Royalties, Publishing, Rejection ... Oh my! ...

So, if you know me in my real life, even on the most remotest of levels, you'll know at least two, possibly three things about me.
1. I'm absolutely and almost naively upbeat and positive. Often to a fault. Pollyanna? No. But close. This is my default setting. I prefer to see the good in people and events rather than focusing on the negative aspects and I do work overtime to reject cynicism. Some folks I know take this and somehow equate it to be ignorance, or short-sightedness or whatever. But the longer you know me, you know this isn't even close to being true. I usually encounter this with newer friends.

2. I have a very hard time speaking ill of someone and it pains me greatly when I have to. I'm not big on gossip, but I think what some might not understand as 'Fact Finding' or 'Raw Intelligence Gathering,' isn't necessarily gossip. I'm a writer who deals heavily in behavior, internal drive, emotional discovery, and predictability. This is what I study for the sake of the story. If I'm asking you questions ... you can pretty much guess that I'm compiling data and hard at work. If I'm weaving a story for you, a complex one ... like this blog post ... same thing. I'm waiting for your reaction and studying that. That's what I do.
3. I will 'Dad' you if I have to. I have a parental streak in me that seems to grow up out of my own amount of life-experience, wisdom, hard-living, or whatever you wish to call it. I spent most of my youth around adults, not kids, so it shaped how I react forever. If I have to parent you, I will. If you do something that will require you to get a 'Stay in your lane' card or 'Do you think that's going to fly around me?' lecture ... yes, I won't hesitate. I have a good filter, but not in the way you might think.
I'm front loading this because often times people read my posts but don't have proper context on either me, or my background. Keep this in mind as you read along.


So, to the point ...


I was reeling pretty hard over the last week and a half after getting a pretty firm rejection from my publisher. It felt like a death blow of sorts because I had actually believed in them more than they had actually believed in me. They might not agree with that statement, but that's their pill they need to swallow, I've got the pink slips to prove it. The rejections made a 3 - 0 track record for me and it was for TWO books that I had spent a lot of time on and they both meant a lot to me. One I had spent twelve years on. The other five years. Yes, you read that correctly. With both books, I put them through their paces with my early readers, but I'll come back to that.

When you work alone, and what you produce comes from inside of you, the rejection of that material wholesale has the potential to destroy you. This goes beyond the realm of  'having thick skin' or being able to withstand rejections and negative reviews. I've done that, and done it well. This is a little different because this is a rejection from an established and well-grounded relationship. This is like receiving divorce papers at the end of a honeymoon. This is what I have to offer here that is potentially different.

Both of the books I recently submitted were not perfect, nor do I have the arrogance to think I can get them to perfection on my own without some level of professional questioning. I think a lot of writer's make this mistake and they end up spending years toiling over the wrong details in vain, only to get to the same point. They get rejected because they failed to tell a convincing or original story. Also, they get rejected more often because they failed to tell an interesting story. Imagine that. 

Yes, you should be sending in polished manuscripts that are a positive reflection of who you are as a writer and a storyteller. They need to be strong and stand out from the pack. If you're sending in unedited trash to your publisher and you're getting rejected, that's on you. Don't take what I say out of context, please. Keep it ballpark.

When I sent in Greyhound , I thought it was perfect. They loved it, accepted it, wrote me an awesome contract and sent it to their editors. Then they sent it back. I had approximately 11,000 suggestions in my track changes. Fugue State was well above 23,000 changes. Consider that, if you will. Perfection with a manuscript is an illusion. You're entitled to be taken in by it, but my experience leads me to choose otherwise now. There is a reason they hire Editors, just don't take them for fools.

Both new manuscripts though, I felt were groundbreaking in their own way, worthy of being on a Bestseller list and absolutely the kind of books that wouldn't be able to avoid lots of press. No one has written about, at all, what those two books contain. My early readers were floored and several left gobsmacked. I wrote those books with all those things in mind and knowing that they would grow to be attention whores as intellectual material in their own right. As a writer, we normally call this: "Oh my God! I've just thought of the greatest idea EVER!" We all do this in this craft and it's what keeps us going. Inspiration and distinct moments of epiphany.


Trend and Taste.
Now, having read as much as the next person, I've picked up my fair share of books that I couldn't finish or had wondered how they came about to see print, or even how they received the acclaim lauded on them. But this happens. Taste is everything. Ira Glass over on NPR talks a lot about this. Check him out if you haven't heard it yet. Taste shapes a lot of what the media puts before us.

The other big driver is Trend. Trend gives us most of what we read, whether we like it or not, read it or not, or have any interest in it at all. It explains why some genres take over and are ubiquitous for a handful of years and then vanish, later only to be replaced by the next thing which is equally curious. From Vampire Romance and Prison Breaks to Wizarding Schools, the Southern female family drama, and fried-green-whatevers. I think readers are used to seeing this sort of thing take over best-seller top ten lists as much as we get used to over-the-top blockbuster summer movies all looking workshopped through the brain of Michael Bay. Got it. Oh, another court-room thriller involving the church? Immediate best seller. Got it.

My goals now, late in my life, and in the writing game, have changed. Before, I just wanted to write and tell my stories and how they pertained to me. I was thankful to do that and my book Greyhound , seven years on still sells a ridiculous number of copies every month and is very well-received. These days, I feel that when you write a book and tell a story ... when the reader puts down the book for the last time, you better have changed them forever -- as well as having changed the world forever, too. You don't want that reader walking away the same. Remember what I said many years ago about a good book being axe for the frozen sea within us? Yeah. Still true. Now, it should do more than wake you up. It should change you. And I mean it.

Question: Did you feel the same way about the world after reading Silence of The Lambs ?

Answer: No. It changed you. Admit it.

Why? Because that hadn't been done before. It wasn't the trend. It wasn't what was popular at the time. Even when Thomas Harris wrote  Red Dragon , people freaked out over it and it was the precursor to Silence. The story fixated on the Chesapeake Ripper, not Hannibal the Cannibal. That wasn't drawn out until the next book. People's tastes were forever altered by those books.

Breaking the World.

Imagine the conversations being had over at Putnam (Harris's Publisher) when they were consternating over publishing that material. I can assure you they weren't jumping for joy or 100% sure of themselves about it either. They were absolutely conflicted. Just the ethical questions in that material alone would've made most publishers say NOPE to that. It happens a lot. However, someone had the wherewithal to see it for what it was. A game changer. Whether that was his agent, who bombarded them with phone calls and letters, or an Editor on staff, or the author himself. Someone had to really *sell that baby*. His Publisher was very worried when both Red Dragon and Silence came out. You can't deny that. Both of those books ... were world-breakers.

"This guy has written about this socialite Doctor, who has a wealthy and successful practice in upscale Baltimore. He runs at the highest levels of life ... and he's a serial killer who is eating his victims. He prey's on the rude, rich and powerful."

As blasé as that may sound today and kind of "Yeah, maybe I'll read that" right now, back then, the trend was Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and V.C. Andrews. Is it all coming full circle for you now?Remembering with a gasp? Yeah. That kind of material wasn't being published back then. It was too raw and too true to nature.  Ann Rule and Patricia Cornwell continued what Harris was reaching for in the nineties and capitalized on it greatly and did it with great effort, skill and success. And everyone ate it up. I remember buying Red Dragon at a military BX in the early 80s and after I read it, I wasn't the same. That book definitely changed the way I saw fiction.
Point: You can't help but think of Dr. Lecter anytime someone mentions Cannibalism now. Harris changed you and the world in a burst of literary genius. See my point?

Point again: You can't help but think of Westley from  The Princess Bride  every time you hear anyone say: "As you wish." Maybe you even think of William Goldman as you prefer the book over the movie. Can you?

Point again: I receive many texts and emails whenever my readers see a Greyhound bus pass them on the road or they see folks loading up. They can't help but think of me and my book, and they can't help but let me know.

In my own small way, I did something that broke the world permanently. You may think that might only be important to me and that not many people have read  Greyhound , but in assuming that, you'd be wrong. 

Greyhound was published 7 years ago. Last month I sold almost 10,000 copies. Rounded up a smidge for the sake of a whole number. I'm not joking.

What kind of emotional response do you have now? Do you think as an author I'm marketable? Do you think I'm wide-read enough? What say you?

There's four really good questions for you to think on. Remember, you're reading my blog, so some of this is directly about my journey, some of this includes others. Also, remember what I said about what I'm up to when I'm asking questions.


A battle of wits? To the death? I accept!




So, going back to Amazon Publishing, whom I was with since their very beginning in 2009. If you google APub and my name, you'll see a press release which includes myself and a few other really talented authors. We all took a chance with them and for the most part, it worked out. Life happened. Sales happened. Tastes happened. Trends happened. People left APub and others came on board.

When they told me no, it really felt like being thrown off a moving bus, out the side door and rolling directly under the wheels. Sounds drastic? Not really. I think it's accurate because you want people to judge you on your work, especially in these creative endeavors, and based on merit. Sustainability? Sure. Trends? Sure. Taste? Sure.

Did you sell a lot of books? Yes. Do you have an ocean of positive and authentic reviews from the community? Yes.
Did you receive critical acclaim and attention as a writer? Yes.
Was your work independently championed by the Industry, all by itself? Yes.
Did you sell a lot of books? Yes.

What you don't want is to feel arbitrarily dismissed, or cast asunder because your publisher has some scheming new plan they're slowly rolling out over the last three years that they think no one notices, but is more than obvious if you, as Rachael Maddow says every night: "Watch This Space!" And yes, we authors/readers absolutely do watch that space. That is our job.

No publisher, mine included can reject three manuscripts in a row and then ever say that they believed in what you were doing as an author or, that they were willing to grow your talent and continue to give you space. Publishers cultivate talent and nurture it. That's the game. When it becomes about something else, something unseen and arbitrary, then yes, it is time to move on. And you must move on. Like Glass said, you have to keep working, keep writing and don't get bogged down in the rejection which can feel like 'The Pit of Despair' where you're attached to Count Rugen's machine which is sucking away years of your life in short order. You have to leave and never look back.
When you're fighting these battles to prove your worth, you often don't know if it's like a scene from The Princess Bride. Are you Vizzini, or the man in Black? You may even be Buttercup, just hostage to the whole situation. That's a likely scenario, too. It's definitely a battle of wits and no one can take much joy from it because, in real life, it's unlikely you'll either die laughing or survive after a belly-full of self-ingested poison. True, you don't want to be married to a wart-hog faced buffoon, either, but there's always another door ready to open -- if you're strong enough to go through it. And you should if you can see that door with any amount of clarity.

I've done my job, I'm proud of the job I have done, but please don't ever allude to me that I haven't because I won't take kindly to it. I also don't care for oblique statements that 'could or could not' apply to me, but indirectly were meant to. Most people call that shade. And don't ever infer to me that I'm not marketable. That's insulting. Like I said, I have a really good filter ... just not in the way you might be thinking. That filter benefits 'Westley' just in case you were wondering.

I'm also not alone in my current struggle, but it's not my place to tell other people's story. That's theirs. I have no fear of anyone taking umbrage with my statements or even calling me out on them. I can just post my numbers and be done with it. As a parent, I know the worst thing you can do is to ignore unchecked behavior that isn't productive. Often times kids don't realize that the things they do aren't good for them. Sometimes it's the same with fledgling businesses, too. But hey, insert Kermit drinking tea right here, that's none of my business.