Howard L. Anderson's Blog: "But that was in another country"

I just received author copies of the paperback editions of "Soledad", "The Body of John Oakhurst" and "The Famous Captain Walcott". I was surprised at how good they look. I will try and get the rest of my books in paperback form by the end of summer. Thanks for your patience.

I am giving away Kindle copies of my memoir "The Body of John Oakhurst" on Goodreads Giveaways beginning May 31st. I didn't pay for priority placement, so I think that anyone who is interested will probably receive one. I have also published "The Famous Captain Walcott" in paperback. It is a print on demand book from Amazon, so I suspect the quality of the binding, etc. won't be that good. I should have "Lily" the third book in the trilogy proofread and available in a print book by the end of the summer. At least it will give those who don't have a Kindle reader a chance to finish the story

There is no money in publishing "literary" novels on Kindle, so I am doing it more for ego than anything else. It has been a different year than most. I hope everyone is well.

I did a Goodreads giveaway of "Soledad" a couple of months. I made the mistake of not getting a professional copy editor to go over the book first. I had reviewed the manuscript dozens of times and assumed I had found most of small errors. I was wrong. It just goes to show how difficult it is to find mistakes in your own work. I apologize to everyone who got the book with all its errors. I will have "Soledad" and the other titles professionally edited within the next six months. "Albert of Adelaide" and "The Famous Captain Walcott" have already been corrected.

All that I have written and completed, with the exception of a book of essays I wrote while I was traveling in Argentina, is now on Kindle and available to those who might be interested.
Over the last ten years, my novels have gone from the story of a lost platypus to sexual abuse in the prisons of Argentina. I have begun to wonder why I wandered down the path I did, and still have no answer. As I wrote in my memoir, throughout my life, I have always attracted the company of violent men and sad women. Those characters populate the books I’ve written, but they are not the reason I wrote them.
“Albert of Adelaide” was a novel written in three layers. Like most complex stories it is hard to explain and difficult to market. I am proud of the book and had it not been published I doubt that that I would have written the rest.
There are no female characters in “Albert of Adelaide”, yet the last three novels I wrote, Lily, The Spring Offensive, and Soledad are all stories of women who had been hurt badly by men. These women were important to me, or I wouldn’t have written about them. Lily, the last book in the Old Australia trilogy was the beginning of the segue from Lily’s pain, to Andrea's hunt for someone who understood, to Soledad, who was treated the worst of all. All I know, is that I was in love with all of them.

Just added "The Body of John Oakhurst" to the books I am publishing on Kindle. I will add "Soledad" and "The Spring Offensive" as soon as I hear back from the agent in London.

I have no expectations of much in the way of sales of the book, I am a better writer than a promoter. I just wanted somewhere to archive all the books I've written. Kindle makes it easy.

People who read the memoir have told me it is worth reading, but it is a small sample.

If you have a Kindle, the cost of any of my books is less than a latte at Starbucks.

I have put "Lily", the third novel in the Old Australia series, on Kindle. It should be available to purchase in three days. The price is $3,99.

I didn't spend any money on a fancy cover and it might contain some grammatical errors, but at least it is available for those that are interested.

I am still waiting to hear from London on "Soledad", the last novel I wrote. If there is no interest in the novel overseas I will publish it on Kindle along with "The Spring Offensive" and a memoir called "The Body of John Oakhurst".

I don't expect much in the way of sales, but at least my complete works will be archived somewhere.

I hate starting five paragraphs in a row with "I" but it has been one of those days.

Thanks to everyone for your interest in my work.

Howard

I guess its time to decide which one of my unpublished manuscripts to put on Kindle. The obvious choice is "Lily" the third and last book in the Old Australia series.

TJ's daughter, Shiloh, returns to Old Australia from San Francisco to find out what happened to her father. On the road, she befriends an echidna named Baldwin, who plays the harmonica and is writing an autobiographical novel about gluttony and addiction. The two are imprisoned by a promoter, Colonel Winchester, who has plans to make Baldwin the greatest prize fighter in all of Old Australia.

Lily, Shiloh's mother, comes looking for her daughter in the mining towns on the edge of Hell and the rest of the novel unfolds.

However, I have written two other books I am proud of and am not sure which one of the three to put on Kindle. With professional editing and a good piece of cover art, it costs over three thousand dollars to put each of the books online.

I know from experience that the chances of getting your money back on literary novels published on Kindle are slim to none. So, I have to ask myself if my ego would be better served by giving a different genre a chance; A memoir of war and lovers from times gone by, or a novel of the tragic relationship between a doctor and a pilot set in the Hispanic New Mexico of the 1920s.

These books, like the trilogy about Old Australia, are on one level just adventure stories. I am not at all sure that very many people are interested in adventure anymore. The culture seems to have turned inward, as if there is an answer in being self-absorbed.

Suggestions would be appreciated.

I completed a memoir of my life from the beginning of the Vietnam War to the death of my father ten years later. I had been asked to write it by an editor in London about the time "Albert of Adelaide" was published in England.

I received the following response from my agent a few days ago:
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Dear Howard,

I feel I know you so much better now (Howdy doesn’t suit you at all as a nickname I hope you shook it in the end). But, but, but, and I really hate to say this, I just don’t see that I could place The Body of John Oakhurst with a publisher, not these days. Of all categories memoirs seem to follow the most distinct trends, at one point addiction stories were the thing, then family or sexual abuse (Hunger; You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me), now it seems to be either race and health (like The Bright Hour) or memoirs that twist around an unusual subject (like H Is for Hawk or Priestdaddy). Regardless the books are almost invariably issue driven, not accounts of life experiences.

I really enjoyed The Body of John Oakhurst but I just can’t think of an editor I could plausibly send it to. I hate saying this, particularly as it’s is such a personal book and saying I can’t help feels, well, personal. And I hate even more having to say I think you might want to take the self-publishing route again. But at least then the book will be out in the world should the trends (god how I hate that word) shift back to more straightforwardly narrative accounts.

Huge regrets, but also thank you for sharing your stories with me, you’ve had quite the life!

Nicole
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Nicole is one of the best agents in the business and knows the publishing industry as well or better than anyone. Her response has convinced me that, regardless of its pretensions, the New York literary scene is pretty much the same as Hollywood. "What's hot is hot and what's not is not."

At this stage of my life, I am not very excited about acquiring a drug addiction or being sexually abused so I will take the easy way out and put my four unpublished books on Kindle one at a time. More later

After much delay, more of "Albert" is on the way. "The Famous Captain Walcott" will be published on Kindle in mid-April. I will post a copy of the cover at the end of next week. The book opens with TJ Walcott , the raccoon from San Francisco, shipwrecked on an island with a homicidal bat as his only companion. It gets more interesting after that

Hachette and Amazon have resolved the current tussle over e-book pricing and Albert has been let out of book seller jail.

The manuscript for the third and last novel in the Old Australia series was sent to my agent in New York today. With luck, the next time he goes to jail Albert will have a couple of friends to play cards with.