Five reasons why I’ve decided to start self-publishing.

Five reasons why I’ve decided to start self-publishing.

1.     I want an audience. If I strike it big with a publisher and get a New York Times bestseller, lots of people will read my stories. Woohoo. But wishing for that is like wishing to win the lottery. It takes more luck than my current allocation. And in the mean time, the only people who read my books seem to be a small handful of underpaid editors in beige cubicles. Apparently, editors are very slow readers, because it takes so long to hear back from them.

2.     I want speed. The publishing industry makes glaciers look like NFL running backs. I don’t understand this one. With the web, I can finish editing a story and have it on Amazon or iTunes in a week. With a publisher, it will take a year to get an offer, six months to complete a contract, then another 18 months to two years for the book to get released. Why? This makes no sense to me.

"It's all for nothing if you don't have freedom. And royalties."

3.     I want control. I am seriously tired of having some dude in an office on the 30^th floor of some Manhattan skyscraper decide if there is an audience for my books. I’d like readers to let me know if they like the stories.

4.     I want to push forward, not backwards. Traditional publishing is begging new media channels to kill it.

5.     I want perpetuity. Self-published ebooks never go out of print. The inventory is never “allowed to run out.”

6.     Bonus reason: I want the crowd to decide. Is my writing good or bad? Right now, that decision is being made by a chosen, random few. But I’d rather let readers decide and vote in the most honest way. Am I writing something good enough for them to pay for it, with their own hard-earned money, and then read it, with their own hard-earned time?

Just had to share how fast I skied last night

Last night, my son Abel and I went up to Snoqualmie Summit Central for a few hours of night skiing. I had downloaded a new ski app on my phone called ski tracks, which, among other things, records your top speed. At first, I forgot to turn it on. Then, on my next run, I hit 45 mph (on triple 60 face, for those who care). We did the same run again, and I hit 48. Then, on the next run, we went across the triple 60 cat track. I jumped off about 50 feet before the end and just aimed the skis straight, ignoring the ruts and the moguls. When I got to the bottom, still standing, I checked my speed.

53.1 miles per hour.

Not bad for an old dude skiing at night in the springtime.

I share this post with complete understanding of the possible outcomes.

I made a commitment, wise or foolish, to try, whenever possible, to transparently share about the writing and publishing experience. And I've been struggling along in this endeavor for a decade. During that time, I've gotten some great outcomes and some heartbreaking disappointments. So whenever I share potential good news, I do it with the full understanding that, at any time, that good news could turn to, ahhh, crap.

That said, today I received an astonishingly hopeful email from Editor X at the Penguin Young Readers Group. Like all the good emails, it was sent to me from my agent, the esteemed Abigail Samoun. The email read as follows:

Hi Abi, 

I just finished the new draft of SETH. I love it! The changes Tom made are just what the story needed. I’d honestly forgotten how good it is. I was sad to turn that last page.
 
I think it’s ready to show my publisher. He’s pretty busy, though, so it may be a couple of weeks before he can get to it. Are you still shopping it around? If you get any interest, let me know, and I’ll light a fire under his butt.
 
Hope you had a great holiday. I’m counting on 2013 being The Year of Seth.

Then Editor X signed his or her name and Abigail, in her note to me, made some comments about biting her fingernails.

So there you have it.

I am waiting.

Editor X at Penguin Young Readers Group just emailed, saying he (or she) won't get back to me until January. This could mean that she (or he) is a remarkable person who values family time more--yes, even more!--than reading my manuscript. Or it could be that he (or she) is a lazy bum who is using the holidays to shirk his (or her) responsibilities--to me. Perhaps it means she's already read it and hates the changes. Maybe he loves it so much he wants to extend the ecstasy as long as possible, like some sort of tantric sex thing. Eww.

Or maybe he (or she) just means what she (or he) said: "I want to make sure I give it the time it deserves. So with a week away from phone and e-mail, I should have plenty of time to read without distraction."

She (or he) also made mention of hoping she (or he) gets an iPad Mini for Christmas. I hope (s)he gets one. I hope Editor X is deep in Apple-fied bliss while (s)he reads my manuscript.

I hope the Spirit of Steve Jobs visits him (or her) three times on Christmas Eve and that she/he wakes up, shouts "The Spirits did it all in one night!" then opens a window and tells a boy to run to the Publishing House on the corner and get the biggest, fattest advance check hanging in the window. And I hope Editor X thinks of me as his (or her) own personal Tiny Tim.

Tiny Tim. Tiny Tom. Medium-sized Tom. Whatever.

In the mean time, here's a poem about waiting by one of my favorite poets ever:

I Am Waiting
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up  
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting  
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier  
and I am waiting  
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming  
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona  
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored  
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find  
the right channel  
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth  
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed  
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered  
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did  
to Tom Sawyer  
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting  
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again  
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn  
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting  
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder