one more draft…

i sent a hardcover copy of Witness to the amazon.com “search inside!” folks back in April, for them to scan and put into the system, and the listing has now been updated and the text is visible. The first couple chapters, anyway, plus the ‘Surprise Me’ functionality.

so what? well, i dunno, really, but it’s neat to see it up there, anyway.

short version: Witness is back in the Ingram Books In Print database!

long version: no-one at iUniverse made me aware of this. i got tired of waiting and pestered my borders contact and asked him to see if it had been fixed. he checked, it was, and the discount was even correct, amazingly.

after my latest phone call a few days ago, during which i rehashed the entire situation with yet another series of largely sympathetic and understanding first-level customer service representatives, both of whom investigated further while i was on the phone (which i thought was very nice), i was no farther than i was before.

the first rep’s investigations revealed that i had apparently requested changes to my book in May and therefore the turnaround for making the changes and getting the book back to print was 45 days.

but, um…i didn’t make any changes.

backpedalling slightly, as she was only relaying information from a third party who was not directly on the line, the rep said there must have been a ‘hiccup’ which would still yield the 45 day delay.

hm. yeah. which is to say, no. i need to speak to someone else.

i was duly transferred, went through the issues again, stating this time that i needed to know what ‘hiccup’ had happened to my book production. period.

this rep did research, returning to tell me that there was no hiccup and that the system showed everything fine, both at iUniverse and at Lightning Source (the physical printer). she didn’t have an answer as to why the erroneous info had been relayed, but she was firm that there was no such issue.

she also, however, didn’t have an answer as to why it was showing in Ingram as unavailable. she was also fairly firm that she believed i had to resolve this with Ingram directly.

um…

but she said she’d research it and call me back. that was a couple days ago.

so, on a frustrated whim, i just called borders and he checked and there it was. available, proper discount, ready to order.

so, really, i’m thrilled that it’s back to normal and i can start visiting calling bookstores again to see if anyone would be willing to carry it and not fear the embarrassment again. this is a good thing. i’m thankful. i really am.

but…

i mean really, how hard is it to drop me a note?

okay, i’ve been mostly complaining lately, so here’s something different.

near the end of april, i sent a copy of Witness to an online fantasy/sf book review blog who said they’d be interested in giving it a go, but apparently the package never arrived. i got distracted in the intervening time, however, and never followed up*, and i would have missed the chance completely if the blogger hadn’t emailed me yesterday to ask about the book, noting that the book had never arrived.

how cool is that? the blogger contacted me to ask about the book. even cooler, the blogger asked if i wanted to send it along again, as there was still interest reading it; to which i responded something vaguely more intelligent than “well, duh!” before racing out to the post office.

not to put too much into it, but this is just one of those things that feels great to be impacted by, and i am thankful. restores the faith in the human race and all that. (i’m not mentioning the blog/blogger by name as i’m not sure whether there might be some interpretation of obligation for review or whatever and though i tend to overthink such things, i’d rather err on the side of caution. anyway, the blog in question is one of the book review blogs on my sidebar, so share the love and give them all a visit.)

* the vast majority of my mailings (review copies/manuscripts/query letters) are within the US and i use the Priority Mail envelope, plus the delivery confirmation, so i don’t have to pester folks. however, for international mailings, like this blog, the USPS doesn’t do delivery confirmation, so i have to remember to touch base with these folks after a couple weeks.

[this is really just a leftover moan from last week, but for purposes of full disclosure of the *ahem* joys of this unemployed writing life, and to emphasize the recent issues with iUniverse, i am posting it]

it’s depressing to see that the last of these self-promotion posts was made on April 10th, though more depressing that the experience related therein is distinctly different (and far more positive) than the one i’m about to relate. ah, well, these things must happen, right?

ten days ago, i left my job. nine days ago, my wife and i started right into a long-planned long-weekend, including two Dave Matthews Band concerts (NY[Saratoga Springs] and MA[Greatwoods/Tweeter Center/Comcast Village/Whoever-Owns-It-Now]), some long-overdue visits to CT and Boston to visit with some friends, a job interview for me, and a day of hitting as many Boston area bookstores as humanly possible in an attempt to spread my book’s exposure outside of Maine (and since it is set, at least in part, in the Boston area, I thought it might be a nice hook).

Overall, this was a very good thing, and we even managed to squeeze in a day of time at home to catch up on the laundry, the garden, and the mowing(woohoo!). However, that last bit about the bookstores turned out to be the lowest point of the whole deal. from the beginning it fell apart.

• i forgot the directions to the Borders in Burlington.
• at the Burlington Barnes & Noble, i was told that they had no listing anywhere in their databases for the paperback version and that the hardcover was not stocked in the B&N warehouses, in addition to not showing unavailable through Books In Print. i would have to contact their corporate office to figure out the paperback gap, and there was nothing to be done about ordering it until it became available again.
• we continued on my list of potential bookstores toward Medford and a store that seemed to be an excellent fit from its website. except it was boarded up like in some kind of third world country, between the humming local businesses packed all around it.
• after that lovely surprise, we hit a Waldenbooks in a mall in the direction of the concert. of course, as was then to be expected, the manager found the book unavailable in her systems, and could not therefore order it. i knew it was futile, but i was right there and had to try.
• finally fed up, and actually near one of the last public payphones in existence (apparently), i called iUniverse and was determined to get an answer. until 15 seconds into the call when the line went dead because of the massive thunder and lightning storm that suddenly exploded outside.

the moral? well, as the title implies: call ahead first. i know i should’ve expected the ‘unavailability’ at Borders (and therefore Waldenbooks) and B&N (and therefore B. Dalton), but i wanted to believe that iUniverse was working on it and getting the problem solved. as i’ve described elsewhere, however, this was not so (and, for reference, it is still not so).

this isn’t all about iUniverse, though, as i really should’ve called B&N in the first place to see if they follow any specific corporate guidelines to taking local authors (such as requiring all books they sell to be stocked in their own warehouses before putting them on their shelves - i still have to research this one), and i should’ve called the independent bookstores on my self-made tour to make sure a)they were in businesss, and b)they would be willing to carry a copy or two of a fantasy novel from a local, self-published, POD author whose books can’t be returned for credit.

ah, learning experiences. gotta love ‘em.

the days have grown dark in self-publishing land.

starting nearly two weeks ago, my book became unavailable to bookstores trying to order it through the normal Ingram process. this was thankfully brought to my attention by a co-worker who was told by a bookstore attendant that the store was waiting for me to replenish their supplies. now, a primary reason i went with iUniverse to publish my book was their use of the industry standard ordering process, so the book would be available to all businesses, like any other traditionally published book. so, when i discovered that my local Borders, the largest bookstore in the area, was unable to order my book, i assumed it was a simple mis-communication.

not so.

i confirmed immediately with the store inventory manager, who was very patient and explained that Ingram was showing the title as entirely out of stock, zeroes in all the warehouses, so it was impossible for him to order more. he even was kind enough to fax me a copy of the printout from the database, which showed, just as he said, no availability.

i ran into a different, but related issue with my local Waldenbooks back in April, and in that process learned a number of things, particularly:

1. Ingram has four main warehouses to ship all books from, one for each quadrant of the country, roughly. most stores default to their ‘local’ warehouse when searching availability, so an item might be out of stock at that warehouse, but available at another. this was the case, in that Waldenbooks situation, as iUniverse was listing in one warehouse, but not all.
2. iUniverse, as a POD service, doesn’t actually have any books in the Ingram warehouses, but shows a ‘fake’ count of 100 to allow stores to make orders.

with this knowledge, and the faxed document from the Borders inventory manager showing zeroes, i contacted iUniverse. to squeeze the next two weeks together, i’ve made repeated calls and emails to various members of the iUniverse/Authorhouse businesses (recently merged, but still not quite unified, administratively), but have received ZERO tangible response. the first-level contacts at iUniverse have been consistently positive, and validated, each time i call, that my book shows as active in the iUniverse system, and ready to print in the LightningSource system (the company that does the actual printing of the books), as well as showing zeroes in the Ingram database. this mixture of facts has surprised each of them, and they have given me further names/emails to contact. having done this, however, i have not had a single response from any of these further attempts of mine.

aside from the simple, and still amazing, frustration of being ignored, particularly as a contracted client, i’m daily losing opportunities to sell or promote my book in any brick and mortar stores. it’s hard enough getting a bookstore, squeezed as they are with overhead and cuts from the internet* and so on, to take a chance on a local, unproven author of a book that can’t be returned**; try standing in front of a potential bookstore manager, having them be interested, and then have them check the system and find out that there aren’t any available to order. talk about embarrassing.

this has been particularly in evidence with my (lame duck) interactions with the Borders inventory manager, who is actively trying to support me and be helpful, but if he can’t make orders, he can’t stock the book, and he has to tell potential customers he cannot help them.

as a final squirt of lemon on this cut, i’ve also learned that direct orders from iUniverse, even bulk orders, have been given a discount that is less than the discount of my contract. this absolutely boggles my mind. by going direct to the publisher, a bookstore looking to order bulk was being told it had to pay more per book than if it ordered each book individually.

say what?

this is killing me. i’ve recently made some headway with local buzz, but this is cutting the head right off it.

as of this writing, i still have several voice mail and email messages out without a single response. i’ll be trying again today, and pressing my way as far upward as i can get before they cut me off, so i can get an answer, but this has deeply soured my feelings toward iUniverse, which have been largely positive to this point.

wish me luck.

* important note: during this exact same timeframe, my amazon.com availability was also showing ‘Ships in 1-3 weeks’, and i was afraid that this was impacting my online sales, too. however, last week the title was again showing as ‘in stock’, and available for overnight shipping, etc., so amazon seems capable of ordering them for their own warehouses. so what’s the problem?

** though iUniverse has recently added this ability to their titles (making it even more attractive to bookstores to take on the book, since they can send it back for a refund), i can’t bring myself to give over the additional $500 fee, particularly when i can’t even guarantee that the book will be available to stores to order in the first place!

i arrived home this evening to another of my SASE’s. Unlike the previous two responses to my snail mail query letters, however, this one contained a request for a full.

!

seriously! a full. i sent just a query letter and the agent has asked straight for a full.

!

now, i’m trying not to let it all go to my head, but this has been one doozy of a week. all that angst and time spent on the query letter’s most recent incarnation seems to have done the trick. or not. perhaps i’ve just finally narrowed it to the proper agents? some of both? anyway, partials and a full in the same week? crazy.

as i’ve noted before, my blog-scouring and research has shown that partials and fulls are not entirely uncommon, and more often than not result in a no, albeit a more personalized and informative one, apparently. and that’s after the reading delay (usually between 2-3 months).

so, it’s now a matter of keeping my brain in place. i feel very fortunate for these attentions, but i can’t depend on them, or wait for them to bear fruit. i’m expecting to hear tomorrow about a book signing at the local Borders, i’m planning a trip to Boston to hit the bookstores in the metro area, and i have a few more places to send it out for review. there is still much to be done.

most critical, though, i need to dive back into book 2 and run with it. (ah, the joy of mixed metaphors…)

i came home recently, hit the computer, checked the email accounts, and triumphantly told my wife, ‘hey! no rejections, today!’

to which she sadly, and somewhat hesitantly, replied, ‘ah, there’s a couple in the mail there for you.’

dude.

i thought email was fast, but some of those snail mail queries got turned around and sent back so fast i think they told the postman to wait while they opened my envelope, pulled out the SASE, and a) scribbled my name on a mimeographed (seriously, that’s what it looked like; i could practically smell that old familiar tangy odor from the teacher’s lounge) rejection letter, or b) tucked my own query letter back into the SASE along with a business-card sized, pre-printed rejection notice.

but them’s the breaks, really. part of the whole suffer for the art, bit, right? at least that’s what i’m telling myself.

and then, almost like karma, i got a partial request! my first one! i know from my travels on the blogs and forums that partials are just one more step in the process and are dead ends far more often than not, but still! call me pathetic, but i got all giddy.

of course, i jumped right on it, and will be on pins and needles trying not to think about it.

perhaps equally ‘of course’, i received another partial request (woohoo!), which had me bouncing high again (all the more because it was from someone i had not ever expected to respond), until i read the bit about ‘don’t consider simultaneous submissions’, which deflated me in an instant. i was stuck, with the other one already out there. now i’ll be on pins and needles wondering what might have been.

timing is every-bloody-thing, right?

upside? at least another person was interested enough to ask!

not a bad week for query letter productivity. after what felt like a turning point in the query letter revision process last weekend, i sent 19 query letters out, 8 of which were snail mail, and 1 of which was a web form. within 24 hours i’d received 2 ‘thanks, but no’, 1 out of office, and the automated response from the web form. since then, i’ve received 1 additional ‘thanks, but no’. s’okay. it’s the way of things.

realizing the error of my ways by not directly pursuing the book signing at the store that just closed (still not funny), i stopped in at the local borders and re-contacted the inventory manager to get onto the store’s calendar for a signing. i should hear back by the end of this week about setting up a date, so stay tuned!

other than that, i’ve been trying to re-initiate my story-by-day work, though i haven’t been too religious about it (not nothing again today). this begs the question of just how committed i am to making a living by writing, but i’m going to pretend i didn’t ask myself, for the time being.

i will get there.

that’s how it feels, anyway. been working on the query letter for a few months now, sending various versions out to various folks, but i think i finally hit a professional tone which had been lacking in my previous query letters, which feels good, and makes me think i didn’t completely waste all of last saturday plus half of sunday (and most of the evenings of the previous week). i know, it’s never wasted, and all these versions are learning steps, but when i think i finally have it and go to print it out and the printer gives me a hard time at 10pm and runs out of ink two-thirds of the way across the page, well, it’s clearly time to walk away.

then there’s the speed of the internet, for those that accept emails. a double-edged sword. i can zip off a query letter without postage or delivery delay or anything. immediately, it’s in the agent’s inbox. with equal dispatch, so too can the agent’s rejection be in my inbox.

ah, well. this is the way of things.

a good review has appeared on amazon.com, and while there are some downsides, the reviewer goes so far as to compare elements of my style to Glen Cook, which is is clearly an enormous ego boost, thank you very much!

so, here i am again, at the top of the rollercoaster. a common misconception of my zodiac sign, libra, is the belief that we are balanced and stable individuals.

pfiffle.

being a libra, at least for me, is being always in search of equilibirium. as a result, i’m never quite there. case in point: my previous post. saddling myself with the familiar weight of self-pity, i bemoaned the fact that the store i was hoping to have a booksigning at was going out of business. a few days later i discover this review (which, in fact, was posted the day before the book store news) and voila, validation once more.

what i have learned, however, is that the rollercoaster costs extra. what that means is…well, honestly, i don’t know what that means; it just sounded clever.

what i do know, though, is the experience with the bookstore would have been something to knock me out of the game, some years ago. i would’ve taken it as a sign or some other foolishness, and buried my head back in work and self-pity. now, though, what i most took away from that discovery (once i got past the moment, of course; i’m human) was the fact that i’d let the unimportant things clutter my view and fill my days.

i am never so bloody busy that i can’t spend five minutes writing, nor am i so busy that i can’t make a call to a store and set up a signing, particularly one with a manager who was so clearly willing to help. i made this happen, as much by what i didn’t do as what i did.

so there’s the lesson: stop wasting time.

when i’m on my game, i feel like i could write without stopping until i breathe my last breath and not get all the stories out of my head. when i’m not on my game, i have sheaf after sheaf, drawer after drawer, and file after file of story ideas scrawled down to keep me busy. (of course, i’m the first to admit not all those ideas are worth sharing, but you get the point) either way, i’m an idiot for stopping.

so, i started again, and you’ll see more of it here very soon.