So, I'm probably not allowed to say this. And I really shouldn't. It's so damn hard to get published, and I don't even have any real fans or readers yet! Aside from a few friends, and (cringe) my parents— and who knows, maybe they're just reading out of the goodness of their hearts!
What my publisher does is a wonderfully American and noble idea- they pretty much publish anyone! And you don't have to pay them, and BOOM, you're on Barnes and Noble's website. Yay!!
But, this is not to say that being published still isn't expensive. No. Far from it, my friends. Today, I got an email from them saying, "We'll send your book to STEPHEN KING!!!....that is, if you buy 14 copies at a discount price TODAY!" Mind you, I've already purchased 19 copies, and the damn book costs about 35 bucks. Is that not ridiculous?! I'm a college student! I could never buy the book! This is with parental help, plus I'm the one who wrote the thing.
And they keep sending emails like that. They'll send books to the troops, to the TODAY show, to anyone!...if I'll just buy X number of books for X percent off. Getting published is clearly for rich people, and maybe I should have waited until I had a job.
On the other hand, I'm loving that I didn't have to self-publish (whew), that I can be extremely involved in the editing and the PR, and that I actually have an opportunity to see my book on shelves! And I can say I'm an author. AND I've even gotten to talk to other authors!
The advertising emails to me are even rather helpful. They help me think of ways I can distribute the book myself and help advertise it. I'm desperately trying to get a blogger to review the book, and even I'm lucky I can at least get the local newspaper to do it.
As I've said, I'm not expecting to sell many copies of this book (though I'm going to call every store and pull every string). My hope, for this one, is to get my name out there, to get some experience that I can use in the future, and then write something else, something even better (either that or something gimmicky) and get it published by a big publisher. Yeah, it's a dream. But it's not as unrealistic as you might think, and it's a pretty intense pursuit of mine.
Maybe I can just call the publishers and get Stephen King's address myself...
My dad asked today if my book was like Carrie. Just so anyone who's interested knows, it isn't. It's not even like Firestarter (maybe it should have been). I doubt the King would like my book, but there's no such thing as bad publicity, man.
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