I'm recovering from surgery at home and have nothing better to do all day so ask me anything.
I am the author of pic related.
 Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
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Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
AMA thread
I'm recovering from surgery at home and have nothing better to do all day so ask me anything.
I am the author of pic related.
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
|
Thalidomide Vintage Ad Shirt $22.14 |
Why do you shit up IQfy.
Partly just for shits and giggles, partly because the gatekeepers of the literary scene don't allow me to play on their field.
why should I read your book, Lewis
Because it's different, i would say better, than the standard diversity novel that publishers are flooding the market with nowdays.
Because it tackles some interesting topics like recovery from addiction, the military life, the conflict between the individual's desire to life free and the feeling of having obligations to society.
Also you'd be helping one your fellow IQfy shitposters make it, a subtle victory over the normies.
>and the feeling of having obligations to society
kek
How did you get published as a straight white male?
I got rejected by all the big publishers. I was actually told point blank that "we're not interested in straight white male perspectives"
Started looking around the smaller indie publishers and submitting. Eventually found one that took me on.
i bought your other book recently, its been very pleasant 🙂
thank you kind anon
How do you cope from death? Surgery was morbid, were you thinking about fragile? What are you thinking now? Are books your immortality project to cope from death? Why are you publishing? Do you want people to acknowledge you so you can die knowing that your book in on someone's shelf? Why do you write? Don't you thinking there is already too much access of books in the world so why bother?
I take the attitude that death is inevitable so i want to get what i can out of life and live while i'm alive. I'm 42 which means that i probably have more days behind me than i do ahead of me. Add to that a lot of my young life was fairly miserable, abusive fundamentalist christian upbringing, years of poverty and loneliness in my 20's and a lot of flailing around not really knowing what i was supposed to be doing with my life. So now i make a conscious effort to do what i want to do with my life and enjoy the good things. Of course i would like my books to be massively successful but the fact is i'm doing it, i'm writing and getting published, something i dreamt of for years. Anything on top of that is a bonus. I have my wife and daughter to love, i am living my life. One day i will die and my story will be over but i will know before i go that i gave it a shot and made what i could out of my life.
That's enough for me.
How long did it take you to write both of your books? Were you working on other writing at the same time?
Well there was a lot of stories that got culled.
With the first book i had 43 stories and we only used 19 in the final book. To write those 43 stories took me maybe three years.
The second book had 42 stories of which 19 got used in the final book. Again, probably about two years or so to write them all.
I always thought writing novels rather than short stories gets you potentially more readers
True but short stories give you a stronger bio section on a query letter to agents and publishing house editors.
How did you go about finding a publisher for your book?
Would you take a similar approach again today?
Basically any advice for getting published with a collection of stories or essays?
I tried the big publishers and had no joy.
Ended up googling "small press publishers in Australia" made a list and started submitting.
Eventually one took me on.
Based on my experience i don't see a way of getting picked up by the big publishers unless you tick all their boxes, diversity, marketability, similar to something that has already done well, etc. I think it's probably best to aim for a small press and then build from there.
Best advice i can give is make sure your collection stands out in some way. There are so many other people trying to get their collection published that you need to stand out from the crowd. My first book was stories based on my experiences living and working at remote roadhouses on the Nullarbor. I actually googled fiction set on the Nullarbor and couldn't find any so as far as i know i'm the first person to have written and published fiction set on the Nullarbor. Instantly that makes me stand out from the crowd of generic hipster literary wannabes in the city. Stop and examine what you've written, does it stand out from the crowd? If not start again.
I see. Thank you for the advice!
I'm following your goodreads, brother. Thanks for reminding me about Yates, I just got his short story collection.
Have you panned on writing a novel or taking some other shift to your storytelling? How has life been since getting published?
Currently working on another short story collection, some different themes to this one, going to be talking about growing up in christian fundamentalism, first time i've felt comfortable writing about that. Also some stories about marriage, middle age, sex, fatherhood and other topics.
Once that collection is done i'm planning on writing a novel. I have a vague idea what it looks like now but haven't really developed it properly yet.
Nice. I'm still getting used to the short story format but I do read shorts every day, including all of Last Man. Definitely getting Remembering the Dead. After I get to an upcoming break on my novel I want to work on and submit some short stories to magazines. I will try to shoot for some nice ones but there are quite a few ones that specialize in stories set in my region so I might end up there.
Life hasn't changed that much since getting published. I still have my day job. I'm a husband and father. I guess i spend a lot more time thinking about writing and focusing on moving that forward.
There's a lot of authors, even signed ones, that still stay in their day job. I've heard of teachers, musicians, lawyers, all kinds of things. Personally I do chemical research, some of my friends find it surprising that I care about both science and lit but it doesn't seem so weird to me.
I've been published in close to fifty magazines, and I was shortlisted for a national poetry award recently. No publisher wanted my debut poetry collection, even though I had the endorsement of a bunch of established poets, because I don't have followers online and such. I'm starting to feel as if I'll never break through, given that my work is often anti-mainstream or, at the very least, mocking of it. This isn't so much a question as it is a gripe. Congrats on your success, b.
I'll read your book anon, you seem like a nice guy. Buy the wife a nice dinner.
Pretty sure you can't buy a dinner from one book sale (not him). Maybe if you buy five copies?