It's a book!
It's really amazing how much work goes into doing such a thing even when it's a small project. If I only knew I would have so much technology to conquer back when I wrote this story in 1986 I might not have even bothered.
Raise a hand if you're one of those antiquated old-fashioned people who actually used a manual typewriter back in the 1980s. And then there was remembering all the events from the 1970s and trying to get it right.
What followed was the manuscript of my first long short story (I don't think I even knew what a novella was back then!), moving it around from box to box until sometime in the 1990s I decided to scan it. I only had a photocopy as a back up. I think I had to wait until they were scanners.
Then, with the text, I read it and re-wrote it a few times, but put it aside. Many books later, I thought I had learned all there was to learn about publishing, specifically self-publishing where you get to do all the work yourself (Yay?), make a little bit more money than a small press would pay in advance (Yay!), but not much because you don't have an army of editors, publicists and distributors, and begging for agency is off the table.
But I thought I'd learned all the tricks in the book; personal website, migrating content, layout code on my website, domain linking. But there were so many new things to try. I decided to crank up the old Mailchimp and only sent out about 100 press releases. Three replied, so far. I'm told that's a good rate. I don't know anymore.
I have yet to send out stuff other than a few social media spots. A book trailer's on its way, not that I think it leads to sales, but it's fun to do. And I know how to do it.
Then of course, is looking at a multiple series of PDF proof and making correction after correction after correction. And then you find out that the Library of Congress only sends out your control number after you've approved the final interior PDF (It's 2024909132, by the way).
And all the gadgets needed for giving away ebooks? They each have their own specs, but were fun to catch up on. Since this is such a small and fun project, I decided to give away as many copies as possible. I've added links to BookFunnel and Book Sirens for advance reviewers, but I've only gotten a few nibbles. You pay a smaller rate than a GoodReads giveaway ($119? More like a give away my money).
Since those ancient hand-typing days, I've caught up on SEO, hashtags, which I just noticed is impossible to type out using voice-to-text, or it just goes to #.
Voice recorder and voice-to-text. Those are two things I caught up on as well because when I have an idea, I just talk into my phone, which transcribes it, then I send it to my computer with Bluetooth, or some other gadget.
Late insert: getting the commissioned acoustic theme song from Diogo Zavadski, I cranked up Wondershare editing suite, and in two hours, made a book trailer!
And then, of course, getting all the socials I had to get all the links and update my website with the new book. Shoving text, checking links, copy/paste, etc. Oh, and then you have to check the mobile version, otherwise your text and pics get all squished together.
That also made a lot of those banners you see on my blog and website obsolete. My book banner is getting a bit crowded. I mean seven novels, short stories, a play and three audiobooks. You'd think I'd have enough to get a little notice when I put out a new book.
But I know better. Despite all the talk about banning books, I get press releases at work for more than 300 LGBTQ books a year. Despite the problems of censorship, the queue for readership is very crowded. And another goal, or a mandate, I'd say, is to try to steer people away from Jeff Bezos's spaceship fund on Amazon and buy from Bookshop.org and AllStora or even Kobo, or ask for it your independent bookstore. But it's still nice to see one's book rank in the top 20 in a subgenre, for like, a day.
Of course, blanketed underneath all this busying and importanting is the vainglorious quest that hundreds of people hopefully will be even interested in reading your book. This of course, was being contemplated by myself as I was scrolling social medias, and watching dozens of clips of the opening of Madonna's Brazil Celebration concert (I reviewed the SF gig.) "Nothing really matters..."
So every time it's like starting over, making yourself and others believe that it does matter.
Attention spans are minimal. Hopefully if you've read this much, you've figured out a way to get your hands on this book virtually, or in person come June 1 when it officially releases.
Thanks for your time. Oh, and if you're in San Francisco, another thing I had to do of course was arrange a reading.
But I wanted to bring some friends, so on June 24 at Fabulosa Books I'll be with Trebor Healey and Gar McVey-Russell and we're gonna talk about writing stuff from the past and the present and how it's different and what's vital and it's all Pride Month and our collective history is important and all that stuff, so yay, rainbows.
If you're not local, you can buy my book directly (I get a whopping two dollars more):
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