Why the Second Book Often Sucks

So--my book is out there. You might have noticed all my shameless self-promotion of late. (Altruism in Gophers now available on all Amazon marketplaces!) And while I've stepped into a bewildering new world in terms of marketing and independently publishing, I've also come to the end of a project. Something that only existed in my mind for several years is now a real book that anyone can buy.

Before you have anything published, whenever someone asks you what you're working on, it feels like you're describing a personal game of Pretend. You feel like a phoney playing at being a writer. And, it's easy to see why, really. Your mind is populated with imaginary people in pretend scenarios. Everything is made up.  Everything is happening in your mind alone until it ends up in a document on your computer that no one is reading but you. It's basically a given that you're going to crave a little outside validation every now and then.

If I'm telling the truth, which bourbon and late night blogging seem to spur, I might as well admit that I didn't want to go this way. I wanted to write a novel, submit it to a literary agent or twelve, get picked up by some kindred spirit type who would shop it around to the editors they knew at the big publishing houses while I plunked away on another story. Sooner or later, I'd get a congratulatory phone call and a paycheque and eventually I'd see my book stacked up on the tables at Costco when shopping in bulk for things I never knew I needed. That's how I wanted it to go. My dreams are small(ish).

That's not how it went.

While I personally prefer stories with satisfying resolutions, so far my own saga is more like a European art flick where nothing much ever happens, but damn, that main character is maddeningly compelling. (Actually, I don't watch those kinds of movies. I've moved into a purely escapist Action Adventure viewing era. I'm very happy here.)

What did happen was that I got ignored and rejected. At first it rocked my confidence, especially in light of the unimpressive fare that gets peddled as worthwhile reading these days. Then, the process made me cynical about the market and the gatekeepers of the industry who I couldn't respect but who had jobs and paycheques and bios on websites that other people managed for them. A lot of these industry professionals had blogs with advice to give. I read them and wondered if they realized how much they seemed to speak out of both sides of their mouths with conflicting advice.  The pathway to publishing a novel is like finding your way through a corn maze in the fog at night time with disembodied voices yelling advice at you like the audience on The Price is Right. Who are these people and how good is their advice?

"Write what you know," is the the most ubiquitous writing advice you'll come across. And yet, does J.K Rowling really know what it is like to be an orphaned wizard with a destiny? Are the writers of mysteries constantly encountering murders in real life and solving them? Did J.R.R Tolkien know the burden of the One Ring? Did Pat Conroy really have such a difficult and complex relationship with his father--? ...Never mind.

My point is, what good is telling me to  write what I know, if the market and its gatekeepers are actively looking for something else?  For a while it seemed that the book industry pros were clamouring for teenage paranormal love stories, ("not vampires though, so overdone"). Then, they all wanted dystopians possibly about you know, maybe some games where children are forced to fight to the death to avoid starvation, ("but with compelling characters with original voices in unique scenarios...").  Now, it's all gender-bending protagonists and resisting in the Age of Trump.

It's hard to catch a trend--; even if you want to.

And yet, all that to say that despite my burgeoning cynicism about the industry professionals and their opinions, I never wanted to self-publish. I didn't want to do it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I wanted someone who knew the standard of good writing and storytelling to tell me that I was meeting it. And secondly, having to market and distribute my book all by myself freaked me the hell out.

It still does. But here I am. And this level of the maze is just as confusing as the last. I think the reason that I prefer action movies to most other genres is that there is an expectation of narrative resolution somewhere around the two hour mark. Not so, in life. I've written a book. I've edited, formatted and published said book. (Altruism in Gophers! Buy it here!) But the resolution still hasn't arrived because while the project is creatively complete, I've got bills to pay and marketing is another animal entirely. Writers can blather on about writing for themselves--which is creatively necessary--but they still have to teeter between artistically beneficial and commercially viable. Do I cynically undertake to write the next paranormal gender fluid protagonist resisting a supposed tyrant in a dystopian world of gladiatorial matches where all the bad guys wear red ball caps? Or do I write what I'm actually interested in? It's a lot of pressure and I think it may be why sometimes an author's second book often doesn't live up to the vibrancy or quality of the first. The pressure is real. How to make a living. How to connect your work with the people who will enjoy it. And, what to write next that will satisfy all of these requirements?

(Art by Cody Andreasen)

I often say that I'd be willing to sell out if someone was willing to buy. I'm mostly joking. Especially in light of the fact that the one story I've written that never received even a single rejection and was accepted within a day or two of sending it was The Energy Trader.  I cynically included every single detail mentioned in the call for submissions and dashed off the script in a matter of hours. I created an absurd superhero story meant to lampoon the whole notion that stories and characters had to meet the parameters of identity politics. But turns out, since it technically checked all of the boxes, nobody seemed to notice it was a satire.

I guess there is something to be said for selling out.