{"id":115,"date":"2008-06-25T09:29:27","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T14:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=115"},"modified":"2018-10-31T12:53:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T16:53:10","slug":"in-search-of-a-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=115","title":{"rendered":"In search of a void…"},"content":{"rendered":"

My good friend (and soon to be famous filmmaker) Lonnie Martin recently updated his blog with an explanation of the dreaded \u201cvoid\u201d that haunts his life<\/a> upon the completion of a major project.
\n<\/p>\n

Since I\u2019ve been spending quite a bit of time these last few weeks looking deep within myself in a sort of western-eastern fusion way, I took the time to read his entry and feel generally jealous.\u00a0 That depressing lull in activity \u2013 free time after pounding against a wall for months, or years \u2013 is elusive for me.\u00a0 When making movies, I can see where that sort of thing opens up eventually.\u00a0 There\u2019s a clear finale, and payoff.\u00a0 Sure, now Lonnie has to chew on nails waiting for the festivals to get rolling, and the reviews to come in, but there\u2019s that sense of completion.\u00a0 Something that doesn\u2019t really happen in the book world.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be publishing my third book this coming September and, inspired to look even further into how I\u2019ve run my life by talk of the void, I went through my email archives and charted the life of this third book.\u00a0 The author was initially contacted in September of 06.\u00a0 That\u2019s when our first book came out, and we were well underway with the second book.\u00a0 For just about every publisher, a book takes a year to put together.\u00a0 And that\u2019s after the damn thing is written!\u00a0 That\u2019s a year of post production.\u00a0 We\u2019ll not even talk about what the author goes through to put a book together.<\/p>\n

For a small press, that year can stretch out a bit.\u00a0 In the case of the third book, two years.\u00a0 It was about 15 months of work on the first book, and about 17 months on the second one.\u00a0 There\u2019s no downtime, either.\u00a0 Since January 2005, I\u2019ve pretty much been wall to wall freakout.\u00a0 Even when the book hits the shelves, it doesn\u2019t stop.\u00a0 And, by then, as you can tell, all production is deep into the next project.<\/p>\n

As I now look ahead with a new sense of where I want to be in life (zillionaire, surrounded by nubile teenaged women, and able to afford a high class drug habit), I\u2019m thinking it\u2019s time to enter into a hiatus of sorts.\u00a0 Not the void of Lonnie\u2019s nightmares, but a reevaluation of what I want out of whatever it is I\u2019m doing.\u00a0 I suppose I should figure out what I\u2019m doing first.\u00a0 Because publishing books is roughly like pushing through an endless corridor filled with the Devil\u2019s mucus.\u00a0 Or maybe I just lack focus.<\/p>\n

So, the third book will be the last, unless money comes pouring in.\u00a0 I won\u2019t shut down the publishing company, as I plan to inch up the food chain a little bit and try my hand at being a publicist.\u00a0 It is now my experience, after dealing with half a dozen publicists, that the job demands a high amount of pay for a very little amount of work.\u00a0 Basically spam email a bunch of fuckheads, get 20 replies or so, and then tell the publisher to follow up because, wow, 20 replies out of 10,000 emails!!!\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t it worth all those thousands of dollars you paid!?!\u00a0 WOW!!!<\/p>\n

Publicists sort of follow the modern political machine philosophy \u2013 that Jedi mind trick stuff.\u00a0 The war in Iraq is good.\u00a0 You want us to bomb Iran.<\/p>\n

Many would say that the Jedi mind trick has failed Bush, but, I don\u2019t know\u2026 I think there\u2019s a very vocal, though very tiny urban liberal population that\u2019s outraged, and a vast — oh, I don\u2019t know, Silent Majority? \u2013 that thinks Bush is just fine.\u00a0 Because that\u2019s America.\u00a0 Selling the crazy since 1945.\u00a0 Sure, Bush has all these low ratings, but I never trust opinion polls because the only people who take those lengthy, unwanted phone calls are people with an axe to grind.<\/p>\n

Anyway, publicists.\u00a0 Thousands of dollars for two months of \u201cwork\u201d which is comprised, mainly, of sending that spam email, replying happily if someone bites and saying that the publisher will take care of the next steps.\u00a0 And, if you want a publicist who takes those next steps themselves, then you pay through the nose.\u00a0 We\u2019re talking 10 grand for the basic package.\u00a0 The occasional second tier publicist will let you get away with 5 grand.\u00a0 And it\u2019s very specific what all that money gets you \u2013 a 250 word press release.\u00a0 That\u2019s, what, $40 a word?\u00a0 And it\u2019s your own words, too.\u00a0 Coming from the back of the book and the normal publicity materials that every publisher develops.<\/p>\n

Sure, I guess you\u2019re paying for the list that the book will go to.\u00a0 But you can buy those for five grand, and keep them updated with interns.\u00a0 And publicists are a dime a dozen these days, so the response is rarely coming through because the person doing the push is a celebrity\u2026 These people being contacted are reviewers, freelancers, feature editors.\u00a0 They\u2019re content driven.\u00a0 Though publicists (and literary agents) want you to believe the book industry is full of wizards conducting arcane rituals, the truth is that every book\u2019s publicity campaign is basically like opening up in a crowded room with a shotgun.\u00a0 No matter who\u2019s firing, they\u2019re going to hit people.<\/p>\n

But, if you drop 20 or 30k on a publicist, at least you have someone in the lobby who has chained all the exits shut.\u00a0 Then, as with the first Harry Potter<\/em>, a publisher can just stalk through that crowded room and hit everyone.\u00a0 Reload \u2013 boom \u2013 reload \u2013 boom \u2013 reload \u2013 translation rights \u2013 reload \u2013 sequel.<\/p>\n

Retooling my company as a publicity firm could prove to be fun, lucrative, and safe compared to publishing.\u00a0 When I say it\u2019s moving up on the food chain, I\u2019m not kidding.\u00a0 Wolves don\u2019t eat wolves and Viking raiders don\u2019t raid other Vikings.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, I could just spend the next two years with my nose to the grindstone.\u00a0 Throwing money at the debts, and buying myself a year off work.<\/p>\n

My friends say, oh, Nacho, get on the career path.\u00a0 Let go of all this work for yourself bullshit and get a higher paying job that\u2019s upwardly mobile.<\/p>\n

I hate working, though.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think people understand that.\u00a0 I spend my entire commute wondering if I could sharpen the edges of my Metro farecard and cut open people\u2019s throats.\u00a0 And as for jobs\u2026shit.\u00a0 I get low pay at my current fuckhead factory, but I\u2019m able to watch TV all day and take two months off a year to self medicate in foreign pubs.\u00a0 Truthfully, when I think about jumping ship and changing jobs, I can\u2019t imagine having the tolerance for anything other than night watchman, landscaper, or maybe rattlesnake milker.\u00a0 Jobs where no-motherfucking-body is going to bother me.\u00a0 No talking, no flirting, no friends, no drinking buddies, no weird drama, no supervisors, no underlings.\u00a0 Just me and, you know, a sharp sickle.\u00a0 Or a nightstick.\u00a0 Or rattlesnake nipple clamps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My good friend (and soon to be famous filmmaker) Lonnie Martin recently updated his blog with an explanation of the dreaded \u201cvoid\u201d that haunts his life upon the completion of a major project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,13],"tags":[402,176,400],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-wage-slave","tag-books","tag-publishing","tag-wage-slave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1130,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}