Guest post by J.M. Frey
Traditional publishing is great. Authors write books. Publishers publish books. Readers buy and read books. Yay, getting paid to write stories!
But, when you walk into book stores, everything is… well… shelved.
And those shelves are organized, and narrow and divisive. Here is the adult section, and here is the SF/F, and here is the kids section and they’re all just so…
Separate.
So, what do you do when, like me, you’re a bit of a genre-market-blender? Okay, not so much a blender as much as a throw it in the Magic Bullet and see what comes out-er. Man, I am a genre/market smoothier.
That’s great for books, great for readers, and great for me. It’s always fascinating to do something interesting, twisted, a little left of center. And my readers always appreciate knowing that when they pick up a book by J.M. Frey it’s going to be clever, and meta, and tongue-in-cheek, and not quite the center of normal for that genre/age range.
But it makes it hard to sell to traditional houses because the books I write are by default difficult to market. I am difficult to shelve.
The work I write simply rarely falls into neat and easy categories. And this is, in part, why I’ve decided to by a hybrid author.
The great thing about self-publishing is the ability to work in corners and niches that are too small, too narrow, too weird, and just aren’t guaranteed best sellers and income-generating for a large publishing house.
A few months ago, while chatting to Arial Burnz over at ParaNormalRadio, we spoke off-air about the dearth of SF/F poetry, and how doing weird and wonderful things was rare in traditional publishing, and how self-pubbing is generating all sorts of fantastic, fun projects like Go the F*** To Sleep, and 50 Shades of Grey, or All Your Fates – projects for which there was definitely a commercial market, an audience, and an interested party, but no foundation and history in the traditional infrastructure for such works, and thus, no interest on the part of publishers to wager on.
(Yes, some of these works, like 50 Shades have become big commercial successes, but there was very little place amid the Big 5 and the traditional bookstores for BDSM Erotica before the audience and those with buying power proved that giving the topic more shelf-space would be lucrative. And now look at how long those shelves are.)
And as Arial and I talked, we both remembered poems that we’d written years ago, and which neither of us had managed to sell. Why? Because the market just wasn’t there. And self-publishing wasn’t really there either. Yet.
We read our poems to one another, and after some encouragement from Arial, I came back around to percolating on SF/F poetry, lack of a robust market, and self-publishing.
I wanted to explore self-pubbing my poem, but in what medium? And then I remembered Jennifer Vendrig. I knew her a million years ago in DragonBall Z fandom, and had always admired her fanart. We had talked before about putting together an illustrated picture book, and it finally seemed like the right time – both in my career and in terms of the advancement of technologies and software platforms available to self-pubbers – to make the project a reality.
So that was it, then: a picture book! I mean, it’s already proven that adults like graphic novels and comics. But when I’m babysitting, the first thing I reach for on the shelf is a colorful, vibrant, fun, silly picture book. Adults like picture books with fun stories just as much as children do.
Where’s my Shoggoth? is a perennial favorite with the toddler I babysit, and with the friends of said toddler when we’re all chilling in the living room after his bedtime. We’ve all paged through it and read it at one time or another, even without the toddler on our laps.
So picture books that aren’t for kids? Natch. And self-publishing is the perfect platform, because it’s given us something that the more rigid traditional market hasn’t let us have for a while – the ability to play.
I got in contact with Jennifer and within a week, we had agreed that my poem and her art were a match made in heaven, (or hell, as is the case with this story).
And thus begins my journey toward writing, producing, and publishing my first Adult-market oriented picture book. And here’s the fun thing – you get to suffer with me!
Over the next three months I will be posting progress reports on my blog, including screencaps, information about pitfalls and what I’ve learned, and layout screencaps. Of course, this will also include sneak peeks at the art, the poetry, and the designs.
If you’ve ever wanted to publish your own picture book, hopefully my posts will be a roadmap for you.
Also, you can follow all the news, announcements, and contests by tracking the hashtag #tDLatS. (And also my inevitable rants of frustration or elation).
And check out Jennifer Vendrig’s behind-the-scenes peeks at the pencil sketches, inks, and cover art as she progresses through them. As soon as they’re available, the interior designer will be sharing screencaps and her experiences as well. (URL TBA.)
Come join me on this journey, come play, and come celebrate hybridity!
