The Zoo*: Week Sixteen
Today is the sixteenth in a series of posts by San-Diego-based writer Thomas Shess who has decided to keep a journal on his journey to find a publisher for his novel.
A to Zombie . Last week in my continuing search to land a literary agent or publisher for my first novel, I discussed web publishing. Reader Dennis Nishi followed with a suggestion that we all take look at how web author David Wellington’s has published his third novel Monster Planet on the Internet.
After clicking Wellington’s site we lucked out and arrived in the middle of a party. He just announced that his first work, Monster Island will be released in April of 2006 by Thunder’s Mouth Press. “I’m extremely excited and I have all of you to thank for it, all of you who legitimized my silly zombie stories by actually reading them,” he says.
Wellington has serialized his novels in weekly chapter installments and interacts via email with his readership. He also has posted via PayPal a donation request. If you like Zombies then welcome to heaven.
Speaking of reader interaction. If e-mailing was available in Hemingway’s day, imagine what we could have asked: “Ernie, how did you really feel when your wife, Hadley lost your mss. of Sun Also Rises on the train last week?”
Something about a real book. Richard Louv’s penning in the San Diego Union-Tribune pointed out that he downloaded “…Huckleberry Finn” on his Treo 650 handheld messaging unit and discovered “Digitized info is only as good as the technology that can read it. But anyone, anytime, can pick up a book and run his or her fingers along the spine, open its pages and fall in.” Louv also added that 19th century writers, including Mark Twain, survived the onset of the typewriter and 21st century writers will surely adapt to all the new tech that is tossed their way.
Judgment Day. Today, I meet with Mike Sirota (mikesirota.com), whom I hired to advise me on my newly completed first novel. He’s had the work for two weeks. Mike has a solid reputation for the truth and nothing but the truth. This is a major step and I feel remarkably calm-as I’ve forsaken the customary final cigarette and opted for the black hood instead. More on this next week.
Tip of Week. Ron James has a weekly chef/cuisine talk show on World Talk Radio (and he mentioned that the show preceding him on the air each Wednesday morning is a two-hour presentation on all the things involving the publishing world. The hostess is Antoinette Kuritz and when I logged in they were discussing how the New York Times selects books to be reviewed. Sorry, my AOL connection died (again) just as the interviewee was about to deliver the Holy Grail. Ah, technology. Anyway, Ron James’ show is on at 11 am each Wednesday and Kuritz’ Media Roundtable is on from 9 am to 11 am weekly.
Tech Note: Several of you emailed me last week and I deleted at least four unread messages by a fat finger mistake. My apologies and please resend.
* Because it’s a jungle out there.
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