Doing It My Way

The other day I alluded to (!) my frustration with the whole traditional publishing world machinery. Today's system for publishing reminds me a lot of the old Hollywood studio system. Studios would sign an actor, contract for a certain number of pictures, groom the star, promote the star, etc. The lucky actor who scored a studio contract would have as much security as his/her line of work could offer. As for the ones who didn't ... Bottom line: If you weren't signed with a major studio, you didn't have a chance. That's not so different from today's widespread belief that if you're not published by a traditional New York publisher, you similarly "don't have a chance."

Actually, let me amend my earlier statement. Today's system of publishing reminds me of a very watered down version of the old studio system. Gone are the days when publishers contracted with writers who could basically come up with a very good story but didn't have the faintest idea how to write it. Gone are the days when publishers would edit, market and or promote their writers. What remains pure and simple is the iron grip. What remains is an incredible power imbalance.

But of course, that's changing. Just as actors eventually started to take charge of their careers, so too are writers. As just about everyone knows, anyone can see his or her words in print thanks to print-on-demand. What many still don't realize, however, is that the company doing print-on-demand is still another middle man. Just as actors now establish their own production studios in order to finance and produce their own vehicles, writers might consider establishing their own publishing house to publish their own works.

That's what I'm going to do.

If all goes well, the first work to appear will be The Palmer Affair. I've already begun work on a cover for it. The picture of the book cover up top is my first stab at it. What d'ya think? Kind of edgy, huh?

(I put it together using this new program called Book Cover Pro. The program is still very shaky. It was clearly written for Windows and runs on a Mac just the way you'd expect a Windows program to run -- slowly and uneasily. However, I'm grateful that the authors of the program even thought about Mac users -- most Windows programmers don't bother.)

The cover text reads: "It's 1926. Summer in Paris ... and the living is anything but easy."

It's the sequel to Harlem Redux, which only told the story of Lilian McKay, but said nothing of the life her twin, Gem, led in Paris. In the Palmer Affair, David McKay, the twin's older brother who investigated Lilian's death, goes to Paris hoping to heal after the events in New York. What he finds ... well, it'll blow your socks off (not to put too elegant a point to it).

The thing is, I noticed that my urge to write was definitely being dampened by the knowledge that in order to see my work in print I'd have to run the gamut of agents and editors, all of whom often give contradictory advice. After a while, a writer starts feeling like she's trapped in a spider's web. You're stuck. You're making no progress and after a while, you feel like you're dealing with a bunch of dunderheads.

Of course, publishing yourself puts you under a lot of pressure to make sure the darn thing's worth publishing. But that's a fine exchange. You know that it WILL get published and that energizes you -- at least it does me.

The Palmer Affairis mostly done. It just has to satisfy me -- and it doesn't. Not yet. But I will get it done. And I'm going to have fun doing it, knowing that it won't sit in a pile somewhere, gathering dust, maybe to be read and grumbled over and poked and prodded and then grumbled over some more. Yeah!!!!!