners and the competition is from ordinary folks.
You’ve got to be kidding. Even with Joel’s low income requirements, a few books a month wouldn’t cover it. I’ve looked into both lulu and Amazon to publish my books, and gave it up as a bad deal. They are the only ones who would make any money if my books did sell.
Lulu hasn’t sent me a check in years. I keep meaning to take those ads off the sidebar.
You could be this centuries Edward Abbey. You have the crotchety desert curmudgeon down pat and can write about it in a highly entertaining way.
There are some books with your name on the spine sitting on a shelf in South Africa so you’re an *international* fiction writer, mon ami.
Self-publish and put a link on your blog! Ex Libris (for example)
gfa
That’s disappointing, I went ahead and bought all of them from Lulu in December. If I had known that I would have sent you the money directly. It may be worth following up with them to see if you can get the funds that should be going to you.
You seem to be focused on books and publishers. I suggest you should consider self-publishing for kindle. Amazon’s createspace lets you keep 3 out of 4 dollars, as long as you play by their rules. That’s quite a bit better than the more usual 10-15% or an author normally gets. You give up the nice advance from a traditional book deal, but you get money as soon as you start selling.
For an example of this working very well, see Marko (AKA Major Caudill), and Peter Grant (AKA preacherman on THR). Both went that route.
In their cases, they both had successful blogs (Munchkinwrangler and Bayou Renaissance Man) with readers willing to buy their books just to support a blogger they like (Cosmostrator’s post right before me provides evidence that you definitely have some of that mojo). They also had e-friends in the blogosphere who were willing to mention their books on their higher profile blogs (I bet Claire and Tam might be willing to fill that role in your case).
Unlike traditional publishing, it doesn’t take bales of FRNs in marketing to get started, and even if you only sell 10 copies at Amazon’s 3.99 minimum, that’ll still make up for one week’s worth of lost horsepoop revenue. But you’ll sell more, I guarantee it.
Ditto Cosmostrator’s comment in every respect.