A Festivus for the Rest of Us
a holiday miracle; or, an author buys back the rights to his own book
For the past few months, I’ve been experiencing the oh-so-inspiring process of writing a 300-word query letter to literary agents about a 70,000-word novel that started as a 150,000 word novel and has taken me eight years to finish. It’s called The Requisitions. That’s about all I’ll say for now.
The querying is going well, which in query-letter parlance means the sound of crickets for the most part, with the occasional one-line rejection letter … all hail the interminable slush pile! But maybe we writers are too hard on ourselves when it comes to asking twentysomethings with Ivy League pedigrees and impressive LinkedIn accounts to grant us access to the literary gates of yore. Because while I have had some requests for more pages, and was crossing my fingers for one or two holdout indie publishers (I even received one genuinely positive rejection—“very striking and unique prose”), don’t fret, dear reader, this shan’t be an Ebenezer Scrooge-style post about the soulless and soul-dampening nature of query letters.
A Festivus for the rest of us (writers)
I’m a published author, after all, and I have no reason to complain about a system that I have never had to rely on to feel like a real-life human writer.1 Plus, this is Festivus Season, which means regardless of pagan origins, creed, or consumer religions, we should be grateful and thankful today, for something. And, as a faithful Festivus follower (a secular holiday invented by a real-life writer, Dan O’Keefe, in 1966, made famous in Seinfeld), this next paragraph will be devoted to the most Larry David aspect of the Festivus Tradition:
The Airing of Grievances
“I am not sure that the cultural level of the people is subject to a steady rise: in fact, quite unpredictable things happen when the bulk of the population attains what we think of as a high cultural level, i.e. pre-World War II Germany […] We cannot possibly expect, and should not desire, that the great bulk of the populace embark on a mental and spiritual voyage for which very few people are equipped and which even fewer have survived. They have, after all, their indispensable work to do, even as you and I.”
James Baldwin, “Mass Culture and the Creative Artist: Some Personal Notes”
There’s a Scrooge inside all of us, and ignoring his pleas for attention only makes the winter colder. But my interest here is neither to lament why nobody reads novels anymore, nor to bemoan the state of traditional publishing. It’s an old, tired, and boring story: very few people have ever bought books in human history, and fewer people still have actually read them.
So be it. C’est la vie (et la mort), and even the fact that a Google image search of “Baldwin” yields 125 images of B-list celebrities before revealing a photo of the most important “Baldwin” in American history doesn't change the fact that I’ll continue to read and write books for the rest of my life:
Which brings me to the end of the Airing of Festivus grievances, and towards a renewed sense of gratitude for my 12-year journey spent figuring out how to live the writing life without relying on writing to make a living.
Buying Back Christmas
A few weeks ago, I bought back the rights to my debut novel, Slim and The Beast.2 It’s a Festivus Miracle, and for the business minded amongst you, this meant finding my credit card, signing a few documents with my (now former) publisher, Inkshares, and purchasing 271 unsold copies of Slim and The Beast gathering dust in a California warehouse.
The book sold just over 1,300 copies in its six-year lifespan. In total, I made just over $2,500 in sales. And while some of you may think this is a raw deal, in fact I was one of the luckiest ones: back in 2013, Inkshares had developed a revolutionary publishing model that guaranteed authors 50% of sales, which was (and still is) unheard of in traditional publishing … the main rub was that I had to raise $10,000 in pre-orders in three months all by myself, which I did thanks to a lot of conversations, letter writing, and without the use of Twitter or Instagram.
And here’s where the miraculous fact comes in: in less than one year writing on Substack, I have already earned more money as a writer than I did selling 1,300 books over six years. I’m honored to have worked with Inkshares and am grateful for everything they did for me; I’m particularly proud that Slim and The Beast was their first published novel and second published book, preceded only by a children’s book written by a literary idol of mine, a fellow North Carolinian, Daniel Wallace (Big Fish).
Querying the Literary Agents Community
The times they are a changing, and a new era is upon us. And with my next novel all-but ready for publication, in 2023, I will be taking 100% control of the process, from design, to printing to publication and distribution (I’ve left editorial to my former editor from FSG, John Knight, copy edits from friend, the Paris-based poet Carrie Chappell, and multiple last-minute read-throughs to my lovely, wise wife).
Sometime in the near-ish future, I’ll be pitching The Requisitions to all of you via a Substack Query Letter, which is a term I might be coining right now. Given this past year’s experience on Substack, I trust your opinion and interest far more than any nameless literary agent who expects a two-hundred-page novel to be summed up in a single sentence. As for other types of social media, leave them to the megalomaniac billionaires. I’ve never used Twitter, Instagram has become a dumpster fire of advertising, and despite everything I’ve been hearing about this thing called BookTok, I'll be damned if I keep listening to people who tell me the best way to become a “more successful” artist is to focus more on my ego by spending more time on my phone.
The truth is, I’m an unknown thirty-four-year-old writer / musician living in Paris. Until recently, I was a member of a somewhat-successful indie rock band that toured France, played in front of thousands of people, garnered millions of streams, experienced the exploitative nature of a music label, and was never able to make real money on the road, even when we played in front of 5,000 people at Paris’ Zenith Arena (I had to buy my own beer). One day, I’ll write a long essay or story about that chapter of my life, but for now, suffice to say I’m not interested in ceding my creative power to people who would only see me as a potential check.
If you want to know about the nuts and bolts of living the writing life in Paris, you can read any number of essays I’ve written this past year about giving literary walks, running a virtual literary salon, teaching creative writing at the Sorbonne, and finding odd-jobs in the in-between. I am not naïve about literary income, but I have wisened up to the ways in which I can live a fulfilling literary life that keeps me inspired and keeps me writing.
For my next book, I want full control.
I have already worked with two talented editors to make it what it is today, and just this week, I met with a world-renowned book printer in Paris who allows me full control over my next novel’s paper, binding, cover, and design. I will be able to control exactly how the book looks, feels, and reads, and while my imposter syndrome will forever remain, whispering harsh words about the pitfalls of self-publishing independent publishing and waiting for the perfect time; and while the publishing industry will continue to pander to my ego, insisting that real publishing means query letters + a literary agent + a big-time publisher, my experience tells me otherwise, and my heart tells me to build a connection with my Substack readers, and the history of Paris tells me that a bookseller named Sylvia Beach published James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922, and Ernest Hemingway printed 300-copies of Three Stories & Ten Poems in 1923, and Emily Dickinson was never discovered during her lifetime, and I am far less talented than those geniuses, which means if I’m writing and publishing books to sate my ego, I’m in it for all of the wrong reasons.
If this past year writing on Substack has taught me anything, it’s that it’s time to stop asking publishers, literary agents, and all of the gatekeepers of old if we’re cool enough or good enough to be worthy of their attention. I’m damn grateful to each of you for being a part of these first ten months on Substack, and I can’t wait to be able to start giving back physical proof of my work, which starts with owning the rights to Slim and The Beast, and will continue with me printing a new book called The Requisitions in 2023 for my readers, the only people that have ever mattered to me.
Happy Festivus Folks. For the next twelve days, I’m running a special annual subscription for those interested in a signed, physical copy of Slim and The Beast. Anyone auto-renewing their 2022 subscription will also be receiving a signed copy when they do, as will all of the patrons who have kept me inspired this year.
Slim and The Beast : A Novel (2015) Summary:
Sergeant Chandler Dykes is obsessed with two misfits: Slim, a former cadet with a brutal neck scar, and his best friend, The Beast, a college basketball star with a proclivity for cooking. When Slim and The Beast take shelter from a hurricane in a country bar, they learn that Sgt. Dykes has been haunting the place, raving about opossums, bathtub whiskey, and his estranged cadet, Slim.
As the bartender swaps tales with Slim and The Beast in hopes of understanding Dykes’ obsession, the two young men are forced to confront their own troubled pasts. With dexterous prose and unflinching humor, wrapped in the rich dialect of the South, the conversations at Lockart’s traverse art, love, sex, and philosophy, warily observing the savage storm and the ghosts it seems to be dredging up. A remarkable first novel that recalls the liveliness of Wells Tower and packs the punch of Denis Johnson, Slim and The Beast lays out what’s at stake in a friendship, recalling the decisions we make on the edge of adulthood that define the person we become.
This is so awesome and inspiring! Congratulations and best wishes for a successful 2023!
I think your blazing the right trail, man. Can’t wait to read OBM!