Finishing the Hat w/ Dale L. Roberts

Last autumn, I felt that only engaging with fellow

Substack Writers

in the comments section wasn’t enough, which is why I started an interview series called Finishing the Hat.

For the first five episodes of Finishing the Hat (2023), I chatted about YA literature & art of fiction with

Meg Oolders

; satire and subversive innovation with

Amran Gowani

; utopian literature & the end of traditional publishing with

Elle Griffin

; capitalism & the soul of art with

Sam Kahn

; and

Brendan Graham Dempsey

, with whom I played in a funk band in Burlington, VT (sweet, sweet memories of Nectars) and who’s taught me a whole lot about my favorite “ism,” metamodernism.¹

Finishing the Hat, Season 2

As many of you know, a few months ago I successfully published my second novel, The Requisitions, a historical metafiction set Nazi-occupied Poland, via me and my wife

Augusta Sagnelli

’s Paris-based imprint, Kingdom Anywhere.²

The limited edition of 300 copies sold out quite quickly (largely thanks to my

Substack

community), which is why later this month I’ll be going on a miniature book tour in Provincetown, MA (East End Books) before heading to my hometowns of Durham and Chapel Hill, NC (Flyleaf Books) and rounding out the year with readings in Paris, London, and an attempt to break into the international markets at the 2024 Frankfurt Book Festival.

connection > capital

It took me a long time to develop the confidence and conviction to buy back the rights to my debut novel, Slim and The Beast, and to finally decide to publish The Requisitions independently this year, and it’s only because of writers humans like the aforementioned Substack writers that continue to have hope, motivation, and energy to subvert the traditional publishing industry.

Note: The above video shows our laughing faces, but it doesn’t include the episode’s edited audio or the piano song I recorded at the lovely French country home of

Feasts and Fables

.

Dale, the first guest of Season 2 of Finishing the Hat, is no exception

I spent quite a few hours researching the nuts & bolts of indie publishing before I came across Dale of

Self-Publishing with Dale

, who was one of the very few people I discovered on the Internet who was authentic, honest, and transparent about how he had subverted the trad pub industry (Dale’s YouTube channel is a fantastic resource for anyone researching indie publishing).

Modesty and generosity are hard to come by in this era wherein cults of personality and celebrity capital dominate most definitions of success.

Indeed, when it comes to many “self-publishing gurus” online, most end up hoarding the very information they promise to offer, placing their supposed-wisdom behind a paywall, demanding followers without any guarantee of leading them anywhere (once upon a time, collecting followers was reserved for cult leaders).

This is why it was so refreshing to discover

Dale L. Roberts

’ videos, and why I decided to send him this email in hopes of having a conversation:

Dale’s willingness to have a chat—and particularly the following quote from our conversation—pretty much sums up why I believe Dale is in it for the right reasons:

“I wish I could say traditional publishing companies have blown up my inbox but no, they haven’t, and I think it’s because I’m very public about the fact that I like self-publishing. They need to come to me with a sweetheart deal, and that sweetheart deal would include control that they probably don’t want to sacrifice. Control is so important. If I can maintain control, I am willing to sacrifice earnings. But that’s just my personal philosophy. ”

Here’s to a new season of Finishing the Hat, to cultivating community in all the myriad ways that help us grow, and to supporting the folks who inspire us make us feel alive.

Finishing the Hat shall remain free because my conversation with

Dale L. Roberts

was a refreshing reminder of how you can’t put a price on connection.

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