Is the Tail Wagging the Dog?

Is the tail wagging the dog?

This is my first blog post on my new website titled ‘Norman Spatz Author’. I worked as the English editor of a website administered by the Ministère de l’éducation of the province of Quebec for a number of years. Once I retired, however, my connection with the behind-the-scenes world of websites came to a close… until now.

Just before I retired, I became a member of the Creative Writing Group at the Cummings Centre for Seniors in Montreal, Quebec. That was about eight years ago, and I am still a member. When COVID struck, we met online. When I first came there, everyone would get a copy of everyone else’s one-thousand-word production for the week. We would all make comments and corrections and return the paper to the author. After spending about eighteen months on Zoom, we now simply post each author’s work on a screen and one person highlights everyone else’s proposed corrections and changes during a face-to-face weekly meeting.

Eight years of writing can produce results. My first novel, ‘Training for Trust’, almost seemed to write itself. It stemmed from my time with a professional bodybuilding trainer and the people who worked out in that gym. I had become very involved in fitness and the story almost wrote itself. As you can see on this website, I have now completed five novels, three of which are published and sold on Kindle/Amazon. My two unpublished novels to date could appear on Kindle as ebooks and paperbacks within a matter of days… if that was the path I wanted to take.

When I finished my first novel, I sent a number of letters to publishers. I tried local publishers first but got no response. As time went on, I began sending letters to publishers across Canada and eventually to English-language publishers around the world. This is not an easy process. Every publisher has their own protocols for submitting letters. Every time I submitted a letter, I tailored my information to the firm, taking the nature of the books that they published into account.

And then I discovered Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. With a reasonable competence around a computer, you can have a book on sale on Amazon around the world in less time than it takes to write submissions to ten publishers. It’s guaranteed to be published… even if the book is terrible. There is no money to pay. In the traditional publishing business model, there is an initial print run which the publisher pays to print in advance of sales. At Kindle, books are printed on demand. Nothing is printed before it is sold.

My fourth book ‘Passing through Prince Street’ would be published on Kindle already except that my wife has insisted on proofreading it. She originally thought that this would be a quick process. It has been nearly a year, and she is about halfway through the book. I do think that there have been subtle improvements, but I am impatient to see my book emerge on the market.

But there is another issue as well. The Quebec Writers Federation, of which I am a member, classifies its members as general, professional or student members. To cite their website:

A Professional member must have published (not self-published) at least 40 pages of fiction, poetry or non-fiction (including journalism), or have professionally produced at least 30 minutes of radio, film, television, theatre or multi-media. Storytellers and Spoken Word artists must have presented at least one full-length solo show or have had at least 3 professionally paid bookings.

There is a definite class system that has emerged between the published nobility and the self-published author in the publishing world. If an author can convince a publisher to invest money in their book, there is a presumption of quality. As I said, Kindle will publish anything that someone sends them if someone else, or the author themself, purchases it. So, I still want to find a publisher.

Theoretically, a publisher will publicize your book. They count on you to do a lot of that job, however, unless you’re famous. Not every author is happy with their publisher. On almost every list of submission requirements for publishers’ agents, they ask if you have a website. I have now taken time out from my writing to produce one. I enjoyed the process, but now I have to get people to read my website.

How does one entice people to one’s website? One writes a blog, of course.

And so now, at least for part of my writing, I have gone from writing novels to writing blogs.

I do hope that you enjoy my blog, but questions must be asked: Is my website a result of my novels? Is my blog a natural consequence of my website?

Is the tail wagging the dog?