This roller coaster again

dispatch #114

Monday . . .

Little Birds is ready to be bought on Amazon in both paper and digital but I’m not saying it is released until after I receive and go over the proof copy they are sending me. My mind is buzzing with next steps. Where will I do a proper but small launch? How do I get it into bookstores? What kind of buzz can I get going for it? And so on. On Thursday I will start the campaign on social media and today I’ll get some things in order – my author page and see if I can get a simple page here on Substack or how ever that works. I’m not getting a web page. I had one for The Crooked Knife and it was a waste of time and money. It is one of those things that is accepted as a truism but upon examination is simply not the best use of my limited time and resources. A sophistry.

I get all tangled up in these thoughts and then have to remind myself that the book is good and I will do my best at getting it out to people without becoming either crazy or embittered at the fact that the whole publishing system started taking a dive when I finally had a book published. I keep thinking of that lovely scene at the end of the most recent Little Women movie, when Jo is watching her book being printed through a window. I don’t even know where Amazon is – I mean, I know it is nowhere and everywhere but where do they actually print the books? Or does that happen everywhere like China and so on? I sound like an idiot. I am an idiot. I will write again tomorrow.

Tuesday . . .

Yesterday I attended to book biz. I looked up literary festivals and contests etc. . . and made a timeline for applying to acquire a table to sell books, or sent a question about becoming a reader. We’ll see. I will enter a contest for a published book, although I’m well aware that they hardly ever consider genre fiction. I made a page for my books which, if you come here by way of the substack website, you can see in the tabs, and I freshened up my Amazon author page. I also spent some time considering the ways in which I want to launch the book. I would like a low key event, probably in a coffee shop, where I can do a reading and sign books. For The Crooked Knife I had a number of ‘launches’ and readings when it first came out. One in North West River, Labrador, which is part of the setting for both books, one in St. John’s, Nfld, where my former publisher was, and one at the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax. I was also a guest of the Chester Playhouse in Chester, where I was interviewed in front of a good audience. All of these meant a lot to me – all in communities that I feel apart of, or in the case of St. John’s fond of. But it is different now. This is my second book and I want the launch to be quieter. Why? Because with The Crooked Knife I was riding that wonder-filled intoxicating debut author roller-coaster. For Little Birds it is more like I’m on a bay mare, one that can canter if I need her to, but is also willing to maintain an even and steady trot. She and I both know the terrain and I have shed my most wild and delusional romantic thoughts about being an author (as compared to being a writer which I know quite well). Instead of feeling like a blazing star, I feel like a competent horsewoman. I know that a lot of the joy I got out of the last book was in the side paths – being asked to many book clubs for instance – an experience that was deeply joyful. I envision making slow but steady inroads by attending events with a box of my books in the back seat. I might go on several road trips this summer just to visit bookstores and see what’s what. Little bookstores like the one in Green Bay, which isn’t a bookstore but a craft store maybe, but has lots of local books. I just found a site online that lists every single independent bookstore in Nova Scotia. I think 47 of them. What fun.

Wednesday . . .

I woke up to snow - so pretty. It isn’t its fault that it is in April - it still wants to have its beauty acknowledged.

It is just past twelve-thirty in the afternoon and the kind delivery guy just now brought me my book proofs (in the old days I suppose they’d be called galleys). I’m sitting here with my book in hand seeing how it looks in real life instead of on a screen and I’m so happy. I’ve checked out a few things and so far all good but I want to go over all of it just in case. When you get this on Friday I will be posting to all my social media and mailing lists and Christmas card lists (nope – haven’t any) that it is ready to be ordered. There is nothing like this feeling – it is better than any drugs – almost as good as loving and being loved back, but not quite – a hair short of that. I wanted to hug the delivery guy, but that would be a bad idea I suppose.

I know that in a little while the feelings of being frustrated with the publishing biz will come back in. I’ll feel badly about having to print with the enemy. I’ll remember that while the world falters and burns, this accomplishment will taste like ashes in my mouth. And yet. And yet I will grab this fabulous fiesta of feelings and fly with them. Because both things can live in the mansion of my mind. They can even eat at the same table. Age means that at least. It means that I know all emotions have a beginning, middle, and end. That joy is no more fleeting than sorrow except for the bending of time that happens when feelings run high.

And I will remember that the rage and disappointment with the powerful and wicked is what fueled both of my novels. The Crooked Knife began with the first reign of the marmalade perp, the war criminal, the hateful being who invited weaklings to taste power and be unable to find their morality ever again like the goblins in the poem The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti. The Crooked Knife is about what happens when the powerful want what is not theirs, describing the destruction of Muskrat Falls (which I call Otter Falls in the book) so greedy politicians and corporate leaders could build a power plant. This ‘resource curse’ as Rachael Maddow calls it is at the centre of so much destruction around the world. In my new book, Little Birds, I look at what happens when that greed and power imbalance turns its evil eye on beauty – on young vulnerable women.

Thursday . . .

(you may want to skip this if the biz of publishing bores you)

I started my first forays into promoting my new book. I’m reminded over and over again that I can do this my way. When I write I occasionally (often) fall into a state of mind that insists I must write the way some other writers do – perhaps I need to do an outline or map the plot in a certain way. I might try for awhile but there is a persistent force inside of me that will not let me continue. I have to write by stumbling in the dark with my little idea like a small torch just lighting the path in front of me and not allowing me to see beyond that. I do not know what my characters will do until they do it. I do not believe this is magic, it is very much like anything else I try and create – from dinner to my children to a painting or a poem – it simply has to unfold in its own way.

Getting this book out has been a constant struggle with systems that are in chaos but in which there is a held belief that it is the right way to go. I would have liked for the press that published The Crooked Knife to have taken Little Birds on. It would have been easier. I still would’ve had to do the publicity myself as they only do a minimum of that. But they wouldn’t take it and in fact seem to be publishing less and less fiction. A debut novel in Canada comes with some help from the Canada Council in the form of funding for the publisher. A second one does not. I obtained with much struggle the rights to The Crooked Knife, knowing that if I didn’t have those I wouldn’t have a chance to find another publisher as they are considered a series (although they stand alone). It didn’t take me too long to realize that any obstacle is cause for publishers to not even consider your book. I don’t blame them for this – it is a business that is under tremendous pressure right now. With some pushing from a friend who runs a small press that only publishes non-fiction I decided that I would self-publish. My plan at that point was to obtain distribution from a local publisher who will, I understand, take on independent publishers like myself. I would have still had to use Amazon as about 80% of sales are made on that site, but I could have used a Canadian printer as well. But the local publisher would not answer my emails or calls and I wasn’t willing to pay to have 400 copies delivered to my house. I might still do that later on if I think it is worth the bother. Without a distributor I will be ordering copies of my book from Amazon and paying a small amount for shipping and schlepping them around the province to those bookstores who will take self-published books. Many won’t. Again I don’t blame them. Anyone can take any random pile of pages and get them published by Amazon. I get that bookstores aren’t in a position to vet every book that crosses their path. I’m hoping that since I got one book traditionally published they will consider the second – especially as I hired the same editor and have a designer who is well-known in publishing circles in these parts.

Next up to consider is publicity. I was a publicist at one time in my life but man oh man has that job changed. I’m good with sending out press releases and event planning but I’m lukewarm on getting traction with social media. I think it is because I just don’t believe it works. I believe you get the message out but I’m suspicious about the outcome.

I don’t buy books that people promote on Facebook unless I already know that I like the author’s work – I’m more likely to trust Substack because I get a true sense of how the author writes.

And so I will remind myself to be patient with my own process. I will remember that I sold a goodly number of books on my first foray by holding launches and readings, by being more than willing to attend book clubs either in person or virtually and that I am prepared for a summer of visiting the 46 independent bookstores in Nova Scotia hoping for some consideration.

Between that, gardening, and fighting against the machine I won’t have time to miss the fella as he will be off to Labrador – lucky man!

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