Getting Published: “Out of Place, Out of Time: An Odd Collection of Short Stories”
Right now I’m holding in my hands something that could be called the first actual book of fiction with my name on the cover. This is not a bad way to start a new year.
Those of you who follow me on social media may already be sick and tired of me talking about this book, but one more unto the breach and all that. In any case, this project made me happy for several reasons. Not only because of the obvious, getting stuff out on a Kindle e-book and on honest to god good old dead trees, but because this was such a nice community effort where a lot of people pitched in.
As so many good things in my creative antics in the last couple of years, this collection of short stories was born on the Whitechapel forum. For all of that I love the community so much it verges on non-platonic. The main culprit with Out of Place, Out of Time was Steven Ormosi, who put out a call for stories to publish. I got my story written one early morning, when I woke up at 5am to the upstairs baby screaming his lungs out for two hours straight. In this house with paper thin walls and my stress insomnia sleeping wasn’t an option, so art of sorts ensued. In addition to the one story what I did for this project was to consult with internet and online marketing – stuff which I have been rolling in for the last couple of years with the Moon Nazis.
So, dear reader – go forth an purchase:
Paperback – Lulu.com, $10,40
Amazon Kindle e-book – Amazon.com, $5,74
“Hey Janos, that book was published through Lulu and Amazon self-publishing channels, so it’s just a vanity project”, some of you might scoff. What I would respond is “Fuck you clown – why don’t you gather a good collection of stories, edit them, come up with a cover and jump through the publishing hoops then, if anyone can do it.” Being involved in this project was a great demonstration of how amazing tools writers have nowadays at their disposal. And no, I’m not one of those guys who expect self-publishing to kill off publishers, I still thing publishing houses have an important place in the whole chain, they just should realize that themselves. Instead of selling dead trees they should put more effort to being contractable editors, machines for publicity and facilitators of publishing. And, in the end, sort of “stamps of quality”.
Out of Place, Out of Time was a good start for a year, which I hope will really be filled with artistic endeavors. So far all the sings point to awesome.
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Hi Janos–I self-published a novel through iUniverse after spending a million years and dollars trying to find someone to represent/publish it. Marketing sure as hell isn’t one of my strong points. Anyway, it’s entitled “War News from The Ranch”, a satire that indicts the American military-industrial complex and its scrotum hold on the US political apparatus. At least self-publishing gets it out there, i.e. mission accomplished. I agree with you totally–it feels good. In some respect, I feel that if it was scooped right up for the US market and made every best-seller list east of the Pecos, it would be a strong indication that it sucked. By the way, my grandparents on my mother’s side are from Turku and Uusikaupunki. My grandfather was deported from the US after his first attempt at entering the country through less than legal channels, but was successful in 1928 by coming in over one the the Great Lakes by rowboat. I enjoy your blog, which I came across on Kiva.org.