Drivin’ My Life Away

And the beat goes on. It’s now September 2023. I’ve been flailing away at becoming a writer since April 2021. In author years, that’s merely the blink of an eye. To be considered a long-suffering author, you have to labor in obscurity for decades, and preferably die penniless and alone in some dark alley.

I’m starting to make a list of the darkest alleys. It may come in handy someday. For the press pictures.

So, this morning, I was driving to the laundromat in Burnsville NC, a small town no one has heard of, except for the US attorney who prosecuted a local man who used this laundromat to sell child porn. It was a case of clean laundry and a dirty mind. Of course, child porn is no joke. The guy got 20 years in a federal prison. His name will appear on a sex offender registry for the rest of his life. Serves him right.

On the way here, I heard the 1980 Eddie Rabbitt hit song “Drivin’ my Life Away.” Great tune. I can relate, having driven my life away since June 2022. I’ve put 42,000 miles on my mini-campervan since then. I put 30,000 miles on it in the first 10 months after I bought it for a national book tour.

Ooh, I’m drivin’ my life away/Lookin’ for a better way (Oh oh)

Ooh, I’m drivin’ my life away/Lookin’ for a sunny day, (Oh oh)

Like Eddie Rabbitt, I’m looking for a better way. Self-publishing my first book did not do it for me. It was swamped by the tidal wave of 1,000,000 self-published books released on Amazon every year. That’s about 2,750 books a day, almost 20,000 per week, about 80,000 per month.

My book was like a guy sitting in a large sports arena filling up with spectators, trying to attract the kiss-cam. Your chances of being spotted by the kiss-cam at a sports event are about one in 100,000. That’s if you’re young, good-looking, and the crowd reacts well when you kiss someone.

It’s fun fighting the odds for a while, being the underdog, but at some point you just want to be noticed.

So, I’m caving in. Throwing in the towel. As I start writing a new book, I’m going to try to find an agent, who will take his or her cut, and then the agent will find a publisher, who will take another cut. When they are done with me, I will look like the Black Knight in the Monty Python movie The Holy Grail. I’ll have no arms or legs, just a dismembered trunk of a body and a head, shouting it’s just a flesh wound.

Oh, yes, I used to go on about my integrity and my right to express myself as I saw fit. No more of that!

This time, I am paying someone to edit my query letter before I write to the agents. I want to say the right words, the abracadabra, so they will wave their magic wand and sign me to a book contract. I look at the web pages for these agents. They all say they want to find new voices and emerging writers. Well, there’s almost no one newer than me, and I’ve been crawling out from under a rock for two years.

I could be wrong, but I don’t believe them when they say they want new voices and emerging writers. What they want is a sure thing, a guaranteed best seller, a real blockbuster. They want to make money. I know that’s shocking. Agents are supposed to find great writers and help them produce great literature, but to hell with that. Someone has to pay the bills and put food on the table.

Am I that guy? Not really.

The genres that make the most money are romance, young adult, sci-fi and fantasy. Crime is good, too. Contrary to what the police say, crime pays. I don’t write in those genres and would not know where to start. For some reason, I specialize in genres that few people read, like travel and memoirs. Humor.

I have this misguided idea that people want to books to amuse them. No. They want to be aroused, baffled, befuddled, and transported to another time and place, preferably one that never existed. The future and the past are better subjects than the present, where I spend most of my time. There is no time like the present, but if you’re stuck in it, you better stick to writing about the future or the past.

So, as you can tell, I remain skeptical, some might say cynical, about the business of writing. Yet, I keep doing it, because that’s what my brain wants me to do. If I say no, then my brain gets very upset. I tell it to be quiet and it shouts back at me, “You never let me write anymore. It’s not fair. You’re just a bully.”

These kinds of conversations go on in writers’ heads. It’s OK. We don’t hear strange voices, just our own.

I’m not sure how this is going to turn out, but I paid one “expert” to review my query letter, and she told me some of the magic words. She also gave me a list of five agents to contact. She doesn’t know them personal. She told me that if she did, she could never refer her friends, or they’d cut her off.

Another lady I found on Fiverr claims to be an expert at reviewing book proposals. That’s a document of sorts that you cobble together for the agent so they have something to peddle to potential publishers. I had written a 40-page book proposal based on the best online advice from experts I found via Google.

Don’t believe the experts you find online. That’s what the lady told me. She told me to cut the proposal in half. She would have charged me $800 to review 40 pages. I’m hoping she’ll charge less than $500 to review a 20-page proposal. Nothing is free in the book business, except my time.

The best-case scenario is that I find an agent after sending out 20 or 30 or 40 proposals. I might have to send out over 100 proposals. The longer it takes, the more desperate the writer becomes. By the time you find an agent, they know your spirit has been broken, so they offer you next to nothing. You take it.\

In my imagination, I will be proud. Strong. I will refuse to be exploited by the agent or the publisher. I will make them accept me on my own terms. Or nothing. I will stop answering their calls and their emails. In reality, my guess is that they will have me over a barrel from the start and I will do whatever they say. Let me give you an example. I fought with the lady who edited my Q letter and she just laughed at my view.

The lady who edited the Q letter told me I can’t write my age (63) in numbers. I have to write sixty-three. That’s stupid. It’s easier to write a number than to write out the words. It saves space and is easier to read. She told me it’s not worth arguing about now, but the publishers will make me do it, anyway. They follow the Chicago Manual of Style for books, which originated over 115 years ago. It’s ancient. There have been 17 editions. but they were all written by the original authors, who refuse to die, so nothing ever changes.

So, I’ll just keep driving my life way, looking for a better day. You all have a good day now. Read a book.

Anticipation

Unstoppable