As I mentioned a day or two ago, I\u2019ve finally finished my story about the sniper.\u00a0 Of course, it still needs a spell check and another read through for errors and any \u201cinfelicities\u201d of style that I may find.\u00a0 But for the most part I\u2019ve brought it to a close.<\/p>\n
But now comes the really hard part.\u00a0 Self-publishing versus traditional publishing.\u00a0 And for me it\u2019s especially difficult because the story is unacceptably \u201cright wing\u201d from the point of view of anyone in the traditional publishing industry except for one or two houses like Baen Books who cater to stories from our side of the great political divide.<\/p>\n
I have just begun doing my research on some kind of order of operations to maximize my chances to publish the book so that the largest number of people will hear about it.\u00a0 And my level of knowledge of the whole publishing process is pretty darn close to absolute zero.\u00a0 I\u2019ve only reached out to one guy I know of who writes in the same general universe with me but I think I\u2019ll have to feel my way around by reading and watching content that is meant to educate the public about trad publishing vs. self-publishing and then get a better handle on what writers on the right generally do.<\/p>\n
So far all I\u2019ve read makes the whole process seem incredibly slow and painful and chock full of interactions with gatekeepers and unsympathetic literary agents who will never return any of my correspondence but will dismiss me as a talentless hack.<\/p>\n
But maybe I\u2019m completely mistaken and instead I\u2019ll be embraced by the publishing world as the next Cormac McCarthy and be showered with accolades and surrounded by business agents fighting one another to get me to sign book and movie deals.\u00a0 Within months I\u2019ll be quoted by millions of readers who will flood my website with messages of delight about my brilliant writing and demands that I \u201ctake their crowdfunding money\u201d for my next writing effort.\u00a0 The millions of dollars will pile up in Camera Girl\u2019s sewing closet (she likes cash) and I will become a recluse and start wearing outlandish clothes to reflect my new status as a global phenomenon.\u00a0 I can hear it now.\u00a0 The crowds chanting at DragonCon, \u201cphotog, photog, photog!\u201d<\/p>\n
Okay good.\u00a0 Now I\u2019ve got that out of my system.\u00a0 I\u2019ll go back to finding out whether the \u201chybrid\u201d publishers I\u2019ve read about that cater to right and libertarian authors are legit or really the infamous \u201cvanity press\u201d scam artists that take all your money and ship a few boxes of print-on-demand paperbacks and tell you to, \u201cGo market the damn things yourself!\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, I wanted to try writing a book.\u00a0 Now I\u2019ve done it and I better find out how to get other people to know it exists without spending a million dollars doing it.\u00a0 And that\u2019s another thing.\u00a0 Now that AI can draw covers maybe I can save some money by using it.\u00a0 Of course, I understand that I\u2019ll anger all of the artistic community that does book covers for a living.\u00a0 Hmmm.\u00a0 Maybe I should find out what it costs.\u00a0 There are already so many people mad at me in the world, adding to that number sounds like a bad idea.\u00a0 Well, we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I mentioned a day or two ago, I\u2019ve finally finished my story about the sniper.\u00a0 Of course, it still needs a spell check and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,3366,1289,818,1263,237,4,242],"tags":[68,1290,38,1355,265,4484],"class_list":["post-34400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-life-in-dunwich","category-fiction-by-me","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-my-fiction","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-science-fiction","tag-the-american-archipelago-book-1-the-sniper"],"yoast_head":"\n