How to Sell a Life
In the time since the end of the feminist play list posts, I have started about three posts and not finished them. Some of it has been time. Personally, this past year, things have been hectic (in one month, we had a dislocated knee; norovirus; several car issues; a death in the family; and a gas leak in the house, which meant no stove, no heat, no hot water. Within one month! May has sort of shaped up to be similar) and because I've been thinking a lot about what it means to sell a book and make a book.
I like to write. Am I good at it? ...Maybe?
See, if I were selling you a book, I am supposed to say: yes. There are bits I'm good at but, I need to improve. I can never focus on the good part.
Selling a book is hard. Especially when there are so many books out there. My to-be read list is endless. Sometimes I buy books because I hope to get to them, but I am also a terrible mood reader. I also am always hungering for something that is hard for me to name, and I think that ties into selling my book.
The Dissolution of Tal Stephens is what? I guess Tal belongs in spec fic. It's not necessarily a romantasy. You can take out the romantic plot and it'll be fine, although I think a lot of Tal's character growth is because she allows herself to love, but you could argue its because she allows herself to use magic. I'll just say, there is clearly a strong romantic storyline. I suppose you can say "it's this" without it being 100% one thing--this is I think how selling works--but I am incapable of that.
I am too earnest. I am Julian Bashir believing every story that Garak tells, but Garak knows truth relies on perspective. Truth relies on where you put it. (I love Star Trek, but Deep Space 9 especially because I feel as if it's the most writerly; but, all of Star Trek is interested in the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves).
Selling a book is also about selling an image of an author. I worry that I am unpalatable. I'm very opinionated (see prior parens). I'm loud. I rush into things and then I get overwhelmed and retreat. I have become more introverted than ever before since working from home for 8 years, to the point that sometimes I forget how to talk to people.
You have to sell yourself as an author at the same time that you are selling your work. I'm not doing that at all here. In fact, am I actively discouraging people? Oh no.
I've been trying the trad pub thing for a while and part of trad is telling an agent why you are the thing to take a chance on because you already know where you live. I don't know where I live. Every time I think I do, I falter.
So here I am trying to tell you, dear reader, that I wrote a book I don't know how to sell, but look! I made a thing! A good thing! I've read a lot of things about how to sell a book, how to sell the story of a book. But I think it involves telling a story about yourself and where you live, and I don't know how to do that.
So how do you sell a story?
Let me tell you about Tal. Talbot. Talia. Tal. I can tell you about her all day.
Tal has re-built her life many times. When her father died. When her mother rejected her. When she killed a man and decided to dress as one because they were looking for a woman, not a man. When she hid her necromantic powers from the military order of mages who demand that every potential mage come to them for evaluation and training. She knows how to rebuild a life.
She just doesn't want to do it again.
But she is curious and compassionate and compassion leads to stupidity, it leads her to reveal her magic at a great personal cost in front of a mage. Sure, Daniel Thayer is disgraced, but he's still trained and he still holds all the power. If she helps him find the serial killer attacking mages and draining them of their gift in a Gilded Age steampunk New York, he'll keep her secret. He'll keep it and he'll train her.
I like to joke this is Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence meets JD Robb's Eve Dallas series, except Newland is a loser and I don't know if Daniel is (he's wildly romantic and not very wise. Revenge and a broken heart don't always mix. Garak would find him a poor spy, I think). And Tal isn't a cop. There's magic and a little bit of horror and a bunch of kisses. Where does she belong?
Maybe fantasy. But I wanted to ground it in late 19th century New York so there is also a lot of history. Tal's aunt believes in abortion and reproductive rights and suffrage. There's the politics (all of writing is political, sorry that's the Salman Rushdie reading in grad school talking).
So, I'm trying the indie thing with Tal. When I published my first novel, I didn't know what I was doing. I think I stumbled onto Kindle Direct Publishing because of NaNoWriMo (RIP). Then I became nervous because in learning about publishing, I thought trad was the only way. Indie, I think, is the harder path, especially if you don't know how to sell yourself.
Last year, a friend of mine asked me to be her book fair aide for a local book fair. I helped set up and I talked her books to people and I got to walk around and look at books and meet other authors. It's hard. Talking to people is hard for me. But indie authors are out there doing it. Doing the fairs. Doing their websites. Learning how to do art or commissioning artists. Marketing like pros. Learning how to craft stories and how to sell the story of the book to bring in authors. I'm in awe of them.
I hope I can do it. There's a wonderful cadre of other spec fic and romance authors that I'm in community with who are also trying this, and there is a lot of support there.
Where does Tal live? I don't know. She doesn't know either. If she's caught dressed a man, she'll be sent to an asylum. If she's caught using her magic, she'll be packed off to the Order. If she allows herself to believe the story that Daniel tells her--that she is powerful, that she can do these hard things, that he loves her, trousers, short hair, and all--then she'll have to craft her own path.
And that's the work.
(I've got a new website going and maybe I'll get up the other posts (do you want to read how Huck Finn told us how we were gonna arrive where we are politically? Or about AI in tax work? Or about Columbo and the detective pastoral? Or more Tal! Let me know)
Pre-orders coming soon. As soon as I figure out how to fix my Goodreads. And other stuff.
