My Life in Publishing

Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | Posted by: Henry Baum

I’ve been thinking about how I’ve gotten to this point and why I’ve become such a zealot for self-publishing.  I have to say that self-publishing was an absolutely last resort for me.  I was trying and trying to make it in the world of traditional publishing.  And I’ve had some luck.  I mean some people can’t even get an agent, and I’ve had four of them, each representing different novels.  I’ve been translated into French, had a book put out in the U.K. Random House, et al, though, have not come knocking.

My first novel, “Camera Shy” (a lead character and title I used for a story put out in an anthology), was me trying to rip-off my favorite writer, Richard Yates.  Namely: The Easter Parade, which is about two sisters, so was mine.  It was a failure of a novel, but at least I wrote 200 pages in a row, and enjoyed it.

Second novel was called “Dishwasher,” my attempt at writing a first-person Bukowski/Kerouac-inspired novel, with the slacker generation replacing the Beat generation.  It was better and I got an agent for it.  She wanted to call it “Dishboy” because it was “funkier.” She sent it out and it had a nice reaction, but no takers.  “Boy can this guy write,” I remember, which is nice, but no book deal.

Wrote my first novel that was published next: first titled Oscar Caliber Gun (now titled The Golden Calf).  My agent hated it, and reluctantly sent it out. An editor said, “I cannot see a market for a novel that is slight and lacking in any meaningful message.”  I’ve memorized that.  The agent sent it to me sort of gleefully (I thought) as vindication for her distaste for the novel.  Ultimately we had a falling out because I made the mistake of asking her assistant if I could see the cover letter she was sending out with the novel.  Jay McInerney said he liked the book and I wanted to know if she was mentioning that in the letter.  I couldn’t reach her on the phone, so I just asked the assistant to send the letter.  The agent went ballistic.  Said I was doubting her skills as an agent.  Really, she just wouldn’t return my phone calls.  But I think she was looking for a way out because she didn’t like the novel.

And so I went to St. Mark’s Books in NYC looking for small presses to submit the novel to myself.  Got a bite from Soho Books.  Not much else.  And then I discovered a VERY small press, Soft Skull, that had these little handmade books printed at Kinko’s.  I sent in my novel along with a demo tape of a band I was playing drums in called Montag.  The editor, Sander Hicks, accepted the book, and was especially taken with the tape and that I’d begun my query letter with, “Dear Freakshow.”

So, finally, I was published.  I remember walking up First Avenue and my girlfriend at the time calling down to me, “Hey, published writer!”  Such a nice moment.

And then I had a book: which looked like this:

Soft Skull was an amazing little scene.  Run out of a basement on the Lower East Side, a scene of poets, musicians, and malcontents.  But Soft Skull sort of learned what not to do with my book.  It was their first full-color, perfect-bound book.  The book helped them get distribution, but my own book got sort of lost in the process.  But the feeling of having that book in print made up for whatever distribution it didn’t have.

I broke up with the girlfriend mentioned above and in my misery I started writing another novel.  That novel took me four years to write and it was a pretty bleak experience to write it – made even more miserable by the fact that I couldn’t find a publisher after finding a different agent for it.  Cue my next run-in with an agent that has contributed to my growing distaste and suspicion of traditional publishing.

I was very excited about having an agent – especially an agent who seemed to be so in love with the main character.  Until he told me: Are you sure she should join a religious cult, it seems so out of character.  The book is about a porn star who joins a religious cult. The cult section is 200 pages of a 300 page book.  Asking to cut out the cult part is like saying “Star Trek” shouldn’t be set in space.  My heart was broken.  He sent it out – including to a NON-fiction publisher, who replied, “Sorry, we don’t publish fiction.”  Now, this guy isn’t inept.  He’s a good agent with a good list, but I’m not sure I was getting such great attention.  The book didn’t sell.

So, I said, fuck it, and wrote something I thought would be more commercial.  The porn star novel (called “God’s Wife,” which is a title I stole from my dad’s second novel, which also wasn’t published: maybe the title is doomed) was very character-driven, not a lot of plot.  No mystery to be solved.  Just a sort of “Underground Woman.”

So I wrote a more-plotted novel.  I’m pretty much incapable of writing a straight commercial-type novel, but it was definitely more plot-driven – about a celebrity who starts killing people in L.A. using the M.O. of the serial killer, The Vanity Plate Killer.  An agent tried to sell it, didn’t happen.  All the while my wife was pregnant and our daughter was born, which added a healthy amount of pressure to support my family as a writer, not just support my artistic ego.

And then one day I discovered self-publishing.  A friend of mine sent me his novel, The Spoon, which was put out by Xlibris.  It was the first self-published novel I’d seen and I thought to myself, Wait a minute, this looks like a book.  I didn’t have a lot of money to shell out so I discovered Lulu and put out the book.  The first time I saw an early version of the printed book – which was horribly formatted – it was like getting a book deal.  Seriously.  I was finally seeing myself in print after so much hope and disappointment.

I put out the book, it got some good reviews, got a mention in Entertainment Weekly, which led to me getting yet another agent who tried to sell it again (without talking to me on the phone – not once), and who wasn’t able to sell it, again.

And now here I am with my new novel and I’m not even bothering going through the process any longer.  I know I’m an interesting writer.  Know it.  But if I was having trouble getting stranger fiction published 10 years ago, it’s really not going to happen in this climate.  And now self-publishing is gaining, and there’s actually an additional amount of fun and challenge if I’m able to succeed doing it this way.  It may even be more satisfying than a book deal.  I mean, I spent the other day formatting the innards of my book myself – and people think this is a lesser achievement, even though I’m in total artistic control of how my book is produced.

So I’ve become a self-publishing advocate, which is not something I ever wanted for myself.  But then, I always wanted to be in print.

Next up: My DIY Life where I continue to figure out why I’ve become such a self-publishing zealot (besides poor luck in traditional publishing).