Recalculating...
When the odds of success are virtually nonexistent, and your books don't sell (much), and your work is ignored by the literary establishment, is there any point continuing to write?
Being the 31st edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Recalculating… Recalculating…
I used to have a GPS. A Garmin, I think. Every time I’d deviate from the route it had suggested, it would say, “Recalculating… recalculating.” And then it would provide a new route.
There’s a part of my brain that performs the same function. It kicked into gear this past Monday as I spent much of the day trying to sell some books in the Area 506 Container Village in Saint John NB. I was there at the invitation of the fine folks with Partridge Island Publishing. They have a market there in which they sell and champion local writers from New Brunswick and occasionally other maritime provinces, and they kindly carry several of my books.
I showed up at 11am. My Partridge Island Publishing friends, Amanda and Shannon, welcomed me with a gift bag. It included trail mix, water and sunscreen. Never before have I been so welcomed; I super appreciated it. I shared a table for the day with Sue Nelson Buckley, a charming and (I would learn later) resourceful fellow writer. We chatted about this and that, talked up potential book buyers, and petted the occasional dog that came by. Sue sold several books and I think was having a pretty good day.
Four hours later I hadn’t sold a single book.
Recalculating… recalculating…
Since the publication of my first book in 2017 I’ve attended many fairs and book markets. Never once have I sold zero copies. I’ve always wondered when it would happen to me, and what it would feel like.
I’ve been girding myself. Doing my own constant recalculations. The big question has always been, why am I even doing this? This is a question many authors ask themselves, at least the ones not making the big bucks… which is most of us.
We know why we work actual jobs, ones that make real money. To put food on the table, roofs over our heads, and support our families. I enjoyed my real job. Not always, but usually. On those days it felt a bit too much like actual work I didn’t have to ask myself why I was there: it made sense to be there. One day it made sense to retire and I was able to do so with a decent pension and now I have time to focus on stuff I’ve long been passionate about. Like writing and attempting to sell books.
But thank God I don’t need to support myself or my family with my writing. If I did, we’d all starve.
It is possible to make money writing. J. K. Rowling did it. Stephen King does it. John Scalzi does it. But even successful Canadian writers like Terry Fallis had day jobs. Another successful Canadian writer told me that he made more money giving speeches than selling books.
I may yet make some money writing and selling books, but if I do it’s probably not going to be anytime soon and it’s probably not going to be much. I know this intellectually and I’m starting to know it in my heart, and that is why it doesn’t pain me that much to sit for four hours without selling a single book. There is a little bit of pain, though. I’m only human. The thought of going home and answering the question, “How did the book signing go?” with “Well, I neither signed nor sold a single book” is not up there with the funnest thoughts I’ve ever had.
So why put myself through that?
Recalculating… recalculating…
You hear about rock bands spending several years on the road playing to mostly empty venues or oblivious audiences. Spending years in debt before making it big. This happened to The Police, to Genesis, the Beatles, even. And of course many bands and musicians never get out of debt, never make it big. I feel like I’m in this phase of my writing career. It may be the only phase I’ll ever experience. Franz Kafka never knew success in his lifetime. Neither did Vincent Van Gogh with his paintings, famously only ever selling one painting, (Red Vineyard at Arles… 900 or so were sold later, after his death).
Don’t feel sorry for me, though. Back at my day job I was (arguably) successful. I made enough money to support my family and retire with a good pension. I got promoted a few times, made friends and had fun. How much success is one person entitled to in a single lifetime? I’d almost be embarrassed to make it as a writer. In some ways, I’m comfortable with my current position. I get a kick out of being able to call myself, with some accuracy, “one of Canada’s least acclaimed writers.”
Lack of acclaim doesn’t mean you’re not good, for one thing. Kafka was good. He was not acclaimed, in his lifetime. You know who’s good? D.G. Valdron. He’s not acclaimed… yet. He’s a better writer than me: smarter, more prolific, thematically more interesting, probably requires less editing. Anyway, he’s written one of Canada’s best speculative fiction novels and few outside the spec fiction community know who the hell he is (yet). So I’m in good company.
Valdron can at least console himself with the knowledge that he’s good. Can I? I’m not fishing for praise here. My first novel was at least good enough to be picked up and published by a respected indie press (the same one that published Valdron). People profess to enjoy my memoir. I have some good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and positive (but not starred) reviews on two of the big trade magazines, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus.
But I used to work on the big art and literature shows at CBC Radio: The Arts Tonight, Writers & Company, Q, and so on. We had all the big writers in. After having recorded countless interviews with those authors, I’d always had this quaint dream of being interviewed myself on one of those shows. The host would say, “Remember when you used to tech this show?” and I’d chuckle and say, “Yes, that was a whole other lifetime ago,” and reflect on how far I’d come.
To date I have not written anything that my former colleagues with those shows would consider worthy of attention. Of course, there could be lots of reasons for that which have nothing to do with the quality of the books, such as the genres I’m writing in and the fact that they’re indie books.
One day back in 2017, when I was still working for the CBC, I ran into the host of one of these shows in the Toronto Broadcast Centre. We had worked together many times and were friends, after a fashion.
“I hear you have a book coming out!” she said. I believe she was genuinely excited for me.
“I do!” I told her.
“I’ll have to interview you!” she said.
I was surprised and excited. “Would you?”
Now, I have no idea what the subsequent look on her face actually meant. In my mind, afterwards, I’ve always interpreted it as, “Holy shit, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Not having read my book, not having had any idea whether it would be any good, she was in no position to say such a thing, or get my hopes up. I believe it was actually said in jest, as if to say, wouldn’t it be funny if I wound up interviewing you, of all people, one of my former technicians, ha ha, and then, oh crap, he’s taking my little joke seriously.
I have no idea whether her or her show’s exec producer ever read the book or even ever thought about it again. Nor do I think that because I worked for the CBC I should have been automatically granted an interview on this or any other show. (I checked: ethically, I was not permitted to approach any of them; however, had any of them approached me, I was allowed to accept.)
Anyway, needless to say, that interview never happened.
This is not sour grapes on my part. Okay, perhaps I doth protest too much; it’s obviously a tiny bit of sour grapes. But I try to keep my grapes, sour or otherwise, to a minimum (dogs are allergic to them, and I always seem to have a lot of dogs underfoot). That being said, when it comes right down to it I don’t begrudge this host or any of my former colleagues for not featuring me or my work on their shows; it is just a sober acknowledgement that I’ve yet to hit that particular bar with my work. It remains something to aspire to. And the question of whether my work is actually any good remains impossible to answer, and subjective anyways.
So, my work may or may not be any good and it may or may not lead to somewhere worthwhile.
Is it, then, still worth doing? Or am I just wasting my time? Questions writers the world over ask themselves all the time.
Recalculating… recalculating…
Lots of people create arts and crafts just for themselves. They make music or paint or knit or craft objects to decorate their homes, for themselves alone, for their own pleasure. Books are different, for me. Like many writers, I write to be read. I’m writing them for myself, but I’m also writing them for other people. I’m deliberately trying to make them fun to read. It’s the same with cooking, for me. I like to cook, but only when I’m cooking for other people. I will cook the most elaborate meals for others, but if it’s just me, a peanut butter, jam and banana sandwich will do just fine.
If nobody reads my books there truly is little point doing it. And yet (as I’ve said from the beginning) nobody is obligated to buy, read, or review any of my books. They have to want to do any of that. Which means making them good enough for people to want to do that and then making them aware that the books exist. It is a noble challenge.
So there I am in Saint John’s Area 506 Container Village trying and failing (on this day, at least) to sell my wares. An app on my phone tells me it’s about to rain in eight minutes. I peek out from under our shelter to see dark clouds on the horizon. Should we pack our books away? No! My resourceful fellow author Sue has a large plastic sheet available for this exact circumstance. We successfully cover the entire table with the plastic sheet and our books are safe.
My app is wrong. It takes nine minutes for it to start raining. The wind picks up. Sue and I stay outside to hold the plastic sheet in place. I decide that when it stops raining I’ll cut my losses, pack up and go home. My app tells me precisely when it’s going to stop raining and it pretty much stops at that exact instant, like magic. If only I had an app that could tell me how to sell books.
Before I can pack up, though, several potential customers descend upon us, among them two women and a man accompanied by a dog. A dog is always a good sign (a shop across from us is selling a sweatshirt captioned “dogs, books and coffee” which sums me up perfectly). My Partridge Island Publishing friends point these folks in my direction. In the space of two minutes they purchase three of my books. I am spared my first Zero Sales day.
Recalculate… recalculate…
Recalculation complete.
I know which way to go now.
Onwards.
Joe Mahoney on Spotify
Years ago (many, many years ago) I did up a bunch of songs on my old Korg M1. I loved that Korg M1, which was one of the first “music workstations.” It had tons of great sounds and you could master songs right to the onboard 8 track sequencer. So, I did. I transferred those songs to cassette, all I had available at the time, and years later digitized them. So, they were never the highest quality. Still, I liked them.
Eventually I gave my Korg M1 to a friend and replaced it with a Roland Fantom 8. I love it as well; it has a full keyboard and weighted keys and tons of flexibility. And I started producing some music with it.
Inspired by a conversation Mark Rayner and I had with SF writer John Scalzi on our podcast Re-Creative recently, who’s also into making music for fun, I decided to make some of this music available on Spotify and elsewhere. I found a service called CD Baby that distributes music to various platforms like Spotify, Amazon, Apple and so on and uploaded twelve tracks. So anybody with access to these services can listen to them now.
I’m not suggesting that this music is on a par with professional musicians; I’m just saying that it’s available and you can listen to it if you want to. You can even add it to your playlists. You are also free to listen, chuckle, and simply shake your head if you like. :-)
Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis
I’m no longer calling these book reviews because they’re not really reviews. A proper review discusses everything about a book: the good and the bad.
I can’t bring myself to criticize someone else’s book publicly. At least, not much. I know how it feels to be on the receiving end so I just can’t do it to anyone else. So rather than post book reviews, I’ll just be posting book recommendations of books that I like.
Speaking of which… I’ve been reading other authors newsletters the better to learn how to “newsletter” and also because some of them are interesting and informative. In one such newsletter, the author reviewed this book, Dreadful, by Caitlin Rozakis. The cover is absolutely gorgeous, as you can see above. And it sounded intriguing, so I bought a physical copy (I still prefer reading physical books).
It’s high concept: a guy wakes up on the stone floor of a medieval laboratory after having been knocked unconscious by what appears to have been an explosion. He remembers very little, including what may have caused the explosion or even who he is. Very quickly he realizes that it’s the workshop of an evil wizard. Shortly after that he realizes that the evil wizard in question is actually him, and not only that but he’s holding a princess hostage in a cell nearby.
It’s a great premise. I enjoyed the book. It’s an easy, fun read and I always looked forward to reading it. The main character, Gav, is very appealing (though he doesn’t think he is). I was rooting for him the entire time. You know he’s going to redeem himself but Rozakis doesn’t make it easy for him, and she successfully keeps the reader guessing.
It’s a very broad book, though. There’s not much depth to the characters who are all essentially archetypes: evil wizards, princesses, heros, goblins. Rozakis does throw these archetypes on their heads a bit; nothing is quite what it seems, and that’s part of the charm of the book.
If you want a fun, breezy read with an engaging protagonist easy to root for, this may be the book for you.
Podcast
Re-Creative: a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it.
This week our podcast features author and critic Michael Antman in a wide-ranging discussion about visual arts and writing.
Michael started out as a poet. After switching to fiction, he's had two novels published by indie presses: Cherry Whip and Everything Solid Has A Shadow. He likes to explore themes of self-knowledge in his work, or, more accurately, "the lack of self-knowledge."
The best surrealism combines common elements of the world with the feelings we have inside our dreams. Surrealism is unexpected but never absurd, Michael says. "It makes tremendous psychological sense at a deep level."
At the age of twelve, visiting the Art Institute of Chicago, Michael first encountered the work of René Magritte. "It blew the top of my head off!" he relates.
Future episodes of Re-Creative will feature Ira Nayman, Blair Young, Bruce Sterling, Tom Bradley, Hugh Spencer, Jenn Thorson, with plenty more guests on the way.
All previous episodes are available online, comprising the first 2 seasons, over 40 conversations with creative people from all walks of life about the art stoking their imaginative fires.
Distribution
Regular readers know that I’ve been exploring book distributors in the last several issues of this newsletter. However, I’ve spent so much time on the essay that starts today’s newsletter off that I have lost the will to explore further distributors today. :-) There are only two or three left to cover; I’ll get back to that next week.
Featured Book
A Time and a Place: A Strange Dimensions Book
“ENTERTAINING, CHAOTIC ADVENTURE.” ~ Publishers Weekly.
An unlikely hero travels to other worlds and times to save a boy who does not want to be saved in this unique and imaginative adventure, by turns comic and tragic:
I beat my wings and the horizon stabilized before me. I glided for a while, trying to get my bearings. My wings? I angled my head to see. Air rushed past me with a whoosh that only now registered on my consciousness. Wings… I had wings! Complete with feathers. Were they mine? I lifted the right one up to see. It was my wing all right, upholstered in white feathers with a smattering of grey. The manoeuvre together with the shock of discovering that I was a bird threw me into a stall, and I plummeted earthward. This was not good.
Coming Soon from Donovan Street Press Inc.
The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner.
Huey and the Wasteland by Matt Watts
A Peculiar Symmetry by Tanah Haney
Appearances
Coming up:
I’ll be doing another signing with Partridge Island Publishing in the Area 506 Container Market in Saint John, NB Friday Sept 27th
Donovan Street Press Inc. will be at a Pitch the Publisher Event Area 506 Container Market Saint John, NB. Saturday Sept 21st 2024
I will also be at three Athena’s Touch Craft Fairs this fall, dates yet to be determined, at the Riverview Lion’s Club in Riverview
Follow Joe Mahoney and Donovan Street Press Inc. on: Goodreads, Bluesky, Threads, Mastadon, Facebook, and Instagram
This has been the thirty-first edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Apple Music classifies your album as “Easy Listening.” Happy to add it to my library…