Tag: publishing

Heard Back

Well, I heard back from the publishing company who wanted to read my book, and they said that 1. they can’t publish it as quickly as I hoped, so it wouldn’t work anyway…2. that in the future I probably shouldn’t try to rush a publisher (oops… but, of course I was only trying to be fair and tell them I was already planning to self publish and had already sent out press kits announcing it, so if I didn’t hear from them by the 20th, I would need to begin uploading to Amazon. I sent the query to them 5 months ago….but I get it, and knew it was a risk to attempt it) and 3. right now publishing companies almost exclusively only accept memoirs from subject matter experts, celebrities, and popular social media influencers. They did not end up even reading it, so no feedback on the actual book, but I’m proud of myself for getting the callback response from them. It is a sign that I am a good enough writer, with an interesting sounding book to get the attention of a publisher. Most never get this far, so I will take the achievement and move forward with the regularly scheduled programming…

I’m really not too upset that I’m gonna be self publishing again. A lot of people say it’s actually the best option for mildly successful authors who write the kind of books that speak to a certain type of people more than mainstream society. It’s not like a blockbuster film or summer reading…That kind of stuff does well with a publisher but indy type authors can get totally taken advantage of by publishing companies sometimes, and while I know the place I heard from was a legit small company, I don’t have a clue what going with them would look like, or if it would even be something I could make work. I already know how to self publish even though I’m planning to use my own ISBN’s this time and have to figure all that out, but I’m in control and I mostly know what I’m doing and what to expect, so it’s a lot less anxiety right now to just self publish anyway, and I can release when I said and not be like Kanye.

I’ve been doing a lot of editing, and tonight I made a video of myself reading a chapter from my book, about my first time in the psych ward, and I will post that in a couple days. One day at a time, one thing at a time, I am getting there.

Here’s a picture I took of my street art. It’s hot as fuck out there.

New & Improved Book Cover, Queries, Soap, Medicine, Clouds & “The Most Valuable Poet On the M-I-C”

I’ve had a busy day today. I woke up at my parents’ house, showered, packed, ate a bagel, and drove an hour drive home. The drive wasn’t bad at all. Now that I take an exit to avoid part of the highway that I don’t like, and I know the exit numbers have changed, at 3PM on a Spring day there’s no traffic or blinding sun, and there was no rain like I’d anticipated. It was just a beautiful Spring drive.

When I got home, I comforted my cat right away. She’s an anxious cat who needs to constantly be comforted and she has a hard time when I leave her but I was only away from her for one full day. Still, she’s howling like crazy in the other room as I write, but I’ve given her some food and attention… maybe not enough…

I got some popcorn teriyaki chicken for dinner, talked to my mental health worker and my boyfriend, and I re-did the cover for my upcoming memoir while waiting for my weed. I’d made one yesterday, but I felt like I could do better. I definitely think I improved it a little bit, even though it’s the same basic idea.

I liked this idea of a claw machine representing a very flawed and rigged system, pulling my androgynous baby picture out of a pile of photos of me from various stages of my life. They are the same photos I used in the one I made yesterday, but I added the 8th grade, big hair photo, since 8th grade is an important part of the book and it’s probably the furthest from my true self that I ever was. I also changed some of the details of the person I drew, who is supposed to represent a young soldier.

As soon as I finished, my medicine came…

This is one of my favorite strains. LA Confidential. It’s recommended by Snoop. You can read about it here…

https://www.allbud.com/marijuana-strains/indica-dominant-hybrid/la-confidential

I saw that my soap came from my favorite soap shop on Etsy. This was one of them. Gorgeous!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WickedSoftOrganics?ref=profile_header

I took out the trash and took a couple photos of the clouds…

I’ve been listening to music, took a bath with my new soap, smoked a little bit of my new weed, and I sent out a few more queries. I got another encouraging rejection today, and this one included a link to a web site kind of like the other two I’ve been looking for people through, but this one has a bunch more people I haven’t tried yet, so I researched four of them who were looking for memoirs and sent them each what they wanted, which were all different. It was hard work as usual, but maybe it’ll pay off. I feel like maybe I’m giving up too early. Now that I’m editing again and fixing a lot and am halfway through, I feel like it’s worth trying some new people. If I was close with a few like they’ve said, maybe this extra edit will be enough. I thought I was out of people, and I haven’t heard back from them all yet, but I don’t know what to expect. I only know what happened last time. This book is stronger in most ways. I do believe in it. Even if I self publish, I think this one might get read more and a little more buzz. I can only hope it reaches the people I’m meant to help with it.

I listened to Big L in my car on the way home. He was a brilliant artist. Some of his lyrics are potentially offensive if they didn’t make for such beautiful poetry.

And that is that.