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Small press and freaking out
Feb. 27th, 2014 01:35 pmNext Tuesday, King David and the Spiders from Mars comes out and I have no clue how it will sell. This isn't like Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre where I had no idea what I was doing and just stuck it on Amazon when it was done and only later realized that I should have done some important steps like sending it out to reviewers, writing an introduction, getting blurbs, fucking copy-editing the damn thing.
No. This time I got the blurbs. I even set up readings in the Village with a literary group that does three readings every other Monday night. I sent everything off to reviewers. I sent the important ones out in December (that might only give them 2 months or 3 months) and I sent the rest in January with some more in February.
I haven't gotten any reviews. Ok. That's not accurate. I got reviews. I got my friend Alex to review it and I then I ordered him to take down the review and come back with something that isn't full of Bukowski Wannabe excesses (they are still in there, but at least he is talking about the stories this time) and Chad (who has reviewed every Dybbuk Press book since I found him on Amazon) put a review in a local newspaper. But that's it.
I know I don't have much of a chance of getting the book reviewed in the New York Times, but fucking Publishers Weekly reviewed She Nailed a Stake Through His Head. And Locus and Kirkus review a shitload of books. But that's not happening.
When I published Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre, I was too dumb to even send out review copies. I thought I'd make thousands on the first month alone. I saw myself paying off my rent and telling the temp service to fuck off. Every publication afterwards, I've had the same idle fantasy - more with She Nailed a Stake Through His Head because Publishers Weekly - and it did sell 75 copies in the first month. Which is very short of the 10,000 copies that would let me pay my rent for a year, pay all my bills and actually take some time off from the paper writing and actually get to work on the fiction without it being something I do when I'm not at my day job.
With King David and the Spiders from Mars, there are no fucking reviews. I just sent all those books out to lay fallow in some editor's office before an intern picks them up and gives them to the local Goodwill.
In my dream scenario, the horrible Noah movie (is there any chance that this movie will have any intrinsic value? It's even too self-serious to be a fun camp movie) will lead to a lot of fluff pieces about how "The Bible is Hot Property Again" (just like Shakespeare was in the 90s) and one of those "what the fuck am I doing with my life" writers will notice that beyond Noah and the new shitty Jesus movie that there is this book called King David and the Spiders from Mars.
And then I will sell 10,000 copies and pay all my bills - even start paying the student loan.
Most likely it will just sell a couple of copies, mostly to friends. And I will keep talking about it.
No. This time I got the blurbs. I even set up readings in the Village with a literary group that does three readings every other Monday night. I sent everything off to reviewers. I sent the important ones out in December (that might only give them 2 months or 3 months) and I sent the rest in January with some more in February.
I haven't gotten any reviews. Ok. That's not accurate. I got reviews. I got my friend Alex to review it and I then I ordered him to take down the review and come back with something that isn't full of Bukowski Wannabe excesses (they are still in there, but at least he is talking about the stories this time) and Chad (who has reviewed every Dybbuk Press book since I found him on Amazon) put a review in a local newspaper. But that's it.
I know I don't have much of a chance of getting the book reviewed in the New York Times, but fucking Publishers Weekly reviewed She Nailed a Stake Through His Head. And Locus and Kirkus review a shitload of books. But that's not happening.
When I published Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre, I was too dumb to even send out review copies. I thought I'd make thousands on the first month alone. I saw myself paying off my rent and telling the temp service to fuck off. Every publication afterwards, I've had the same idle fantasy - more with She Nailed a Stake Through His Head because Publishers Weekly - and it did sell 75 copies in the first month. Which is very short of the 10,000 copies that would let me pay my rent for a year, pay all my bills and actually take some time off from the paper writing and actually get to work on the fiction without it being something I do when I'm not at my day job.
With King David and the Spiders from Mars, there are no fucking reviews. I just sent all those books out to lay fallow in some editor's office before an intern picks them up and gives them to the local Goodwill.
In my dream scenario, the horrible Noah movie (is there any chance that this movie will have any intrinsic value? It's even too self-serious to be a fun camp movie) will lead to a lot of fluff pieces about how "The Bible is Hot Property Again" (just like Shakespeare was in the 90s) and one of those "what the fuck am I doing with my life" writers will notice that beyond Noah and the new shitty Jesus movie that there is this book called King David and the Spiders from Mars.
And then I will sell 10,000 copies and pay all my bills - even start paying the student loan.
Most likely it will just sell a couple of copies, mostly to friends. And I will keep talking about it.
