ManicDDaily

Pearl Doesn't Really Like Formatting Either

I trying today to finish a novel.  Unfortunately, I am not working on the fun part of finishing a novel–i.e. coming up with the last sentence and going “ah” at the end.

No, I’m in the ‘trying to fix all the formatting’ stage of finishing a novel.  This stage has a lot more ‘dammits” than ‘ahs.’

I like to think that my curses are directed at glitches in computer software, but the fact is that most of the glitches are being made by me personally; that is me pressing the wrong key and suddenly undoing everything I’ve done in the previous five minutes.

These glitches bring me to the wonders and head-aches of self-publishing.

I am planning to self-publish this novel.  I will use my own little publishing company, BackStroke Books.  (Yes, it even has a fledgling website–http://backstrokebooks.com/.)

The novel will be called Nose Dive.  It may not be a great novel, but it’s pretty good–funny, cute, readable.  And it will  have some really great illustrations, done by a fledgling but wonderful illustrator, named Jonathan Segal.

Now, I could (and should) send the novel around and around to independent agents and publishers instead of publishing it through BackStroke Books.

The problem is that route just feels impossible these days.  Especially for a funny, cute, readable–but possibly not absolutely great  or super-commercial–novel that is written by someone (i.e. me,) who is not a film star, fashion model, or reality show denizen, who does not have a billionaire politician father, and who has not been able to fabricate a history of drug addiction.

The up-side of self-publishing is that there is something very satisfying about ‘taking the bull by the horns,’ ‘not waiting for the machine,’ ‘plowing ahead.’

The bad side is, well… true publishers have distribution networks, publicity people, etc. etc.  And, of course, staff that know about formatting.

I have, thankfully, managed to commandeer some extremely good help in the copy-editing area.  But, still, I have to be somewhat involved, especially at this hopefully near-final stage.   (Dammit.)