Short Stories, Brick and Mortar, and Book Tours

It was brought to my attention that I had not recently listed by own book project in the blog yet, and if you are reading this, you might also be curious about my novel. If so, you can find it in paperback and as an ebook on Amazon. Here is the link: The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt.

You may have heard the novel is also available at my first brick and mortar locations, Jackson St. Books and Our Bookstore in the Old Market passageway. Hopefully they will be at The Bookworm soon:)

Still working on finding a location for my first out of town reading. Lincoln based artist, Nolan Tredway, was kind enough to make a few suggestions, so hopefully I will hear back soon! And next stop Kansas City! My community here in Omaha has been extremely supportive, but it is time to leave the nest and see if this book project has wings.

Here is the exciting news. I have got two solid ideas for short stories in the works. My plan is to release them as an ebook and list them for free for 6 months or so, in hopes of tapping into the larger number of free downloads. This is one of the ways several self-publishing blogs and authors recommend getting your work into the hands of new readers. The winter is a great time for writing, so I hope to have a few projects completed by Spring. Of course, saying this is like saying publicly that you are going to quick smoking and failing miserably. All your friends and family just nod their heads in your direction and you can't do anything accept scratch your name one more time in the fail book.

Did I just compare writing to the pain and misery of being uncontrollably addicted to smoking? Um. Yes. It aint easy. All the forces of the world conspire against you:)

Well, I haven't smoked a real cigarette in a week and a half. Don't hold your breath, but I can breathe for the first time in a long while.

Time to hunker.

Thanks for reading.

-Thom

Can I sleep on your couch?

I've sold one book since my last book reading and have received zero additional reviews. Don't worry, I am not going to start complaining about how hard it is to self promote a book. It's going to be tooth and nail. It's going to be mostly ineffectual. (Am I describing my sex life or my book?) What I am going to do is get to work.

Just sent a few inquisitive tendrils out to friends in Lincoln and KC, in hopes of finding a good venue to do a reading and hopefully find a place to crash. I have neither the time nor the money to subsidize an actual book tour, so I am going to try and schedule readings throughout the winter in communities that are close enough for me to drive to.

So I guess I am on the market for a groovy bookstore in Des Moines, if anyone has any suggestions. 

On the local front, I am bringing the paperback to 'Our Bookstore' in the old market passageway this week. This is my first brick and mortar location. I am my own distributor at this point. It costs about $3 to print a book, so I am ordering one small batch of copies at a time. After printing and postage, I take whatever $$$ I can get for the book. I have been selling the book for $10 thus far. It is 12.99 on Amazon. 

Free and cheap books are probably the best way to attract new readers and downloads on the internet, which is great. I would love to put out a collection of short stories this year and just give it away, to generate newsreaders. I am too deep in the hole with the current project to give it away for free, but maybe I am shooting myself in the foot. Maybe I am already legless, but have not yet realized it. I haven't been able to feel anything from the waist down for awhile.

Blogs are like road trips. Road weary and starting to get punchy, the likelihood of ending up in the literary ditch is imminent. What I need is a really lovely scenic overlook, to get some perspective, to recharge, to get inspired, to get back on the road. 

Any self publishing questions? What am I missing? -thom

The Comfort Zone

Just had a reading last night, to celebrate the launch of the paperback edition of the novel. Celebration is exactly the word I would use. There were about 30-35 folks there, most of whom I know very well and all of whom have given me their support time and again throughout this project. And I am grateful. There really is nothing like sharing a piece of your creative soul in a room of people who have cultivated that spirit in you. Validation. Trust. Joy. Gratitude.

I have gotten enough positive feedback to begin to doubt it:) It is time to push this project outside the comfortable confines of my personal network. Of course I have no idea how to really do that. The journey of a indie publishing continues!

Paperback in hand... now, how the fuck do I put it into the hands of people I don't know? This last year has been a series of hectic pushes to get this novel polished and ready, formatted and re-formatted, uploaded and downloaded... and here it is. Here we are.

Golly. Next steps? What more could I possibly do? Shit tons in fact, because I don't want this project to die in my lap. I have got to get this project out of the sphere of my network. My hope is that it will be a literary javelin, thrust into the side of the white whale. In truth, in spite of the professional editors, countless readers and dozens of careful re-reads, every time I open the book, something drives me crazy. That tells me something. First next step. Start writing something else. Short form, fiction, poems, monologues... doesn't matter. I don't think I am truly gonna cut the cloying creative link with this novel until I start writing something else. The umbilical needs to be cut. You really must divorce yourself from the creative work at some point and focus on the work of selling and promoting.

I've arranged to sell the book at Our Bookstore  in the passageway in downtown Omaha. That is my first brick and mortar bookstore and I would like to place it locally in a couple more. I am also working on breaking the ice for a local review. This has been impossible up to know because I have not had a physical copy. I need to generate a press contact list of reviewers and online listings.

Also, still planning on uploaded to espresso book printing machines at some point. Need to record the audiobook, need to upload the 1.1 version of the ebook. Need to book a reading outside of Omaha.

Yeah... lots to do. So what are we doing writing/reading silly blogs... Lets get to work.
-Thom

Not making the same mistake as Thoreau

I only printed 30 copies. The cost for each print is 3.08, which is pretty darn good! I am hoping to sell each and everyone of these beauties at the upcoming Omaha Downtown Lit Fest, where I have the pleasure to be speaking on a panel entitled: Experiments: Writing around the Mainstream. Later this month, Oct 27th at 7pm to be exact, I will will be selling the remaining copies at the official paperback release at Howlin Hounds Coffee. Aside from the usual honey dripping online sales rate of my book project, I am feeling great! Hoping to secure a review now that I can send a hard copy to the few press contacts I have. Still hoping to break even by the one year mark. 

So, for you self publishers out there, I went through create space, an Amazon company. (Here is a order online link: I want to own the turnpike!) Of course Amazon is a mother-big corporation and it's difficult to call oneself an independent publisher when taking advantage of free services offered by a corporation swimming is surplus. Nonetheless, from one enabler to the next, I feel great about being able to work hard on a personal project and successfully see it into print. At some point soon, I hope someone will call me out on my absolute cowardice, in not sending a single Query Letter to a publisher. I am sure it is too late for that, but alas, I have a box of books, which I will pimp door to door if need be. 

It feels like a really successful and productive month. Now I really really really need to go grocery shopping. 

(Keep scrolling below to find a banned bonus blog wherin the word olive is used as a euphemism for testicle.)

You chose wisely. 

Well, I missed my banned book week blog post, for which I shall never forgive myself. Here I will enclose a little naughty excerpt from a unjustly suppressed book, The Ragionamenti: The lives of nuns, married women and courtesans by Artino. Artino was friend of Michaelangelo and caller upon the Pope, but alas had to flee his home after the publication of sixteen obscene sonnets. No justice I tell you!

"Let us go on now. After the old hag, we went to see the Seamstress, who was at loggerheads with the Tailor, her master, and, having stripped him quite naked, was kissing his mouth, nipples, rod and olives, as the nurse kisses the little babe she is nursing on its tiny nose, its little mouth, hands, tablet, mickey, and its bare bottom, as if she wanted to suck it, as the babe sucks her milk. Of course we were going to place our eyes at the slit to see the Tailer rip us the selvedge of the Seamstress's gown, when we heard a moaning, after the moaning a howling, after the howling as alas ! and after the alas ended, an: 'Oh! Lord!!' which upset our whole heart. "

                                                                              -Aretino (the scourge of princes) 1534ish

Too often, literary work is taken out of context, twist and bent, called obscene or heretical... Well too be clear this excerpt is taken, with love, from a wonderfully obscene and heretical context and is twisted only in its unfortunate truncation. Best, Thom

The Proof is in the Pudding.

This came in the mail tonight. The Proof copy of the print edition of my novel. Wow. So... self publishers of the world who have a tenacious spirit and a can do attitude, the proof lays before you. It can be done. I am neither proficient at InDesign, or copywriting, or Photoshop or even writing. I am a relentless bastard however and the book does smell pretty damn good. If I can do it... Well... to thine own self be true, but I say you can.

Of course, thanks to the dozens of people who have helped and supported me. I am going to run a fine toothed comb through the book this week and then off to the presses and back to the PR train! Analogue book release and self promotion campaign, take two.

My goal this year was to break even... My quick math tells me I need to sell about 250 books to pull that off. From where I am sitting that seems like a lot. Can I get a re-tweet?

-Thom

Near. Far.

A couple of weeks back a picked up a 79 Kawasaki KZ 400 for a guy in Florence. It wasn't running but it was a Grover-blue shade of exactly the same motorcycle I drove from Nebraska to New York a decade ago and rode in the big city for about 6 years. With a little tinkering with the wiring and some wisdom from Andreas, the man who taught me to ride when I was 18, the bike sparked to life. I my free moments, I have been zipping around town and the back roads of agricultural/suburban Omaha.

From the first moment I got in the bike, it was like be reunited with an old friend. We stepped right into place, like no time had passes at all. As much as I resist nostalgia, my bodybrain has recalled a swarm of buried memories, of my previous life atop this motorcycle:

Night rides in the Bronx, City Island, Verrazano Bridge. NYC on a motorcycle is a vivid and exhilarating  experience. I rode through the blue ridge mountains in a thunderstorm. I saw a full moon reflected in the ocean on the Jersey Shore. I sat next to old Latino fishermen on the docks of Coney Island. 

Dozens of these memories have been coming back to me. I used to park the bike inside my Bushwick loft and cruise around the streets in Henry Miller's Topic of Cancer, wondering if I could resurrect the man in my own writing. That was how I spent my twenties. 

Last night I received the proof copy of The Turpike in the mail. Many of my experiences are superimposed over this wayward American road novel. There is still work to be done of course, I need to read through the proof, organize another local reading or two, write another press release etc... All sorts of things. Having this analogue book in my hands is a milestone. All these stories. The reunion with the motorcycle however begs the question. But has my life wrapped itself in a ribbon and settled into a dusty cupboard? As warm as these old memories feel, it is time to get back on the road. I would rather be an empty vessel, waiting to be filled, then a cup full to the brim that sloshes everywhere anytime you try to move it. 

Old and new. Full and empty.

Generation iY and woman and growing up

I am a feminist. My own work is highly erotic and plunges into many varieties of deviance, but I am really asking a question of myself when I fumble with graphic content. How do I call myself a feminist, when I am so damn attracted to women? I my younger years particularly, I was very prone to deifying women. It caused a lot of confusion, reconciling my own libido and desire, against a desire see women (and myself) with the utmost humanity. Of course humanity is flawed and contradictory... So I will call the endeavor a work in progress!

My early conclusion however, was explicitly, not to write. I figured the most valuable thing I could do with my life was to have a daughter (or adopt one), teach her to write, teach her to fight and then I'd just quietly die, having outlived my usefulness. 

A friend wisely told me that was stupid. He said I would probably do more harm to the world by stifling my voice, then if I just went ahead and put it out there. He was probably right, but more than that (even as I write this) I realize that my early sentiment was just another well-intentioned but misguided act of deification. I had made a higher power out of my unborn fantasy daughter. What a bum wrap, to have a dad who has mistaken you for a deity!

What has actually happened, is that I am not a father, in spite of some serious dad-skills. I have become a creative mentor for teens. In my experience with teens, I have learned a lot about myself as an artist as well as the challenges facing our younger generation of technology natives: aka, the iY generation, aka, screen-agers.

Writing is a diminishing skill amongst this generation, in spite of the speed and hypertextuality of their communication skills. To make matters worse, even here in Omaha, where the economy has remained very stable, public school funding is still, in part determined by property taxes. There is additional funding for schools that is mitigated by all sorts of factors: free and reduced lunches, teacher performance, attendance/enrollment, and of course, standardized testing results. From my perspective, both funding systems are slanted against people of lower incomes and increasingly so against people of color who live in neighborhoods and go to schools that are not almost-all-white and suburban. I don't know how any elected official can look themselves in the mirror, when our public schools are still mired in pre-civil rights systems. Here is a no brainer: if a student goes to a public school in this city they should each receive the same dollars per student in every school, no exceptions. 

So why the tangent? I've been reflecting that, as I get older, my own ideas and priorities are becoming less personal and less specific. Maybe my ideas are getting bigger. Equality for young people, regardless of their gender, race or background. I am less concerned with being a dad and more interested in acting in service of young people. Yes, I want the young women especially, to rise to power and be totally badass. However, I've grown to understand that abstracting a gender into ideas is silly. If I build any relationship when I have not cultivated a healthy sense of self love in myself, that relationship is going to be less positive. The more I come to peace with myself, the more I am capable of giving and receiving love. Perhaps more importantly, I am becoming better at cultivating self love in other people. Now that is something worth living for.

It seems like a good thing to write about. More misadventure of a self reliant and kooky author soon!

-Thom

The Turnip

Just looking at my desktop, a file containing the final proof of my novel is abbreviated. I mistook it for a moment to be the Turnip. Wondering if this is a sign. I happen to love turnips. I highly recommend re-exploring them if it has been awhile since you have roasted a turnip.

What is all this leading too? Why, fear of course. I work as a mentor by day and my young artist mentees are facing down a hard deadline this week. I find myself thinking/saying stupid things, like, 'you are accountable for every hour of the last 10 weeks'. Terrible thing to say.

It takes me an hour or so to write a blog and give it a once over and I definitely gotten behind. I am behind on everything. My print release is dragging along so slow, it may as well be dead in the water. Of course, this Summer has been insane. I am pulled in 5 different direction every day. Self care is out the window. I am struggling just to eat consistently and stay cool headed. But when I look back over the last three months... and hold myself accountable for every hour.

Yuk. It makes me feel like a failure. That is not a primer for creativity, or incentive for productivity. More like grounds for self mutilation... no. nope. no good.

Fear is always there. It is always holding its hand up to me. Every day it says 'Stop'. And most days I do. Well, I rarely stop, I just keep running circles around the projects that I care most about. The projects that make me vulnerable. I fear the stuff I make. So, I usually spend most of my time making stuff for other people, or helping them make their stuff.

So... I am a mentor. Its true. For young people. I help motivate them every day, with words like, 'Your work is valuable. Go further. You are really growing as an artist. Push past the point of comfort! Fear is the Mindkiller. ' Those feel pretty good.

Though, I dont have any turnips in my house, I am gonna water my garden, then make some pasta. Then sleep peacefully knowing tonight, I discovered the title of the next great American novel.

Bootstraps and International Strangers

Well, it is time to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get crackin. I may be the patron saint of over extending myself, but I am so damn close to having a print edition of this book, it is time to pull out the stops. As anybody who is going it alone knows, with work, family, projects, and holidays, the first thing to go on the shelf is the luxury of writing.
I am not sure if I am going squeeze in a trip to the east coast, but at the very least, I think I can arrange another reading here locally, for the print release. I paid the create space team for a final sweep from a professional editor and I have been sitting on the word doc for almost two months. The next steps are going through the manuscript to review changes, then format the manuscript to the create space print format. I will be using InDesign for the formatting.
Of course, I will release a 1.1 version of the ebook, with the changes and this fall, continue working on the audiobook, with the help of Mr. Sexytime (My vocal talent alter-ego). I also think I can send the book out to a few espresso book machine sites. The closet thing to Omaha is Kansas City. I think this is a groovy model though, and I am looking forward to figuring out how to get my book into those lovely indie book stores across America.
So yeah, independent publishing is officially a very low paying part time job. I am still selling a few ebooks a month, but things are petering off, to say the least. Time to re-engage and breathe some life into this project. My goal has been to achieve as much as I can in the first 12 months of publication. Best case scenario is securing a strong backlist position on Amazon.
Gotta believe and keep the momentum alive. Very grateful for my patron Abby, who works for Facebook and has been funding advertising for the FB page. So if you are a stranger out in the UK or Canada who is reading this blog for the first time, then welcome aboard:) There is a sample avialable for my novel. If you like sex and self-cannibilization, hallucinations and meditation, this might just be something you'll enjoy!
More soon. Perhaps naughty vignette? -Thom

"Be careful, they stone intellectuals in this town."

Tom Rudolf, of the Anitquarium Book Store said those words to me about 12 years ago after I purchased a copy of 'The Tropic of Cancer' from him and it has always stuck with me. In fact, I made a t-shirt of it and used to wear it when I worked at La Buvette. Hilarious, because it says "BE CAREFUL" on the front which sends the perfect message to patrons and the Buv. Proceed with caution, because these waiter bite!

Today, I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours with Tom in the relocated Antiquarium in Brownville NE. I am an absolute junky for his rare book collection, his beat writing collection and his literary journals. Heavenly.

Here is what I picked up, if you are looking for a Summer loaner!

Indian Journals Allen Ginsberg
Suppressed Books Alec Craig
A Passage to India E.M. Forster
The Devil Three Jerzy Kosinski
Women of the Beat Generation Brenda Knight
and! a 1924 printing of The Ballad of Reading Gaol  Oscar Wilde

I didn't do too bad, I think:) On the indie-book track, I founder out there is an writers conference in Brownville this September. I will definitely be making an effort to attend that event. If the event is a drag, I can always spend my time basking in the shelves at the Antiquarium and shooting the philosophical shit with Tom.

Where do you write?

Here is a little snapshot of my writing desk. This is the second location of my desk. It used to be in a little office and I almost never went in there. There was something way too pompish about the office, so I moved the desk into my dining room, in hopes of re-energizing the spot.

Fail.

My house is soon to be transitioning, again. Moving back into a larger bedroom and I am moving my desk with me. Not sure what I am trying to force here. Habit? discipline? Progress? I have a firm idea, or at a least setting of where my next writing project will take place. Hoping this Summer will be fruitful creatively and I can transition somewhat from my flaccid self-promotion campaign and finally start working on the next project.

Writing is strange though. I definitely carve writing-time out of the desiccated husk of my 'free time'. Usually, I find myself in the kitchen, or at the dining room table, a coffee shop... basically any other space then the one I set out to write in. I like my desk. I like my stuff. Its all pretty welcoming. Don't write there.

Perhaps the struggle is less about a writing desk, and more about where I feel home. Home has been dense and difficult for me to navigate the last several years. I am trying to put the best foot forward, but only clouds ahead. Which is to say, low visibility.

Where do you write I wonder? Do you have a special pen? A journal? I've written in a dozen different forms and formats and have developed no stuck behavior. No special objects. I guess there is no thing, no magic to summon the words. They just build themselves in a little house of cards and come tumbling down when they're ready. Who am I to go flinging marbles into things?

Enders Gay

Going off topic this post to meditate on Orson Scott Card's recent press. So Ender's Game is pretty awesome. I was two books into the series and enjoying the heck out of it when I heard the news: O.S.C is a libertine (no big deal. annoying. whatever) and then... he is openly and actively and quite outspoken against Gay Marriage. Hmm, that sucks. DC recently dropped him, as the writer of a new superman series. Ender's Game is coming to the big screen in November....what am I going to do?

AHHH! A dork in crisis! I love all of these books and movies and characters. To make matters worse, I am the worst kind of moral relativist. Name someones' shitty behavior and I will find some rationalization for them. Although, I am totally against violent crime and war, I will most likely find a way to understand what led this person or nation to this act and even if I can understand why, extend them compassion and even try to forgive them.

Perhaps this is because I am such a messed up and confused, contradictory and hypocritical monkey. I just figure everyone is messed up, cause we are human, and it is not for me to judge how anyone else copes with the daily pain of living.

So, how does O.S.C write something as awesome and winning as Ender's Game end up a homophobe? Well, it is strangely all there. I just bit the bullet and read the 3rd book (Speaker for the Dead) in the ender series and sure enough, there is a world view, secretly guiding the reader... and is all crackerjacks. This is male-gaze happening, to me, in real time. Damn it.

The proof of this is in the fact that 3000 years has passed and every human settlement still acts like earth. The setting is sci-fi, but the characters and story are all 1950's america propaganda, which is pretty good stuff (MADMEN anybody?) but come on. We are already post sex = babies. Post gender. Post gender-necessitated reproduction. O.S.C is a great writer, but he is no visionary. William Gibson writes sic-fi, as in the Future, not a Retrospective that completely ignores that science is making all these issues mute over the next 50 years, much less the next 3000.

AND! there is a bunch of homo-erotiscm! The Piggies and Ender are having a huge touchy love fest by the end and don't tell me it is pure and innocent machismo man-love. Don't tell me you haven't read the Illiad O.S.C and don't tell me those men weren't having hard-core, emotionally available man sex.

Helen may have launched 10 thousand ships but Patroclus catalyzed the murder and burning of Troy. Consummated Man Love.

In conclusion:
O.S.C doesn't even know that his narrator is gay. I said it. Ender Wiggin is Gay. Which, per usual, (see michaelangelo, wilde etc...) means that the greatest Man of his age was Gay.

Now, myself... I don't actually think gay is that useful of a term. I think it is a linguistic function used to control people, by giving them a simple identity that can be understood and controlled. There is nothing simple about being a human. Nothing simple about sexuality, religion, family, self, war, hate, life. So, catch a clue O.S.C. I am glad you are not writing Superman. Because some great men I know are Gay AND they come from Kypton and you would probably just write them out of the story. Lame on you, but I still like your books, if only because you couldn't stop writing gay characters if you tried. Novihina and Ender happily married...? Wow, that was convenient.

For more fascinating thoughts and observations about O.S.C for you now-ashamed Ender's Game fans...

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/end_game_for_orson_scott_card_partner/

Smelly old Books

Okay, I am going for it! Everything is in place to release a print on demand version of the book. After figuring out how to format an ebook, this is a cake walk. I am using CreateSpace, an Amazon company. It is free to upload the book and royalties are based on a slightly lower rate, until I sell lots and lots of copies. Of course, it is cheaper per book, to print in bulk, so if (when) that happens the royalty goes up.

One thing that has sparked my curiosity is the espresso book machine. This is a print in demand machine that a lot of smaller bookstores are using to print books onsite from a database library. This will be my next print platform, but of course I have no idea what the business model is, or how easy it is to distribute the book to these lovely unknown bookstores out there in america. And to those little bookstores I haven't met, I love you. I want to snuggle your shelves and sprawl out on your weathered wood floors.

Expect a report on the EBM project! In the meantime, I am actually really excited to get my book in print. Primarily, it will enable me to purchase wholesale copies to sell or give to reviewers during book readings. And of course, readers can buy a print edition directly from amazon! Not sure there is an extensive book tour in my future, but I am very much hoping to do as many readings as possible in 2013.

The manuscript is going through a final professional copy edit before I finish formatting it for Print on Demand. This was another 500 smackers on my credit card, but hopefully money well spent. The CreateSpace copy editing price was the most reasonable my research produced. Of course, you can put a few thousand dollars into CreateSpace if you are able to upload the manuscript yourself and need additional help with book design and promotion. I recommend crunching the screen time and figuring it out yourself. You can do it and the cost is Free dollars, a bucket of your time worth of them.

Maybe a month before the first spine is broke on a copy of The Turnpike, by yours truly. I hope it smells funky;)

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: POD - Please order Direct

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: POD - Please order Direct: Is this another Part-time job? It would seem so. The good news is, you are working for yourself, which is an absolute pleasure. Every time I...

POD - Please order Direct

Is this another Part-time job? It would seem so. The good news is, you are working for yourself, which is an absolute pleasure. Every time I sit down to work on this self-pubishing/promoting machine, it feels like I have just made myself a great dinner. 

By way of a little check in, the ebook is published and for sale on the major book seller sites. I have submitted the title to a few ebook contests. One of which, I will hear back from this week. Website, FB, Goodreads, bloggy-blog, CHECK! And... My sales have plummeted this month. I have sold a single copy of iTunes, which tells me I have just about spun out my local network. Now the hard work begins. 

I still am working local venues to book another reading, but I have moved on to researching my print options. I am trying to keep my overhead low and retain my autonomy. I am pricing a final copy edit, before I send it to print. So far my options are Amazon Print on Demand, through createspace and I company called BookMasters. 

BookMasters is a pay for service independent book distributor. It seems like a good company and promises to get my book on the shelves, but it costs money and their are upkeep costs. It would be great to hear from someone who has used their services and could give me some user feedback. Still chewing on that. 

Now, kudos for Amazon for making it easy. You can pay for any service you want from them. You can send them a tattered manuscript and a fist full of cash and they will edit, design you cover, and layout your manuscript for print on demand service. Or, you can do it all by yourself. I am pricing the edit, but I am considering doing all the additional work myself. There are templates and easy to follow guidelines. Frankly, Amazon has made it idiot-proof. Once your book is formatted correctly and uploaded, it is free. The cost of printing  the book is built into the price, which you are free to set. 

With a print-on-demand edition, you can send hard copies to reviews, purchase cheep promotional copies, set up local distribution and have some books on hand to sell during any book readings you can organize. So, that is the rough plan. Continue to work local, create a little buzz and hopeful keep the momentum going. 

In conclusion... this is hard work. You really have to be prepared to stay the course if you intend on being even mildly successful independently. The good news is, my book is getting great user reviews. 

They come in one at a time, each review a revelation. 

Murakimi couldn't have been more right. Keep your feet moving, no matter what. Dance dance dance. 

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: Umm... Will you tell me a little about me?

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: Umm... Will you tell me a little about me?: So how do you ask someone to give you a review? AKWARD! Self promotion is the WORST. Give me a boat full of strangers and 15 minutes with ea...

Umm... Will you tell me a little about me?

So how do you ask someone to give you a review? AKWARD! Self promotion is the WORST. Give me a boat full of strangers and 15 minutes with each person and I will hit the streets to get each of them a job, an apartment, an elected position, whatever they need. That is is the hard part of this, working for yourself. I would really prefer to do anything rather then work for my own self interest.

Perhaps you, like me, want one thing badly enough to face this monster, this self loathing, this fear of self... you want people to read your book. Even better, it would be nice for amazon or iTunes or anyone, a reviewer, a publisher whatever to read it, and even like it... and the end of the day it boils down to the same outcome, people reading your book.

Yes, I am still plugging away, reading blogs and newsletters, anything I can get my hands on. Indie publishing is a puzzle everyone is trying to fix. This simple fact kind of levels the playing field and that is a consolation.

So, one thing at a time! User reviews. From where I am sitting, this is the single most important thing you can do in the first six months. Establishing a strong user review base is what any future momentum is going to be built on. Eat the mustard, look one ring outside of your inner circle and do everything in your power to leverage reviews. This is where I feel it is most useful to give your book away from free.

I am working hard on getting a print release of my book so I can do this more effectively. Because I don't have a print edition, I haven't been able to send my novel to local reviewers. Getting this local review is really important but I believe with the user reviews, all the potential traffic directed to your book will have that extra push.

And that is my two wheat pennies for the evening.

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: Retreat

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: Retreat: On a crane watching sojourn in Eustis, NE with a small group of performance collaborators. We found a little cabin/family home that was a ch...

Retreat

On a crane watching sojourn in Eustis, NE with a small group of performance collaborators. We found a little cabin/family home that was a cheap weekend staycation. It is still a bit chilly to spend to much time outside hunting for cranes, so we've spent most of the weekend hunkered down in this extremely comfortable b & b.

This feels so much like a writing retreat it has brought up the inevitable revaluation of the solo writing project. After stealing away hours of precious free time (and I don't even have kids!) in order the finish a project, the self promoting campaign begins and it requires weekly, if not daily upkeep. With my focus so sharply on getting this novel out there I haven't even begun to think about what my next project is going to be.

It seems like if I already had another bun in the oven, it would be easier to mitigate the stress of the promotional upkeep. Truth told, I have no idea how to be a writer. I know how to be a spread thin, workaholic non-specialist with 3-5 side projects in different states of simmer to boil at all times.

What a supreme luxury, time. And what a perfect word, retreat. With neither time nor retreat regularly at ones disposal, I think I have to fall back on structure. It is time to structure time for the next project. Back to the empty canvas, the blank manuscript. Having spent so long on my last project, I've no idea how to begin. I do trust the creative process implicitly though. It doesn't happen by itself though... Time to strike the iron. Or at least stoke the coals.

Economize promotional upkeep and focus the lion's share of your precious free time on the next endeavor.

(Next blog: get those user reviews, cross your fingers and pray to your god!)

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: i play sexy voice

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: i play sexy voice: Audiobook tutorial. Okay, so your book is online, you have a website, your blogging tweeting posting sharing your literary heart out, you've entered a few b...

i play sexy voice

Okay, so your book is online, you have a website, your blogging tweeting posting sharing your literary heart out, you've entered a few book contests and now what?

Whew, that was easy right? Why not start a new project? Lets record this baby as an audiobook! After some research, here is what I found out. Of course, there are several companies who will accept your (entry level $3000) and take your book, hire a narrator, professionally mix it and publish your book for you on amazon and itunes.

Open Book Audio (http://openbookaudio.com) is a company that works directly with amazon and itunes, which kept coming up. If you have piles of money to throw at your project, well, then you are probably not reading my blog.

The indie route: Audio Book Publishers - Creation Exchange (http://www.acx.com), which is an amazon based platform will allow you to create an account, sign a contract and upload your content chapter by mp3 chapter. If you narrate your own book, then you receive a higher margin of the profits. It also looks like a sliding scale royalty arrangement. As is, the more books you sell, the higher your royalty is, up to 90%, which sounds dreamy. Fingers crossed!

I did borrow a nice mic from a friend and I am recording in my bathroom. As long as there is no tv background noise, I should be able to pound it out in 5 or 6 sessions. grrr tv:(
Also, I'm recording my audiobook using garageband. Reading it chapter by chapter, I can easily export the files as mp3, edit out little mistakes and put on my sexy voice.

It was recommended that I drink lots of water while recording and wear lip balm. I happen to be a pretty strong reader, so the recording is going smoothly. If you have a slurry, chewy voice, I'd suggest paying a friend in cart fulls of beer and spending a few sunday's knocking it out. You can play mixer and editor and they can play sexy voice.

Good luck with your project!

DIY

A month has past since the release of my novel. Since then, I have printed up a slew of bookmarks for promotional material, attended a authors' fair at the Omaha public library, submitted the novel to four new-fiction literary contests and for the first few weeks at least, obsessively watched my amazon and iTunes sales.

The result of all this has been a little underwhelming. As much as I would like to say I had realistic expectations, there is always that hope that your project might have palpable and immediate success. The disappointment didn't last though:) if I have learned anything during my haphazard career, it is how to accept the delay of gratification.

Today, I am committing to laying out the next list of to-dos, the top of which is to stay on top of my blog and social media. I think the success you can expect from any creative project is mitigating largely by the momentum (cultural, social, personal) you can build around it.

I am blogging from the local Barnes & Noble bookstore. Knowing that my novel is available on nook and any one of these readers could find it and reading it, is an interesting thought. From a sales prospective however, my nook release has yielded zero sales. This store is full of people looking for an interesting read and my novel is available but invisible. In spite of the fact that my novel is available, I also know that if I laid out a few of my bookmarks, as soon as a staff member discovered them, they would be thrown away.

Meh, I just dropped a couple in the coffee shop. I feel like I just vandalized the place!

It is time to meditate on what my goals are and how I can achieve them, baby step by baby step.
I have to work locally first... And then broaden my view from there. Unless of course, someone else has a different strategy to offer:) The journey of an indie author continues!

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: The Hanged Man

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: The Hanged Man: I am not a huge new agey kind of guy but I do read tarot occasionally and I was kept up all last night with dreams about the book relea...

The Hanged Man

I am not a huge new agey kind of guy but I do read tarot occasionally and I was kept up all last night with dreams about the book release on Sunday. The thought of this image taken by my dear friend Noah J. Ehlert made me think of the hanged man. So I doctored it up a little and whattya know! Worth a share:)

The Hanged Man: Symbolism 

letting go

having an emotional release
accepting what is
surrendering to experience
ending the struggle
being vulnerable and open
giving up control
accepting God's will

reversing

turning the world around
changing your mind
overturning old priorities
seeing from a new angle
upending the old order
doing an about-face

suspending action

pausing to reflect
feeling outside of time
taking time to just be
giving up urgency
living in the moment
waiting for the best opportunity

sacrificing

being a martyr
renouncing a claim
putting self-interest aside
going one step back to go two steps forward
giving up for a higher cause
putting others first

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: Marketing... what? This magic wont sell itself?

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: Marketing... what? This magic wont sell itself?: For all the challenges of indie publishing, marketing, it would seem, is the biggest drag. How big is your network? How many facebook friend...

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: The Big Show!

The Turnpike by Thom Sibbitt: The Big Show!: iTunes and Amazon, Facebook, and theturnpikebythomsibbitt.com, press release, the OM center, cover prints and very modest marketing: The las...

The Big Show!

iTunes and Amazon, Facebook, and theturnpikebythomsibbitt.com, press release, the OM center, cover prints and very modest marketing: The last month has been a flurry of work to get the novel online, spread the word, put a polish on everything and brace myself.

Everything in my immediate power and budget (though I overdrew my checking account this month & and have some shiny new credit debt) has been done to put my novel out there. I am officially self published and will mark the occasion with a public reading and reception at the OM Center for Healing Arts on January 27th. A perfect venue to have a send off, after a pretty harrowing couple of months.

So what i have I learned? Self publishing is scary! It is very doable, if you are the kind of person who is not afraid to dive into something that is both completely foreign to you and completely over your head. It took 3 days to figure out to transfer the manuscript into ePub format. This format is used to layout books for e-readers. Now that it is formatted however, every online book distributor seems to use it. It took me all of 30 minutes to upload my book to Amazon and it was online the following day!

I am currently researching the Barnes & Noble process and it is quite a bit more corporate and lengthy but I should be able to make it available for Nook readers in the next few months.

What really remains, is marketing the book and selling 'units'. At 9.99 a copy, my goal is to break even in 6 months. I can tell right now however, that it isn't going to be easy.

It has become clear that the single most important tool I have at my disposal is my Facebook network. This is of course an embarrassing, frustrating, and obnoxious discovery. I made a page for the novel, and have about 150 likes, have reached about 1500 fb users with at least the title of my book and maybe 6 of my friends have reposted (pimped) my novel on their own page.

The result has been the sale a 20 books, which is awesome, but it does leave me a little short of reaching my 6 month goal and after all my family and friends who have e-readers buy my book what then? It feels a little weird, to be seriously considering FB advertising, but that seems like the first, easiest and cheapest way to get my title out past my network.

I have yet to get any local copy about the book release, but there is one week to go. Hoping there is a little buzz generated that I can build on... a press clip, a local review. Hmm. Going to puzzle over this for a bit. The journey of an indie publisher continues...!

Marketing... what? This magic wont sell itself?

For all the challenges of indie publishing, marketing, it would seem, is the biggest drag. How big is your network? How many facebook friends do you have? Linkedin? Tweeter?

Even if your clout is huge for a non-celbritiy civilian, and your book isn't half bad, that isn't gonna make it sell. If you have a couple of $10,000 notes hanging around, you could probably swing your own marketing campaign. Good luck and screw you if that is your disposable income:)

What's left is the ebook platforms: iPad, kindle, nook, kobo etc...  Getting your book onto each of these platforms is the first step. In the blogs I have been reading, it seems like indie authors have managed only to get their book onto one of these, which doesn't make that much sense. Once you figure out how to upload to the first platform, why stop there?

Once you're on-air, ideally, your circle of friends will actually buy it, read it, rate and review it. It is very likely that your book will only be available by a direct search. There are about a hundred titles to browse through fiction on the itunes store. How does one get on that list? Presumably sales that you generate. I also think those user reviews are really important. If they feel it is worth promoting for their 30%, they will throw it on the list. knock on wood.

You have a website, you have a blog, you have a facebook etc... all with links directly to your product. It sure would be helpful, if somebody gave your book a review wouldn't it? This is where marketing is a drag. The publishing industry still has its hooks in this department. It is a closed shop, even if you work in the building. Reviews in local papers, online forums, literary magazines, major culture reporters... each of those tasks is really daunting without any connections, credible reputation, or leverage of any kind.

This is ultimately the power of the publishing industry. This power is why authors are willing to give up the ownership of their books to corporations. Mind-boggleing and frustrating.

Here in the adolescent age of online publishing there are, at the very least, alternatives. The world wide web. Intranets and kooky marketing schemes. YouTubes and kick starters! I am going to say, 'go it alone! Put it out there! Hustle! Get your swerve on! spread the good word!' Just continue to move at a pace you can sustain, but don't stop moving.

A friend of mine recently told me that A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 60 times before it was published. That is fortitude. And a significant amount of corporate idiocy.

Next blog: The Local release!!! Book reading and reception... how do you sign a copy of an ebook!