vituperation

March 2, 2003

Before I begin this entry, I need to make something clear. Brace yourselves, because this might sound rude. That isn’t the intent. Are you ready? Good:

Please do not interpret the following longass entry as a solicitation to send me advice. It isn’t.

There. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s continue.

Most of my readers know me from another site I run (and need to write an update for, since it’s been over two months) that detailed a fairly significant change in my health and appearance. I updated that site pretty regularly for almost two years while I got my body in order, and it was pretty popular as personal sites go.

When the site had served its purpose for the time I took everything I’d written offline and gathered it into a single 1400-page block, which became the basis of a nonfiction book documenting my physical and mental transformations. After editing said manuscript for a few months I had what I thought was a pretty decent book, roughly 110000 words with a tentative title.

Manuscript in hand, I began the search for a literary agent. With the immeasurable help of Robyn I put together a query letter - that’s what you send agents, to hook them into being interested in seeing your book - and began sending copies out, along with a photograph documenting my changes. Soon, the rejections began piling up, an expected and necessary part of the publishing process.

This went on for a few months, queries went out and rejections came in, and there were quite a few requests for proposals (short documents detailing why your book is the shit), sections of the book, and the entire book. I turned down an agent because I didn’t think we’d fit together; I don’t want to work with someone I don’t think I’ll get along with.

Then, an offer for representation came from an old-school agency on Park Avenue. Most agencies set up contracts between authors and agents, detailing what’s what in the relationship, but this agency was so old school that it was based merely on our word. I like that. As the agent said, "If I can’t trust you, I don’t want to do business with you."

I thought it was a match made in heaven, and agreed to be represented by this agent. He made suggestions about the book, the most important being that it should be shorter. I spent a month line-editing the work and trimmed off 20000 words, leaving a manuscript just over 300 pages.

I sent the manuscript to New York via priority mail. When he told me it still hadn’t arrived almost ten days later I sent a second copy. Both copies arrived on the same day, just after Thanksgiving last year. A couple of weeks later, I was notified via email of the two publishers he’d sent the manuscripts to. It was in this time that things began to go south. First, he kept telling me I was in "show business" and needed to stop thinking like a rube from Alabama.

Yes, really. A rube.

Then, Robyn got an email from a Hollywood producer who found her website and wanted to know if she’d be interested in appearing on a new television show for the Showtime network. She said she’d think about it and oh by the way did you see my husband’s site? One thing led to another and the producer wanted us both to appear on the show discussing fad diets and bullshit weight loss techniques.

Hey, I thought, I could mention the book on this show and probably get some decent free publicity. I’ll check with my agent first, though, since he’s technically the book’s representative.

I emailed my agent and detailed the producer’s request and asked if he wanted me to mention the book or stay quiet about it. One line of my email was "In other words, free national exposure." The response I got was a copy of just that line, with a single additional line: "No, in other words, you lose everything for free. Congratulations."

Perplexed, I asked for clarification. He said I was a "fucking bumpkin" and that the whole purpose of TV people was to make me look bad. He also told me - this was on the phone and he called me a "fucking bumpkin" about ten times, every time I began to speak - not to appear on the show and that he would’ve dropped me in a heartbeat if I’d gone on the show without consulting him.

Yes, really. A fucking bumpkin.

Was I angry? You bet. Did I fire him? Nope. Should I have? Maybe, but the real Fred is much nicer than the Fred my readers think they know. I ignored his advice about being interviewed, but I didn’t mention the book on camera. Afterwards, I called him and said, "If you’re done with me because I let them film anyway I need to know now so I can start looking for a new agent."

He wasn’t done with me.

The first rejection came back, from the chief editor at one of the big publishing houses. If you read here religiously - and I’m sure you all do - you’ll remember a contest where I asked what was wrong with that rejection letter. The chief editor at one of the biggest publishing houses in the country thought my nonfiction book was fiction. When asked how that could be my agent said, "Maybe she’s dumb."

The second rejection came, a standard form letter from another big publisher, right before Christmas. I replied to the email from my agent with a joke about the rejection making Christmas extra merry, replete with a comment that it was tongue-in-cheek and a smiley at the end. I got a terse reply telling me to "Look, this is just how it goes. I’ll send it out again shortly."

I waited more than a month before sending a short email touching base and asking what the status was. God knows I’ve read enough books about agents and the cardinal rule is "don’t harass your agent." I figured waiting that long was reasonable. I figured wrong. Another terse email, "like I said, shortly." I waited three more weeks - until the middle of February - without a peep from him.

After almost two total months with my manuscript doing nothing but languishing in an office in New York, I reached my flash point and fired my agent.

Publishing is about the slowest business there is, and I don’t need to spend all my time waiting on someone to send my book to publishers. I lurk on several writing forums, and it appears that most agents send five to fifteen copies of a manuscript out at a time to different publishers. Not mine. The only reason he was sending two is because I’d sent a second when I thought the first got lost in the mail. He wouldn’t let me send a third or fourth.

Plus, he wasn’t actually sending it after the first round.

So I’m unagented again. I sent another batch of queries out a couple of weeks ago and the rejections have started coming back. I don’t think I want to go through this again, this waiting and waiting all the while knowing there are people who want the book. I know the book will sell. I now find myself at a crossroads, faced with decisions.

I can keep hunting for an agent. Getting one can take months, and then there’s waiting for the agent to find a publisher, which can take months to years. Once a publisher buys the rights to print, it takes (on average) eighteen months for the book to show up in stores. That would put my book out in late 2004 in the best scenario, but more likely in 2005 or 2006.

I could sign up with a print-on-demand (POD) printer or a vanity press. Ever buy a book (excepting mass-market paperbacks) off Amazon where the list price and the Amazon price are the same? Chances are good that it’s a POD book, not even in existence when you place your order. POD books are created as needs arise, printed with laser printers and bound one at a time. POD authors pay someone to set everything up and get the book ready for press, and generally never sell enough copies to recoup the startup costs. Word on the writing forums is that POD books are usually not well produced, but I can’t validate that.

At the place I stand now neither of these options sounds very appealing. What is sounding appealing is this: self-publishing.

Self-publishing isn’t POD and it isn’t vanity publishing. It’s becoming your own publisher, and it has a long and pretty reputable history. The following bestsellers were originally self-published:

• The Celestine Prophecy
• A Time to Kill (John Grisham’s first book)
• The One Minute Manager
• The Joy of Cooking
• Sugar Busters!
• Dianetics
• The Christmas Box
• Huckleberry Finn

Here’s what I’d have to do to publish the book myself:

• Form a publishing corporation for tax purposes
• Buy my own ISBNs
• Pay a graphic artist to design the cover
• Lay out the entire book as I want it to appear
• Edit and re-edit the book, then find an editor and do it again
• Print-ready the manuscript
• Find a printer and contract with them to print and bind the book
• Have the books shipped to my house or to a distributor if I can get one
• Market the book myself, including trying to get bookstores and distributors to carry it

I’d also have to pay for all this stuff up front out of my own pocket. Like I said, though: I’m confident the book will sell, and this is a chance to put my money - literally - where my mouth is.

Learning about the self-publishing road is an eye-opener, and you find out many things. Most notably, you find out why publishing companies aren’t very profitable. For example, to list a book on Amazon like a book from a big publisher with all the discounts Amazon shows, I have to sell the book to them for 45% of the cover price. That’s 45% of, not 45% off. If my book was a softcover with a retail price of, say, $16.00, I’d have to sell it to Amazon - and pay the shipping myself - for $7.20. Retail stores are a little better. They pay about 60% of the cover price, but they’re also harder to get into.

I’m hoping that surely I could at least get the local stores to carry it.

Self-publishing is the hardest way to go, but it sure appears to also be the most rewarding. Playing with the numbers, I’m pretty sure I can afford to produce 3000 softcovers or 1000 hardcovers of my book without having to move to the poorhouse. Everything’s under my control, and if I fuck it up I certainly can’t lay the blame elsewhere. My feelings on taking responsibility are pretty well known, I think.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

So there are my ruminations on the status of my book. I’ve got lots of thinking to do, and I figured I’d share my thoughts since I haven’t mentioned it in a while.

Have a terrific Sunday.