June 11, 2019

Lessons Learned When You Publish Your Book (revised)

My new book, The Bonnie and Clyde Files, came out almost two months ago. I learned some new lessons about publishing your own book since it’s release so I thought I would update the list below that appeared in The Gigging Life, published in 2016. This book retails for a mere $10 through my web site and I hope you will consider purchasing direct from me and give it to any gigger in your life, meaning those people who take their passions and products straight to the people. We need to support these people and their creative endeavors and I think this book can help them become better giggers. It might also help them preserve their sanity. Go to Nestucca Spit Press’ website (nestuccaspitpress.com) to purchase.

These are the lessons learned:

Never expect anyone you know will read your book.
Expect those same people to expect the book for free.
Never expect your family members will read your book.
Don’t be surprised that people will want your book to fail.
Never expect anyone who emails and wants the book for free will read it after you ship the book to them.
Never expect someone who buys your book will actually read it.
Expect that the one person you think will love the book will hate the book.
Expect someone to take three sentences out of your book out of context and hate the book because of that.
Occasionally expect that the person who most needs to read your book will read your book.
Never expect the person to whom you dedicate the book to will read the book.
Read the story of how John Steinbeck’s hometown felt about him writing about his hometown.
Never expect anyone from your hometown will ever read a word of what you wrote about your hometown.
Expect that some people living in a city that you wrote a book about will hate the book without ever having read it.
Do not read, under any circumstances, Jack London’s novel Martin Eden, about a struggling writer who suffers hundreds of literary rejections and humiliations, but then miraculously finds gargantuan success, only to have it end in tragedy.
Read, immediately after publication of your book, Jack London’s novel Martin Eden, so you can avoid the protagonist’s terrible fate should your book explode as a commercial success.
Never expect your work colleagues will read your book, even if it’s about their world of work.
If you are a teacher, never expect your students will read your book, even if you give it to them.
Never expect someone you are sleeping with will read your book, even if that person is in the book.
Never expect your book will seduce anyone.
Never expect an audience to find your book. Heed Henry Miller’s advice in Big Sur and The Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch:

The most important thing (for a writer)—how to reach the public, or better, how to create your own public—still remains to be faced. Without a public it’s a suicide. No matter how small, there has to be an audience. I mean, an appreciative, enthusiastic audience, a selective audience.

What few young writers realize, it seems to me, is that they must find—create, invent!—the way to reach their readers. It isn’t enough to write a good book, a beautiful book, or even a better book than most. It isn’t enough to even write an “original” book! You have to gig that book with all your heart in order to gain traction.

Never become bitter when a recently published Oregon book you deem inferior attracts attention and wins awards and your book doesn’t.
Never allow yourself to believe that Portland determines the zeitgeist of literary matters in Oregon. You can especially believe this if you have done a show in Roseburg or Siletz or Drain.
Never expect help from other published writers on the big labels, although it has been known to happen. There are a few big name writers out there who remember their hard scrabble origins who accidentally intersect with self-published authors and want to assist. But the intersection occurs only if the self-published author insinuates himself into the big-time writing game. It never happens on its own.
Never wait around for anything to happen on behalf of your book. It won’t.
Always expect some people will read only the acknowledgments of your book because they hope to read their names.
Always expect the person you most want to read your book will never read your book.
Always expect to encounter someone who thinks you wrote the book about them, even if you wrote it about someone else.
Always expect the person you least want to read your book will read your book and confront you about its contents. This is called the William Maxwell axiom, named for the great, but largely unheralded American novelist. In his memoir, Maxwell relates the story of writing a novel that included a minor character, an illiterate and overbearing African American maid that he based on a real person from his Southern, pre-integration childhood. Decades after the novel’s release, he ran into the maid at a grocery story while visiting his hometown. Turns out she wasn’t illiterate after all and had read the novel. He awkwardly said “hello” and she cut him dead in a way that he never forgot.
Always expect to meet a reader more obsessed with the subject of your latest book than you are.
Never expect any reviews of your book. You might even consider writing your own anonymous ones like Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman did.
Expect at least one Oregon reviewer who recently moved to Oregon, knows nothing of Oregon and has never read your book, will review your Oregon book. She probably works for the Portland Mercury or Willamette Week, has never set foot on an Oregon ocean beach, and uses an umbrella.
Know this: if you don’t write about your book after it comes out, probably no one will else either.
Occasionally expect an author who has had a book published with a major publishing house to disdain you upon learning you self-published your book.
Always expect someone who “Likes” your book on Facebook will never read it, much less buy it.
Start writing another book before the new one comes out.
Expect for someone to refer to you as an “author” so it’s now acceptable to call yourself an “author.” That’s a big step.
Make sure you have a good massage therapist because you’ll need one after loading and unloading your books from the printer.
Never expect any other Oregon author or publisher to give a shit that you printed your book in Oregon with a family-owned printer and they gave you the best service in the world. It’s your job to give a shit because that’s the way you were raised and you will mention this when gigging the book.
Always expect someone will love your book.
Always dragoon people into reviewing your book for social media and web sites.
Always expect someone to understand your book better than you, the author of it, does. That happened to me with the rain book and she knows who she is. We should have ended up together.
Occasionally, expect someone to steal a book from you, and relish that thought.
Expect to the gig the book because no one else will.
Expect an enthusiastic reception about your book from the owners of Oregon independent bookstores, if you have demonstrated the ability to work hard promoting your book.
Never expect anyone to throw you a party to celebrate the release of your book, so always throw one yourself. You may not even need to invite anyone, excepting of course, the dog. At the party, be sure to never read longer than 20 minutes to humans and five for the dog.
Occasionally expect a reader to complain about the size of your font.
Throw a book release party for yourself because no one else will.
Never expect other writers, artists or musicians in your town to read your book, although they will expect you to read their books, buy their art, and see them perform.
Expect multiple people in your town who will never read your book to ask or demand that you read their works in progress.
Always expect someone will hate your book. (I thought I’d mention that again.)
Occasionally expect your book will inspire someone to stalk you.
Expect to reread your book after it comes out and cringe when you encounter terrible writing.
Expect to meet a lot of readers, many of them vulnerable, if you write about your dog dying.
Always expect a jealous writer festering out there who will try to undermine the success of your book and, perhaps, try to sully or ruin your reputation. It’s happened to me several times.
Always expect some tyrannical grammar king or queen will point out errors of usage in your book.
Never expect to break even on your book.
Never expect “to be discovered” by a major or even minor league literary player.
Expect to meet a lot of readers who don’t care who or what corporate entity published your book. They only care about the content of the book.
Expect to meet a lot of entrepreneurs who make things like soap, beer, bread, jewelry, music and films, who will expect you to give your book to them for free, but will not reciprocate.
Learn to barter when trying to sell your book.
Never fear giving the book away to someone who wants to read it, but can’t afford to buy it.
Occasionally expect to feel motivated to give your book away at sheer random moments unrelated to a literary event, like crossing a street in a rainstorm and someone ahead of you is using an umbrella and you have the rain book stashed in the pea coat. I do it all the time.
Never expect anything but existential rewards when your book comes out. Make sure you recognize when they occur because sometimes they sneak up.
Never stop writing because of what does or does not happen when your book comes out.
Expect sometimes to have serious doubts about your talent and agentless, literary initiatives, but always remember this: Charlton Heston was taken seriously as an actor, Jonathan Franzen was on the cover of Time, Charles Bukowski was rejected a million times, Walt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass, and George W. Bush was elected President of the United States exactly one time.