Jock Murphy Words and PicturesThe writing and photography of Jock Murphy

So Sam Sugar over at SugarBank (SFWish though it does deal with the adult industry) decided to do his friend Craig Clevenger two amazing favors. The first is that he gave a damn fine plug for it on his blog. The second is that he deiced to try and build some buzz and provide a free copy of Craig's first book to bloggers with no expectation on them, other than that they are encouraged to read the book and blog what they think.

Needless to say, I jumped on this. I am always up for a good book. But I asked if I could do the same deal, and send him a copy of Redemption Song. It seemed only fair, if he was going to go out of pocket and buy a book, I should at least do the same. And if I get a little reciprocal buzz out of it, then I won't complain.

Sam and I have corresponded a bit since. We are both fairly excited that we may be on to something. Being a small/independant author is hard. Getting people to know you exist is one of the hardest things, followed by the even larger hurdle of getting people to read your book.

There are some book specific blogs and sites out there, but they mostly seem to appeal to the book wonks out there. Getting noticed by the A and B list bloggers isn't easy, and it shouldn't be. I like the idea that bloggers follow their own nose and not be so susceptible to outside PR.

So I will make the same offer as Sam. If you run a blog on any topic, and it’s been going a couple of months, email me your URL, name, and address, and I’ll send you a free copy of Redemption Song, and then feel free to post anything you like about it.

For want of a better term, we could call this the Blogger's Book Club. Authors can provide some number of books to bloggers for free. Then the bloggers can read the book and are free to post whatever they like. Perhaps we could set up a website to act as a kind of clearinghouse for Authors offering their books and bloggers posting about them. Maybe nothing will come of this. But who knows? Maybe -- just maybe -- this could be something new and interesting.

Before the book, before the book was an idea, there was a short story called Goodbye. Unlike the book, and the travelblog, and the blog that came before this blog; Goodbye wasn't meant for publication. It was written as therapy. Something happened in my life and people I care for and I felt powerless to do anything about it (I am intentionally being vague, because to be more specific would get too close to betraying confidences I value far more than this blog). So I tried a little exercise. to write a little story to try and manifest the helplessness I felt.

The result was about 80% of a first draft -- about 5 pages. It involved Quinn (though he is unnammed) desperately driving though Portland trying to find Becks based on clues from their conversation. As I recall, it wasn't bad. I can't know for sure since it was lost. I know better. I really do. Save early and often is the catchword. Only I didn't. My laptop crashed, and it went the way of all things. I tried hard to recover the file, but to no avail. So I suppose I could tell you it was brilliant, you have no way of proving me wrong.

Except that I found the open fragment the other day. I had started to write it in a different document, and then moved it to its own file. I had completely forgotten about it. So when I had cause to open the other document, I found it there, like a bit of early Halloween candy.

So here it is, this little piece of what led to the rest. They really are the same Becks and Quinn. Obviously this takes place before the events of the book, and may or may not be part of the official canon. Only time will tell. It is interesting to see that I seem to have themes I seem to keep coming back too, suicide, ringing phones, music:

The top was down and the sun was shining. Papa Roach playing on the stereo, Broken Home. The volume up just enough, so the beat pounds though my chest with the lyrics "can't... go... on... living... like... this." The song is sad, but I'm feeling good. I feel a buzzing against my thigh. Do I answer the phone or not? Second ring, and I continue the debate in my head. Just before the third ring, I give in. Flip the phone open with one hand, and bring it up to my face. "Hello?"

"I just wanted to say goodbye," the voice was soft, hard to here over the road.

"Becks? is that you?" I asked. We had plans to have lunch, but she had never called, so I had decided to go for a drive instead. It had been to good a day not to do something.

"Yeas," her voice seemed a little slurred. "You've been a good friend, and I forgot to write a note, so I thought I should say goodbye." Alarms went off in my mind, there was no way this was going to magically turn into something good. I pull my hand off the wheel to slap my hand against the stereo to turn it off.

"Where are you?" I still didn't want to think about what she might be telling me, but I knew I had to get to her.

"Not sure," she sighed, "I'm in my car, and just started driving. It's s'okay, all be over soon..."

Where could she be? Would she have started from her home, or somewhere else? I wasn't that far away from her neighborhood, so that would be the place to start.

It has only taken a month but at long last the description of the book on Amazon is now correct.

I have a more liberal definition of Web 2.0 than perhaps the Weberatti (to coing a term) do. I see it as the phase of the web were one (and in this case that one is me) can aggregate components together (both programatically AND manually) to get things done. Like say, the book. So far the experience has been positive, mostly. The problem is when you need help.

Lulu has no formal way to contact support. Instead you have to post in the forums and they promise that support will respond within 24 hours. The problem is that this I have never had this happen that quickly. More than once my post has fallen though the cracks and I had to post to it myself to get attention. I get what they are doing, most support questions are simple and they are trying to foster a community. Sometimes you can't help yourself and you need someone official to talk too. Note: As I write this I notice that they do now have a "Live Help" feature though it is currently offline. I hope this means things are improving.

Like many others I believe in loosely-coupled discreet components, and in social software. However the problem is that these things both carry with them a heavier support burden (a lesson I learned well from founding Pocket-Monkey). For small companies, and open source projects this can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Support is far too often a thankless task of answering a question for the 1000th time that person asking was capable of finding out themselves (One of the most common support questions on involves people forgetting their password, and there is a link title "I forgot my password" right next to the login button).

Social communities are great ways of providing bottom up support, but I have learned the hard way that they are no panacea. Here are some of the things I have learned:

• Have a clear was to contact support
• Set expectations realistically. If you don't say when you will respond, people assume it will be immediate.
• If you make a promise, keep it. If you say you will respond within 24 hours, then by god send some kind of response within 24 hours.
• No broken windows. If something doesn't work and there is no impression that it is being fixed, then it makes users feel the site has been abandoned. Or to put it another way, if you don't care for the site, why should they?
• Keep the community civil. Online communities can get elitist and nasty very quickly. If they get this way, people will be afraid to ask for help. Moderation is part of the solution, but it is better to keep it from getting to that point. You and your community leaders should make it a point to be the voice of calm and reason whenever anything gets too hot.

So far these are just the hard lessons we have to learn over and over again, with no loosely couple component to do it for us. Hmm...

Behind every story, is the story of how it came about. This is the story of how Redemption Song came about...

When I see the envelope, I know what it says without opening it:

Dear sir and/or madam,

This letter is to inform you that we at ConglomCo Publishing have reviewed your manuscript and found it wanting, and not suitable for publication in any way, shape, or form. The world of publishing is very subjective, so please do not let this complete and utter rejection of you and your life's work discourage you.

Yours, the current submissions editor.

I have sent out over a hundred queries to agents and publishers. The responses have ranged from the encouraging, the generic, to (in one case) a large "NO" scrawled on my cover letter. What no one has said is "we think your novel has merit and want to publish it." No one except for me, that is.

The last time I had any serious aspirations of being a writer was in high school. I loved to read, so it seemed logical that I should be able to write. Empirical evidence quickly proved me wrong, and I put the notion behind me.

For years I only considered myself by the label Engineer. That is who I was, at the core of my being. However, after a decade and a half of submitting to that identity, I realized that if I didn't let something else in, then I was going to burn out on the vocation I had dedicated myself too. That was when Photographer entered the mix. At first has a hobby, and slowly earned the capital letter. This seemed to sate my desire to expand my horizons. So, it was something of a shock when I found myself writing a novel.

It started as a thought: How far would you go to redeem yourself to a friend? That thought dragged with it and unexpected guest. A story, nearly fully formed. I played with it in my head, this story of a man arriving in town to find the one he was looking for had vanished. It stuck in my head and wouldn't go away. For the first time in my life, I had to write, in the same way I have to write code, or take a picture.

First I wrote a treatment- hanging around disreputable film types was paying off in ways I hadn't expected. I had to get the bones of the story down, and make them all fit before I went to the pain of molding the flesh. I wrote on the train during my commute -- an hour to work and an hour home. It took two weeks, and when I read it back to myself my fingers itched to write the actual narrative.

One of the first books on programming I ever read had the line "How do you move a mountain? One rock at a time." It is just as true of writing as it is of programming. I now knew where I was going. I just had to write one word after another to get there. Momentum grew quickly, and just over three months from that initial idea, and days before Christmas, I had finished the first draft.

This was somewhat embarrassing. I seemed to know, or know of, any number of people who considered themselves Writers (with the capital W), who were still working on their first novel. Some were years into the process. This only reinforced my most basic fear and suspicion: it was complete and utter crap.

I decided to pick one person to show it too. I sent a copy to the one person who I trusted to give me the unvarnished truth, but knew me well enough to give me the truth in the least... soul crushing way possible. Then I waited, trying not to be too much of a pest, while worrying about the answer.

While I waited, thoughts started to form in my head about what was wrong with the draft. I started making a mental list of things I would change. Then I got the first bit of feedback: "It's not crap, but it needs a lot of work."

This was the first time I did what I choose to describe as the happy-dance (and it is best not to elaborate). That was the best possible answer I could have been given. I already knew it was rough, but at least I knew I was heading in the right direction. Second draft had the same reviewer, and more positive feedback.

Between each draft I would take a break. It was hard not start right away, but I needed distance to be objective. I used my commute to read again, and restart a love affair with puzzle games. When it was time I would reread the last draft, and annotate it with notes. Then I would go back though and make the changes I had listed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The third draft was the first one I considered fit for human consumption. It was still rough, but I needed to get outside prospective before I could do any more. Being asked to read the draft of a friend's novel must be similar to being asked to attend the piano recital of a ten year-old. It might be good, but you say yes more out of duty.

Between January and August of 2004, I produced 5 drafts. At the fifth draft, I reached a point where I could either refine it forever, or say it was ready for the cold hard light of day. Up till now I more or less knew what I was doing. A little stumbling and clumsy, perhaps, but I could see the path from the beginning to the end.

Trying to engage the interest of a publisher or agent reminded me of the worst parts of finding a date for the prom mixed with applying for a job. It's largely anonymous, filled with rejection, and you are never quite sure what they want to hear.

Consider the barriers that are in the way. If you have no contacts in the publishing world, then you are working blind. You run down to the bookstore and buy a copy of the Writer's Market . You carefully go though and pick the agents and the publishers you think are likely. Much like a Penuts movie, where Snoopy is constantly confronted with signs that say "No Dogs Allowed" there is a lot of negative comments to read: No new submissions, Works only trough referrals, Does not accept first time authors.

But still you make your list. You do your research. You make your submission packet. You get to know the people at your post office by name. It's hard to imagine what the other side looks like. You are a junior editor, or agent. You have a mountain of submissions to look at, most of them bad. The world is littered with novels that should never see the light of day.

However if you talk to anyone in the publishing world, they will admit that not everything they pass on should be committed to the compost heap. Publishing a book is an investment, and the publishers want to make their investment back. The agents only get paid if they can sell your manuscript. There is an inherent conservatism. It is easer to sell what has already sold. It is easier to publish someone who has already been published. There are only so many books they can market in a year.

The strikes were against me. My book is a bit of an odd duck -- neither mystery nor straight general fiction. I'm a unknown author with little more than a TravelBlog to point too. I tried to grab the brass ring on the first try. Still I was luckier than most. Two agents and one publisher asked to see more. That is more that most people get their first time out. In the end however, all decided to pass. Statistically unsurprising but a profound disappointment to the statistic in question.

It was time to rethink my strategy, and I kept returning to one thought: I wrote the book to be read . I began to toy with the idea of self-publishing. When two friends both suggested the same thing to me within hours of each other, I decided it was time to act.

In the past self-publishing was an expensive and foolhardy move. It required a large outlay of cash, and there were few ways to get your book into the hands of readers. Like so many things the net changed that.

I already had a website for my photography. I could serialize the chapters there. I could return to active blogging to announce the new chapters and publicize the book. With print-on-demand publishers, I could offer printed versions for sale, without any up-front risk. I could take the expensive part out of the foolhardy venture. When you have nothing to loose, you have everything to gain.

I had all the means to get the book out there, to get people to read it. If I could prove there was a market for it. Prove that people wanted to read it, then maybe publishing industry would want to come to me. If they didn't then, I would still have accomplished my first goal, and people would have an opportunity to read it.

This is an unfinished story. As I write this, the book has been serialized onto my site. It is available on Amazon. I have a small and slowly growing body of readers. I have sold a handful of copies, even to people I don't actually know. I've gotten a couple of fan letters. There is a terrifying air of legitimacy to it all, and too real worry of the happy-dance...

I have written before how important music is to the book. It is one of the few threads that keep Quinn connected to the real world. The book's title comes from a Bob Marley song I found myself listening to obsessively while writing the book (both the Marley version and the amazing duet by Jonny Cash and Joe Strummer, it is a shame that all three of them are no longer with us). In fact, the original title was Billyboys (this will make sense when you read the book). Every song mentioned is one I had heard before, and almost all of them are on my iPod in one form or another (for example I have never heard a swing version of Half a Boy and Half a Man, but have Nick Lowe's original version).

I went though the excersize of cataloging the songs and artists mentioned in the book. Where only an artist is mentioned, I picked a song for them that I though Quinn might mention. Its quite a list:

• Bob Marley,Redemption Song
• AC/DC, Back in Black
• Split Enz, I Got You
• Crowded House, Better be home soon
• AC/DC, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
• English Beat, Jeanette
• General Public, Tenderness
• English Beat, Twist & Crawl
• Cities in Dust, Siouxsie and the Banshees
• The Motels, Total Control
• Genesis, Misunderstanding
• Ramones, Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
• Ramones, I Wanna Be Sedated
• Joni Mitchell, Free Man in Paris
• Richard Thompson, Why Must I Plead
• Elvis Costello, Allison
• Judas Priest, Out in the Cold
• Nick Lowe, Half a Boy & Half a Man
• Seks Bomba, It Takes Two to Tango
• Joe Strummer, War Cry
• Bop Pills, The Cramps
• Patsy Cline, Just Out of Reach
• The Smiths, Girlfriend in a Coma
• Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire
• Dusty 45s, Frosty Mornin'
• The Sugar Daddys, Boulevard
• Billy Idol, Shock to the System
• Patti Smith, Because The Night
• The Gang of Four, At Home He's a Tourist
• Generation X, Ready Steady Go
• Dave Brubeck, Take Five
• The Doors, People Are Strange
• Johnny Cash, I Walk the Line
• Elvis Costello, Oliver's Army
• Chris Isaak, The End of Everything
• Garbage, Untouchable
• Reverend Horton Heat, Baddest of the Bad
• Oingo Boingo, Dead Man's Party
• No Doubt, Hella Good
• Motorhead, Ace of Spades
• Travis, Side
• Dusty 45s, 289 V-8
• Marine Research, Chucking Out Time
• Alanis Morrisette, Head Over Feet
• Thomas Dolby, Silk Pajamas
• Oingo Boingo, Who Do You Want To Be Today?
• Suzanne Vega, Cracking
• The Sugar Daddys, Amtrak
• Manfred Mann, The Mighty Quinn
• Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues
• Chris Isaac, Things Go Wrong
• The Clash, Rudie Can't Fail

It occured to me that it would make a great soundtrack (ala Grosse Pointe Blank's wonderful soundtrack albums). Then I realized I had the power to make one, kinda. iTunes, and the other music services let you make and publish playlists. Since i had iTunes handy I started with that, but will slowly do the same with some of the others.

It was fascinating to see how much iTunes has grown. I was pleasantly surprised to see little bands like The Sugar Daddys, Marine Research, and Seks Bomba represented in the catalog. At the same time the major labels proved to be frustrating. There is no AC/DC on iTunes whatsoever. Some songs -- like the aforementioned Redemption Song -- cannot be bought ala carte. I wish the labels wouldn't be so stubborn about coming into the 21st century. Still I was able to find almost everything.

So given all of that, I humbly present to you the Redemption Songs iMix.

So after a few more copyedits I decided the book was in shape for the next step.  I added Lulu's basic ISBN service to the book! Starting next month, Redemption Song will be listed Books In Print.  You will be able to walk into your favorite bookstore and special order it (though I technically make more if you order it directly).  Even as I type this, the book is available on Amazon.com

Not to wax too poetic, or sound too much like a breathless Wired article from the 90's, but there is something big happening. The means of production are now easier to get at than ever. Access to the online booksellers is near automatic, and the tentacles are spreading to the brick and mortal bookstores as well.

It is still too hard to get into the latter. The margins are too low, and there is still too much stigma with print on demand, to really catch the eye of the bookbuyers. The same is true with getting noticed by the mainstream media, and I can understand. Soon enough I think the online world will start to find ways to sort the wheat from the chaff in self-publishing. Then, dear reader, things will get very interesting indeed...

No new installment, I told you we were done, but you can find the whole thing right here.

It has been a fun process, serializing the book on the net. It gave me a chance to find a voice for talking about the book. I got some wonderful feedback (and good or ill, do not hesitate to let me know what you think). I regret that the early comments were lost.

Does this mean I'm done? Just sitting here twiddling my thumbs, and waiting for the phone to ring? I am now focusing on my next project, and the blog turns to other things? No, or at least not so much. I will probably feel more free to blog about other things along the way, but I am far from done with talking about the book. Now I need to get the word out, and build up the people reading the book. So keep coming back, I hope to have some interesting news soon...

Here we are, the 10th and final installment is here you expect it to be.

We started with a three chapter installment, and we end with one. Though the last chapter is barely that. It is more of an epilog or a coda. The book could stand alone without it, but it provides a nice endcap. Hopefully without trying things up too nicely in a bow.

Less is more, as the saying goes. It certainly is for the last chapter. In the first three drafts it was much longer. Quinn's wandering though the city was more detailed. There was a third flashback with Quinn and Becks. There was an encounter between Ray, and Becks, and Quinn. Becks message at the end was longer. If I do say so myself it was some good stuff, but it didn't matter and it didn't fit.

It was hard to accept that the book was better off without them, but it was. It ended things too neatly, and that didn't fit how things had gone for Quinn. Besides it was all anticlimactic after the final conversation with Betty and the reappearance of Vance.

I worried about how the Vance's return would play. It almost seemed a bit too boss-monster, popping up for one final battle. I like to think I handled it in a way people expect. If Quinn projected everything about himself onto Vance (even if he wasn't wrong), he dispatched his demons nicely. With a little help from a friend.

When I first wrote Betty, I fell a little bit in love with her. I mean, how could you not? She does seem to be the one character everyone seems to like, and I am pretty damned proud of that. In writing the treatment I realized how important she had to be to the story. Despite her connection to Vance, she is the only outsider in the story. The only one who can listen to Quinn and put things in perspective.

How bad is was Quinn did? Would he have carried though? Well I know what Quinn's answer would be, and I have my own opinions about it as well. People who have read the book vary on it. Some think it was, some think it wasn't. I will let you, dear readers, make up your own mind, though I would love to hear what you think...

blah blah blah, the 9th installment of the book is is now available.

The endgame has begun. Quinn is back in Portland, and whatever plan he had is now lying in shambles. It is time for him to find meaning, and to reveal one of his secrets.

I almost regret ending on the 19th chapter. It ends on a cliffhanger that isn't quite what it seems. It works better if you could see how the 20th begins. In serializing the thing, some sacrifices just have to be made. Besides, come back next week and you will see what happens (and a musing on the violence of small women).

But there is an even better reason to come back next week. It is the 10th and final installment. Another secret will be revealed, and then there is redemption. Well, redemption is a funny thing...

I have a little script I run against the access logs. Because I am me, I named it bookreport. It lets me know how many of each chapter have been downloaded (and excludes the various search engines and bots that spider the site multiple times per day). I have been watching the number grow each day, and slowly accelerating each week. This morning a new milestone has been crossed: the total number of chapters downloaded passed 500. Actually it probably passed that the other day, because of the unfortunate server error.

This is a drop in the bucket, but it feels big, and I reserve the right to do the happy-dance at any minor victory.

As you may expect, I have posted the 8th installment.

We are now in the third act. Hopefully by now you have noticed a pattern. When Quinn is occupied he is mostly OK, when he is left to wander in his own thoughts, he begins to get lost. What a shame he has to hole up now. Sooner or later he is going to have to face his demons, but for the sake of the arc, not just yet.

Chapter 16 also starts with a quote from a band most people are certain to never have heard of: Marine Research. Sometimes you find things in the strangest places. I used to be a huge fan of Junkyard Wars, and I would be lying if I didn't admit that I think that Cathy Rogers is very cute. So I did a little digging. She was (as we know) one of the hosts of the shor, and the creator of the show, and is the production company's creative director. It took a bunch of research before I discovered she also used to be in a band. Wow and people say I am an over achiever...

If this post does not mark your first time to the book, then you will have noticed that there were a few typos in there. I had to get over any sense of perfectionism to get the book out there, unfortunately there is a price to be paid on the other side. The book had gone though a major cleanup prior to posting the first installment, but there was still room for improvement. My father, a pendant in the best possible sense of the word, marked up his own copy with more. I owe you big-time Pierce. So I have updated the chapters online, and created a new edition on Lulu. If you ordered a printed copy prior to this new edition, feel free to email me and I will do good by you.

That's it for the post. I am still in post-surgical recovery (nothing major, just had a hernia repair). So I am not at my best for writing. More posts soon. At the very least you know there will be one next week...

The weeks flow by since I posted the first installment, seven of them to be precise. So, just as night follows day, the seventh installment of the book is is now available.

As I mentioned last week, the two chapters that make up this installment round out the second act. It also shows why this book is a bit of an odd duck. I had enough strikes against me to get the book published, but -- fool that I am -- I had to make the book neither fish nor fowl. If it were a traditional mystery or action novel, then the majority of events that happen here should be the third act. Unfortunately for easy classification, that isn't what the story wanted to be.

And my isn't Becks quite the potty mouth? The original draft of the book didn't have any of the flashbacks. You only scattered fragments from Quinn about the nature of their relationship, and the modern Becks isn't feeling too well disposed to Quinn. It made it hard to understand why Quinn was bothering, why was it worth it. The flashbacks in the first act are small, but ultimately vital. As an added bonus you get to see that Quinn was alive once.

Now the second acts ends, the scene is about to change again, and we will soon see the return of a character we haven't seen in a bit...

The sixth installment of the book is in the expected place. I still haven't started a major push to get the word out, but readership seems to be growing at a slow and comfortable pace. And if you are enjoying what you are reading, please do spread the word a bit.

Note what follows does not contain any spoilers per se, but it does reveal more of my intentions with the book than any previous post. You might want to read the new chapters before reading forward.

As I said last week, this installment introduces one of my favorite characters in the book. For the record, my favorite seems to be the same as everyone else's: Betty. More than completing the book, and getting it ready for publication, I am most proud of creating a character that people seem to love. I knew that people would connect with Quinn, but let's face it, he isn't the cheeriest guy on earth. At this point he has spent most of his time inside of his own head. So I knew that would need to have characters around Quinn that would pull him out and connect him to the world.

Betty is one of them -- and do not worry she will be back -- but Odd (or is it Aud?) and her friend Faith are also important. They help to remind Quinn that there is more to this, and his actions, than just himself and Becks. While the book never goes on to confirm the nature of their relationship, I think we can all safely assume.

There wasn't a point when I made a laundry list of things that had to be in to book. I need rockabillies, and punks, and lesbians! Instead these were all things that just fit as I put the story together. To put it another way, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Originally it was just Odd that showed up in chapter 12. Quinn tend to attach everyone he sees to a particular scene, and I knew I wanted to base her on the goth teens that show up in Portland (and elsewhere). Her strength didn't come though till I realized I needed to add Faith, and up till now Quinn's actions hadn't affected someone who couldn't take care of themselves. So Faith got added to the mix, and it somehow just made sense to make them both female. So sue me.

And just to keep you coming back, next week's installment will round out the second act...

I just got an email. Nothing unusual about that, it happens throughout the day. It was a response to a query I had made to an agent. Rare (since most agents do not accept email queries, and I had exhausted the list that had), but not freakishly so. It was dated Aug 23rd, 2004. It took them nearly 10 months to get back to me. They may well have the record. I am never going to feel guilty about taking a day or two to get back to someone again.

It was nearly a year ago that started trying to get the book published. I know because I have the first email flagged. It was sent at 2:03PM July 27th, 2004. I'm not sure I got a reply from them either. This isn't uncommon. Of all of the queries I have sent out, somewhere between 15-25% have not responded back, yet. I say yet, because there appears to be nothing so glacial as the response time to unsoiled queries. Three weeks ago I got a rejection from the first batch of physical mail queries I sent out. I suppose that means that there is still hope that the remaining stragglers.

This has been an exercise in patience. Publishing is an industry that lives by it's own rules. Physical mail and physical copies are the preferred form. Whether it is right or wrong, it is common to cast a suspicious eye at the professionalism of someone who uses AOL for their business email. Get over that quickly if you want to get something published. A great many agents, and even a couple of small publishers, use that as their means of electronic contact.

Self publishing puts me in a world I am more familiar with. Files are sent electronically -- emails, blogs, forums, the web, and the rest of it form the foundation of this side of the industry. The pace is faster, and the world more familiar. It does mean I work in a vacuum. Too easily taking the wrong path. But either way is a risk. Hopefully the road less traveled by (for now) will pay off

I hadn't really thought about it, but in the week since I published the first chapters a couple of interesting milestones have occured.

First, I have sold a copy of the book. The other day, I decided to see what the royalty report looked like. I didn't expect to see anything there except for the proofs I had ordered, and there it was my first sale! It turned out to be someone I knew, and at this point I wouldn't expect different, but it still feels great.

Second, my readership is international! I know that at least one of my readers is in India (hi LC!). If the book were published only the traditional way, she would have either had to wait until the foriegn rights were sold, if they were sold at all

At the high level, none of this is revolutionary, but at the personal level my head is spinning...