Joanne Dobson's Blog
November 7, 2014
Why the Heck I Published ... Part 2
In my last post, "Why the Heck I Published My New Book with Amazon," I ended on a hopeful note, stating that "the book world is getting a much needed shake-up." What I didn't say, in so many words, anyhow, is that I, among many other respectable established mid-list authors, have become collateral damage in that shake-up. And I have to admit that, even though I carefully designate myself as an Independent author, what I really have become is that once-despised creature, a self-published author.
Now, Walt Whitman was a self-published author. In his day, the road to being respectably published by the publishing establishment was blocked by the forces of American Prudery, rather than, as today, by the forces of Global Profit-taking. Whitman's way around the blockade was to pay for printing Leaves of Grass himself, even setting some of the type with his own hands. Furthermore, Whitman distributed the book to bookstores himself (although most of them wouldn't carry it). He even wrote fulsome reviews of his own book (anonymously), and had them published in the pages of newspapers run by his friends. Whitman was a bold, proud, and devious self-publisher.
Emily Dickinson, on the other hand, was a reticent self-publisher--with an emphasis on self. For Dickinson, publication was "the Auction / of the Mind of Man-- / Poverty be justifying / For so foul a thing // Possibly--" We'll never know why she refused to publish--and she did refuse. After all, the mid-19th-century saw the rise of print culture, and many women, some of whom she knew, actually made a good living with their books. But Emily Dickinson was a New England lady, and she was an extremely shy New England lady. To appear in print "hankering, gross, mystical, nude," as Whitman expressed it, would have been anathema to her.
However, after Dickinson died in 1886, her sister found both unpublished and "published" poems in a dresser drawer: the unpublished poems were scrawled on used envelopes, backs of recipes, brown paper bags, as if the poet had been waylaid by genius in the middle of her domestic working day. The "published" poems were, heartbreakingly, carefully transcribed on sheets of quality paper folded horizontally across the center to form little books, most of them stitched at the spine. Whereas Whitman had set type with his own hands, Dickinson had formed the entire book with her own hands, not for publication, but solely for herself.
I, surprise!, am no Emily Dickinson. I'm not even a Walt Whitman! (Relax, it's a joke!) Finding myself, unexpectedly, a self-publisher after nine traditionally published books, I may reconcile myself more easily to that status than some 21st-century authors do. After all, I know I'm in damn good company.
And, even given American publishing's current domination by multinational investment conglomerates whose principle concern is with profit rather than with literature, I have been able to publish The Kashmiri Shawl--the best novel I've written, even if it's not in a proven market category. I don't know how to set type. I do know how to sew, but I also know I would find it hyper-tedious to construct a delicate little individual book for each reader! I'm grateful to CreateSpace and Amazon for setting type for me, for constructing books for me, in short, for providing a 21st-century medium through which it is possible to publish an "unpublishable" book: a self-initiated, uniquely imagined, idiosyncratic, heartfelt novel written in communion with the Muse rather than with the Market.
It's not going to become a bestseller. It's not going to make me a fortune. Then why publish it? Am I naïve? Very well, then, I'm naive. But my life, and my two professions, as an English professor and as a writer, have always revolved around literature and reading. The Kashmiri Shawl is now in print and available to readers, who, judging by the Amazon reviews, written neither by myself nor by Walt Whitman, seem to like it.
Now, Walt Whitman was a self-published author. In his day, the road to being respectably published by the publishing establishment was blocked by the forces of American Prudery, rather than, as today, by the forces of Global Profit-taking. Whitman's way around the blockade was to pay for printing Leaves of Grass himself, even setting some of the type with his own hands. Furthermore, Whitman distributed the book to bookstores himself (although most of them wouldn't carry it). He even wrote fulsome reviews of his own book (anonymously), and had them published in the pages of newspapers run by his friends. Whitman was a bold, proud, and devious self-publisher.
Emily Dickinson, on the other hand, was a reticent self-publisher--with an emphasis on self. For Dickinson, publication was "the Auction / of the Mind of Man-- / Poverty be justifying / For so foul a thing // Possibly--" We'll never know why she refused to publish--and she did refuse. After all, the mid-19th-century saw the rise of print culture, and many women, some of whom she knew, actually made a good living with their books. But Emily Dickinson was a New England lady, and she was an extremely shy New England lady. To appear in print "hankering, gross, mystical, nude," as Whitman expressed it, would have been anathema to her.
However, after Dickinson died in 1886, her sister found both unpublished and "published" poems in a dresser drawer: the unpublished poems were scrawled on used envelopes, backs of recipes, brown paper bags, as if the poet had been waylaid by genius in the middle of her domestic working day. The "published" poems were, heartbreakingly, carefully transcribed on sheets of quality paper folded horizontally across the center to form little books, most of them stitched at the spine. Whereas Whitman had set type with his own hands, Dickinson had formed the entire book with her own hands, not for publication, but solely for herself.
I, surprise!, am no Emily Dickinson. I'm not even a Walt Whitman! (Relax, it's a joke!) Finding myself, unexpectedly, a self-publisher after nine traditionally published books, I may reconcile myself more easily to that status than some 21st-century authors do. After all, I know I'm in damn good company.
And, even given American publishing's current domination by multinational investment conglomerates whose principle concern is with profit rather than with literature, I have been able to publish The Kashmiri Shawl--the best novel I've written, even if it's not in a proven market category. I don't know how to set type. I do know how to sew, but I also know I would find it hyper-tedious to construct a delicate little individual book for each reader! I'm grateful to CreateSpace and Amazon for setting type for me, for constructing books for me, in short, for providing a 21st-century medium through which it is possible to publish an "unpublishable" book: a self-initiated, uniquely imagined, idiosyncratic, heartfelt novel written in communion with the Muse rather than with the Market.
It's not going to become a bestseller. It's not going to make me a fortune. Then why publish it? Am I naïve? Very well, then, I'm naive. But my life, and my two professions, as an English professor and as a writer, have always revolved around literature and reading. The Kashmiri Shawl is now in print and available to readers, who, judging by the Amazon reviews, written neither by myself nor by Walt Whitman, seem to like it.
October 24, 2014
Why the Heck I Published My New Book With Amazon
I have had ten books published, nine of them with traditional publishers, so, you see, I'm not an untested newbie or (I hope) an untalented hack. I am, what in the parlance of this Brave New World of 21st-century book publication, is known as an established author. Two of my books are scholarly, published by Indiana University Press and Rutgers University Press. The other seven are mystery novels, four of them published by Doubleday and three by Poisoned Pen Press. These are my credentials. I could tell you about the reviews and the awards--yada, yada, yada--but that gets boring.
So, when having changed genres and presented agents with, not a mystery, but a historical novel, The Kashmiri Shawl, I didn't know what to expect--but what I got was nothing like I could even have imagined: consistent praise, on the one hand, and universal rejection, on the other. The Market, it seems, was not interested in historicals set in 19th-century New York City--not unless, as one agent said to me in person (with a straight face), "they're about serial killers." She continued, "Now, if you want to rewrite this manuscript and set it in London during the Regency period, I'll take another look."
"No, thanks," I said. "No serial killers and no decadent dukes." So what was I left with? Anna Wheeler, a runaway missionary wife who flees her abusive husband by train in 1857 India, only to steam into the midst of the brutal Indian (Sepoy)Rebellion. Or, as my amazon promo says: An epic journey from the sultry climes of nineteenth-century India to the cosmopolitan chaos of New York City on the eve of Civil War--and then, inevitably, back again to India in quest of a kidnapped daughter and a lost, forbidden love. Yes, there is violence involved, but no serial killers. There's an Anglo-Indian tea-planter, but nary an English Duke.
It seemed I had written an unpublishable novel.
But if there's anything I learned during my two and a half decades in the academic world, it was to trust my own instincts--even if--especially if--the powers-that-be are in established opposition.
I knew I had written an original book with a fresh, untold story--a story, perhaps, about what would have happened if someone like--a little bit like--say, Jane Eyre, had made the mistake Jane almost made and married someone a little bit like the pious St.John Rivers and gone to India with him? Jane Eyre, if you remember, says she knows that if she goes to India, she'll die there. Anna Wheeler is stronger than that (as Jane, herself, probably would have been!), and her story begins with marrying the missionary; it doesn't end there. What if? What if? The options fascinated me. So I wrote the story.
And, it was, it seems, unpublishable.
So, Reader, I published it myself. It was the only option I had. And working with CreateSpace (yes, a subsidiary of the evil amazon: see below) allowed me to do it. It liberated me as a writer. It liberated my novel.
To make sense of my situation, I looked back to scholarly studies--the work that's been done in History of the Book in America. I seem to recall that historically whatever establishment--be it the Church or be it the Government or be it Mammon--has had control of the "means of the reproduction of texts" has always resisted change. In the 1670s the Governor of Virginia wrote: "I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing ; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy ... and printing has divulged them ..." In other words, once you let the rabble get their hands on the means of distributing ideas and information (and stories), all hell will break loose. More recently megabestseller James Patterson, (James Patterson!!!) fretted publically about a brand new upstart's role in book publishing as leading toward a "national tragedy." He fears that amazon's venture into digital publishing (and actual paper-book publishing)is going to cause "the quality of America literature ... to suffer."
My experience counters Patterson's fears: it feels to me as if a window has been thrown open and fresh air has entered the publishing scene. Oh, sure: there'll be a lot of garbage published(as if there isn't already!), but the control of the American publishing establishment (mostly owned now by multinational conglomerates)has been challenged and the book world is getting a much-needed shake-up. Again.
So, when having changed genres and presented agents with, not a mystery, but a historical novel, The Kashmiri Shawl, I didn't know what to expect--but what I got was nothing like I could even have imagined: consistent praise, on the one hand, and universal rejection, on the other. The Market, it seems, was not interested in historicals set in 19th-century New York City--not unless, as one agent said to me in person (with a straight face), "they're about serial killers." She continued, "Now, if you want to rewrite this manuscript and set it in London during the Regency period, I'll take another look."
"No, thanks," I said. "No serial killers and no decadent dukes." So what was I left with? Anna Wheeler, a runaway missionary wife who flees her abusive husband by train in 1857 India, only to steam into the midst of the brutal Indian (Sepoy)Rebellion. Or, as my amazon promo says: An epic journey from the sultry climes of nineteenth-century India to the cosmopolitan chaos of New York City on the eve of Civil War--and then, inevitably, back again to India in quest of a kidnapped daughter and a lost, forbidden love. Yes, there is violence involved, but no serial killers. There's an Anglo-Indian tea-planter, but nary an English Duke.
It seemed I had written an unpublishable novel.
But if there's anything I learned during my two and a half decades in the academic world, it was to trust my own instincts--even if--especially if--the powers-that-be are in established opposition.
I knew I had written an original book with a fresh, untold story--a story, perhaps, about what would have happened if someone like--a little bit like--say, Jane Eyre, had made the mistake Jane almost made and married someone a little bit like the pious St.John Rivers and gone to India with him? Jane Eyre, if you remember, says she knows that if she goes to India, she'll die there. Anna Wheeler is stronger than that (as Jane, herself, probably would have been!), and her story begins with marrying the missionary; it doesn't end there. What if? What if? The options fascinated me. So I wrote the story.
And, it was, it seems, unpublishable.
So, Reader, I published it myself. It was the only option I had. And working with CreateSpace (yes, a subsidiary of the evil amazon: see below) allowed me to do it. It liberated me as a writer. It liberated my novel.
To make sense of my situation, I looked back to scholarly studies--the work that's been done in History of the Book in America. I seem to recall that historically whatever establishment--be it the Church or be it the Government or be it Mammon--has had control of the "means of the reproduction of texts" has always resisted change. In the 1670s the Governor of Virginia wrote: "I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing ; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy ... and printing has divulged them ..." In other words, once you let the rabble get their hands on the means of distributing ideas and information (and stories), all hell will break loose. More recently megabestseller James Patterson, (James Patterson!!!) fretted publically about a brand new upstart's role in book publishing as leading toward a "national tragedy." He fears that amazon's venture into digital publishing (and actual paper-book publishing)is going to cause "the quality of America literature ... to suffer."
My experience counters Patterson's fears: it feels to me as if a window has been thrown open and fresh air has entered the publishing scene. Oh, sure: there'll be a lot of garbage published(as if there isn't already!), but the control of the American publishing establishment (mostly owned now by multinational conglomerates)has been challenged and the book world is getting a much-needed shake-up. Again.
October 14, 2014
Emily, Flittering through Her Father's Garden
In the 1960s, when I was an English major in college, there were no women writers in my favorite field, 19th-century American literature. Oh, yeah, there was Emily Dickinson, but my professor said we didn't have to pay much attention to her; she was just a little virgin who flittered through her father's garden. And Edith Wharton? Well, she really belonged in the 20th century, didn't she?
By the early '80s, in Grad School, I'd had courses in Modern American Poetry (Frost, Eliot, Pound, Williams, Stevens), and then TWO seminars in Williams (William Carlos Williams, that is.) Seeing a pattern here? Then, finally, another course in Modern Poetry--and this time Dickinson was featured--as brilliant, groundbreaking--MODERN! And I was gone, girl, gone! Stunned! Enraptured! Blown away!
For me, Dickinson led to reading other 19th-c. American women writers--yes, there WERE some! Harriet Beecher Stowe! Kate Chopin! Sarah Orne Jewett! Harriet Jacobs! Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth! and on and on. And they were ... GOOD! Different than the men, but ... Good!
My scholarly work then shifted to take these women into consideration, and finally to bring their books back into print! I'm so proud of having been part of that movement--finding forgotten women writers and bringing them back into the canon and the classroom.
And Anna Wheeler, the daring protagonist of THE KASHMIRI SHAWL, my new historical novel, is inspired by those writers! I LOVE her, just as I love the sly, daring poetess, Fanny Osgood, the hilarious (and daring) novelist, Emma Southworth, the heartbreaking (and daring) slave- narrative autobiographer, Harriet Jacobs. On and on. I'm happy to bring those women writers to you in the beleaguered person of Anna Wheeler--and in their own wonderful persons. If you have any questions, just ask me!
By the early '80s, in Grad School, I'd had courses in Modern American Poetry (Frost, Eliot, Pound, Williams, Stevens), and then TWO seminars in Williams (William Carlos Williams, that is.) Seeing a pattern here? Then, finally, another course in Modern Poetry--and this time Dickinson was featured--as brilliant, groundbreaking--MODERN! And I was gone, girl, gone! Stunned! Enraptured! Blown away!
For me, Dickinson led to reading other 19th-c. American women writers--yes, there WERE some! Harriet Beecher Stowe! Kate Chopin! Sarah Orne Jewett! Harriet Jacobs! Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth! and on and on. And they were ... GOOD! Different than the men, but ... Good!
My scholarly work then shifted to take these women into consideration, and finally to bring their books back into print! I'm so proud of having been part of that movement--finding forgotten women writers and bringing them back into the canon and the classroom.
And Anna Wheeler, the daring protagonist of THE KASHMIRI SHAWL, my new historical novel, is inspired by those writers! I LOVE her, just as I love the sly, daring poetess, Fanny Osgood, the hilarious (and daring) novelist, Emma Southworth, the heartbreaking (and daring) slave- narrative autobiographer, Harriet Jacobs. On and on. I'm happy to bring those women writers to you in the beleaguered person of Anna Wheeler--and in their own wonderful persons. If you have any questions, just ask me!
