[This entry is subject to editing, as my plans change and/or if there are errors below. See important update in May 31, 2012, entry.]
Within the past several days, I see, Google Books has changed info in its page for The Folder Hunt to reflect that the latest publication date (which I entered into BowkerLink) is June 2012. That would seem to be good news (for you), but this is in a qualified fashion, as far as I am concerned.
Within the past several days, I see, Google Books has changed info in its page for The Folder Hunt to reflect that the latest publication date (which I entered into BowkerLink) is June 2012. That would seem to be good news (for you), but this is in a qualified fashion, as far as I am concerned.
I have been in the process of seeing what kind of production format I can best put this book into, to make it most suitable to readers and to my conception of how I wanted to present it. I am within the home stretch of having a workable format, different from what I’d originally wanted (and definitely not amenable to ebook formatting). (Also, its new format may conform well with what I need to register the book with the Copyright Office.) And ironically, this new format may actually be better for readers, to allow for a less cluttered reading experience.
Big price of Folder Hunt?
But it turns out this new format dictates a likely price (which would also include state tax and mailing costs) that some, who want an E-Z ebook at $0.99 or similar bargain-basement price, might find appalling: $40-45 per copy. I wish it could be less; and believe me, this price doesn’t leave a lot of room for profit. Note that the novel per se is about 62,240 words. The format of the whole thing can be described in a sort of brochure that I would request prospective buyers to ask for before deciding on buying the book. This conforms with my idea of about 2009-10 that no one could buy the book who heard details about it only on the Internet. “Prospectus” information would inform buyers and allow them to make a better choice. I would request that you send a #10 SASE, and I would mail you the info. If you’re agreeable, you can then buy the book.
(By the way, part of the reason for the price involves number of pages. The actual number of pages of the most essential part of the book is 161, which almost exactly squares with the Google Books info of 160 pages. But another ~120 pages accounts for the unexpected way I had to deal with one aspect of the production. But don’t worry—for $40, you wouldn’t be paying merely for added paper; value comes with what added copy is on those additional ~120 pages. But what I might be able to do is offer two editions, in an informal way; there’s the primary one, the ~281-page whole, to which the original ISBN would apply; but I could offer the 160 “torso” for less money as an alternative. Stay tuned.)
(By the way, part of the reason for the price involves number of pages. The actual number of pages of the most essential part of the book is 161, which almost exactly squares with the Google Books info of 160 pages. But another ~120 pages accounts for the unexpected way I had to deal with one aspect of the production. But don’t worry—for $40, you wouldn’t be paying merely for added paper; value comes with what added copy is on those additional ~120 pages. But what I might be able to do is offer two editions, in an informal way; there’s the primary one, the ~281-page whole, to which the original ISBN would apply; but I could offer the 160 “torso” for less money as an alternative. Stay tuned.)
However, I feel that the package might best be sweetened with one or two “extras”— which actually some might find more intriguing than the old Folder Hunt.
A moment for defense: Why would you pay $40-45 for a self-published tome of an old novel that was, essentially, left in a drawer for about 25 years? Well, this is not merely some genre slag coughed up by a yokel into amateurish ebook form, with it making some high-seller list on Amazon a week later. This edition (1) shows how some of us who aimed to write some kind of literary work back in the more analog/vinyl-LP days of about 1985 tried to do work; (2) the contrast of me a generation older commenting on my work as a 23-year-old may seem interesting, not least for my having decades of experience in the publishing world since then; (3) various features of personal life (which include types of spectacles of being at a big college, such as many of us can relate to), which inspire facets of the work, are noted in annotations, which show how we draw from life in doing creative writing, and a quarter-century later, the memories of that old life may seem at least as intriguing as the creative writing from that time. So you actually get more than a young man’s work; you get a work reflecting changes that come with life and historical accident, a sort of nostalgic and elegiac collection of “feathers” added to the droll “Mardi Gras costume” of an old, self-conscious work. PLUS, if all that doesn’t tickle you, the extras might be what really makes the whole mess worthwhile for some people, provided I can produce them economically within a palatable price range (my inner editorial Neanderthal and my marketing ape are going to be at loggerheads).
Possible extra: ‘agents, then and now’
One type of extra may be a mini-essay that reflects on the business angles of getting a trade book published—“then and now.” In fact, the already-drafted preface of The Folder Hunt includes a story about a disappointing literary agent I dealt with in 1986-87. But some more general remarks can be made, drawing on a wider range of experiences and making broader inferences. For instance, I grant that the world of literary agents has changed in the past 25 or so years. I hear all the “smart-money” tips and warnings—fine. That world has changed. But some things I hear just show me how things have not changed for the better. For instance, you hear about a “slush pile” that literary agents are now expected or assumed to have. A literary-agent slush pile? This makes me laugh. It used to be, around 1985, that not everyone needed an agent to get a trade book published. Agents were selective; they took only some of the writers of trade books (and they may have defined the writers they would take in different ways, as to their artistic value or likely business success). You may have considered yourself lucky to get an agent, and may have done better in starting your career for getting one. But it wasn’t essential for all writers of trade books. Who had the slush piles? Editorial offices of the trade publishers. That’s where the beginning writers, the amateurs, and plenty of others sent their queries and samples that may have ended up in slush piles. Since agents were selective, the idea that they had slush piles would have seemed ludicrous. Editors at the trade houses—the poor editorial assistants—were the hands-on gatekeepers weeding through the stuff that came in the mail. No longer. Agents do that now. And if beginning writers think that that’s all the worse for agents seeming inherently too oriented just to the money side of things, well, that has been an inherent part of being a literary agent all along anyway. And today, it can be said that the center of gravity for beginners feeling they’ve arrived as an author is the book deal, after landing an agent; it isn’t actually writing a good story worth crafting, as it used to be (in part because you worked with this story for some time before you actually landed any sort of publishing prospect).
Add to these general observations the fact that The Folder Hunt, which I’ve felt for many years is a second-rate (at best) work of mine, actually got a response—more than one communication, actually—from an editor at Doubleday when I entered it in a contest Doubleday held in 1985, and you have an old “side story” worth telling. Having an editor respond as she did (even if, before long, you could see she was being nice) was encouraging stuff for a beginning author in those days.
Anyway, that’s a taste of what one “extra” might be.
And all this I try to shape up—pending my ironing out some personal affairs that may make this the last product of its kind I can offer for some time.
So, this is to say the book seems to be definitely on its way (I have about four months to see if this prospect is truly workable, before the “pub date”), but don’t bet the ranch on it. I will inform you if it gets canceled or not. (All this was potentiated, you might say, by the Folder Hunt bibliographic info turning up on Google Books last October. So—we try to be pragmatically constructive while realistic within personal-brushfire limitations.)
As for other titles:
First Love, which is mentioned on my LinkedIn page, remains unready for release. It is meant only to be about small-time publishing as I knew it through about 2000. I think it would definitely be more interesting than Professional Help, but there are a few key sections that need work, and in any event I am satisfied with not working on it at this point.
I have said in the past that it would be good if First Love reflected an area of the media I became more involved with from 2001 through recently, medical advertising, but that is best addressed in a separate work (or other forum).
