I’m in the final stages of my book, Murder in Ocean Hall. I’ve spent a lot of time at Caribou to get this far. Right now, I’m busy proofing the book. I’m done writing it, have edited a couple times already, and am going through the book once more. I’ve printed all 235 pages and and am closely reading the book to catch any mistakes.
Am I really done with the book? Hmm. I could probably spend the rest of my life tweaking it but eventually you have to send it off into the world. “Real artists ship,” to quote Steve Jobs.
Am I happy with the book? Yes. It’s got a beginning, middle and end, interesting characters, some good info on ocean exploration and urban life in DC, and a couple of plot twists. It might meander at times, a bit.
Is it perfect? No. Nothing is as perfect as it is in your head. By putting your idea to paper, you take it out of the ideal world and put it into the real one. This fear of sullying your own creation is a cause of writer’s block. It causes many people not to write anything because they know it won’t be perfect.
What’s next for my book?
Plan A – The Traditional Route. Look for an agent, try to sell the book to a publisher, and then wait for it to appear in bookstores.
Plan B – The Nontraditional Route. Self-publish it using Lulu or Blurb. Sell it online using one of these print on demand services.
The first path is more prestigious and accepted but the print publishing world is in really bad shape these days. The second road is much easier – I could have a paperback version of the book next week- but it’s more of a DIY project.
Plan C – Each page is a seperate shirt on CafePress. That way people have to interact in order to read the book. Thus, the Joe Flood Social Network is born, all off of your book. You’d be proud.
Brilliant! I have to admit, I had never thought of doing that…
Another idea I heard from a friend of mine was to turn the book into a Second Life machinima movie. Maybe Neil could do that.
let me know if I can help! The list of agents at AIW came out yesterday.
Oh and Susan Land once told me that fiction is never done. Poetry, that can be done, but not fiction.
h.
How about Plan D – you read the text on a Podcast and use the success of the book to leverage a book deal? It worked for Best Laid Plans (by Terry Fallis), a humouros political tale set in Ottawa. The word of mouth was persuasive, I think.