Writing About Publishing

In addition to dashing the hopes and
dreams of aspiring young authors and
authoresses, this is what I'd be doing
if I worked for a publishing company.

This Is Seriously Ironic.

It has taken more time, energy and effort for me to publish my novel than it did for me to write it. And that is just sad, considering the fact that my novel is five hundred ninety-four pages and one hundred eighty-seven thousand words long. 

From start to finish, Mermaids in the Fish-Tank took fourteen months to compile. I wrote most of my first draft in the course of a single month--November 2008, to be exact. For those of you who have never heard of it, November is National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org), and it is a great way to get your creativity kick-started if you want to do some writing. The goal of it is to make you completely let go of your inhibitions and write whatever comes into your head until you reach the 50,000-word mark on the 30th of the month. Every week a new encouraging video is posted on the site, most of them featuring caffeine overdoses and viking hats, and even throughout October and December the participants receive hilarious e-mails about how to plan your writing and where to go with it.

I wish the publishing world were as friendly as NaNoWriMo.

Don't listen to a word I say, because I have never actually contacted a publishing agent (I could never afford to hire one), but I've heard comments from publishing agents that were pretty discouraging. Basically the gist of them is this: 

'No one will ever want to read anything you've written, so don't even try. Is your book any good? Probably not, but even if it was, there is at least one on the market that's better, so it's no use trying to compete. The world is full of unread words and paperbacks rotting in warehouses. Do you want to end up like that? I didn't think so. Then back off and stop trying to sell me your insipid manuscript.'

Maybe I was interpreting the seminar a little too strongly, but I can't shake that condescended-upon feeling. Publishing agents scare me. Part of the reason for this is that what they said was so true of me. One woman explained that only in a very limited number of situations is self-publishing a good idea. (My novel has been self-published for over two years.) Because, she explained, nobody knows about it. (A grand total of two people have bought my book at retail price.) And if, she explained, you ever want to sell a previously self-published book to a publisher, the only way they will ever consider buying it is if you somehow managed to acquire a significant readership during the time it was on the market, thus proving that the book would be popular enough in bookstores to earn the publisher some money. (A total of zero people, other than myself, have read my book.) Which means, she explained, that you yourself must have some marketing savvy and be able to draw people to your book using modern means such as The Internet.

This was the point in the seminar at which I began to hate her and every other person even remotely associated with publishing companies, because this was the point at which I realized that no matter how hard I worked, my book would never become popular. I know this because I have been promoting my book on the internet for several months and not a single purchase has resulted from it. And yet, people who write romance novels--even vampire romance novels, for heaven's sake--get published. Why?

I have concluded the publishing world is made up of a snobby bunch of business executives who have never read Paradise Lost or The Odyssey. If the time periods in which those works were written had publishing companies like we do today, our culture would be dead. Books like Mermaids in the Fish-Tank would never be written--and I, for one (probably the only one), would be sad.

Preview and rate Mermaids at https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1097246!

Thanks for reading,

Brooklyn

Fresh Prince to Lost...what happened?

 Television is going through an odd phase lately if you haven't noticed. I remember growing up and watching shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-air, The Cosby show, Full House and Boy Meets World. These shows had very simple formulas. The plot usually consisted of normal or abnormal families going through trials that we all have, albeit somewhat exaggerated. The camera was stationed in one spot where it filmed the entire room which was just a set. On this set the stairs led nowhere, going into another room was just away to exit the scene, and every problem was solved within 30 minutes or less. Simple right? But something changed. Shows about families have been drowned out in a sea of reality shows that place "real" people in "real" situations. Examples of these are Survivor, Big Brother, The Apprentice and so on. You also have shows about finding talent or the next big star and these shows I don’t need to list because surely you know what I am referring to here.

...what happened?

What I would like to focus on though in this Blog is what I like to call "The Lost Phase." For those of you who don’t know, I am not referring to the actual act of being lost, but rather the television show that ended a few years ago. In my opinion that show has changed television and the way shows in general are being executed. Lost was basically about an airplane full of people that crashed onto an island with a dark past and a fair share of mysteries. Throughout the series the characters are being chased by a black smoke monster, traveling through time and space, and running into polar bears. It was complicated, frustrating, but the show was a huge deal and was oddly addicting. This was primarily due to the way the show told the main story and its ensemble of characters and their intertwining pasts. Herein lays the problem. The success of that show has in many respects led many of these TV networks to try to come up with their own Lost, so to speak, especially now that the show is over.

For example shows like V, Person of Interest, Terra Nova, The Event, Awake and Alcatraz (some of which have since been cancelled) have come onto the scene with seemingly simple plots that become overcomplicated because of the creative ideas that are thrown in to hook the viewers. For example, let’s isolate the show The Event. Summed up, the show was about aliens that looked just like humans because of a 1% difference in DNA trying to get back to their home planet. The problem came in when they tried to make it about this big event that was referred to and danced around up until the day the show got cancelled.

This is the problem. These ideas are great for a 2 hour movie. But when you take a plot that works well for a 2 hour movie and try to spread it across 5 seasons it loses all credibility and creativity. These shows wind up getting cancelled leaving those faithful to the show without satisfying answers or closure. It’s sad, really, and frustrating to people like myself who get into the show because of the interesting concept, but get (no pun intended) lost when they start adding all these different twist and turns to keep the show going past its prime. Meanwhile, while these networks attempt to create the next Lost they lose focus on creating good shows like Community, Psych, House, and Parks and Recreation. These shows have great ensembles and wonderful stories, but are being filtered out and forgotten thanks to reality TV and the “Lost Phase”.

"they lost focus on creating good
shows like Community"

 The reason for my bringing up this topic is so that we as viewers don’t allow quality television to get "lost" in a never-ending sea of complicated monotonous crap. When shows like House are ending and Community is
close to being cancelled, we need something creative, something classic, something that reminds us of a time when shows were simple and the problems were solved in 30 minutes or less.

Written by individual contributor

Anthony Savage (a.k.a. Analytical Ant)