On the subject of Dilbert Pinkerton...

So, I had a long overdue conversation with the guy that runs Pro Se Press, the small-press publisher that published my first two novels. Initially, I messaged him to finally apologize. Because I felt like I gave up on writing and haven't written anything in a year. And obviously haven't even tried promoting my books.

Even now, I still feel like a failure when it comes to writing. My books didn't sell. I'm not particularly happy with the things I wrote since then. For example, I have two fully completely manuscripts: a third Dill adventure and my first crack at a YA novel. The latter is a complete mess in my eyes and basically requires a complete overhaul of the plot, world building, characters, and everything else in between. Dill? Of his three adventures, I actually like this one the most. @Zero Esc read and partly edited it (she was understandably too busy and overworked with other things to do a proper full edit). But her biggest feedback is she thought it was the perfect balance of the big threat like the first book and the smaller, personal threat of the second. It still needs a lot of work, including reworking a particular thing towards the end.

But I've sat on it for over a year because, as I said, I felt like a failure as a writer. Depression has obviously hit me hard in the past year, which hasn't helped. I thought about taking Dill elsewhere, but my only option would be self-publishing since:

1) It's highly unlikely any publisher would be interested in re-publishing two books that didn't sell.
2) Publishing the third book in essentially a failed series.

And even self-publishing is too big and intimidating for me. I probably couldn't afford a cover artist, for example. And I think part of what made the first two a complete failure was my inability to properly promote myself. I still don't know how to promote myself, so whether I went with Pro Se, self-published, or another publisher, self-promotion would still be a major issue.

And yet...after talking with Tommy (the Pro Se guy), he got me thinking. For one, he completely understood how I felt. He said that Dill's third adventure would still be welcome at Pro Se. He even suggested an idea I'd had before: re-publishing the first two as a set to promote the third book. He was open to my idea of giving the first book a complete overhaul. Not in terms of plot, but just the writing itself, like editing out most dialogue tags ("he said, she said"). But doing a "Dill Double Feature" was one rough idea if I self-published. Heh, I even had an idea for the cover: parodying the 1990 Ninja Turtles movie where Raph leaves the movie theater disgusted, looks at the movie posters, and says "Where do they come up with this stuff!?" Only in this case, it's Dill looking at the covers of the first two books.

So now I'm...I don't know. Feeling maybe inspired to give this a go with Pro Se? I'm tempted to crack open Dill's third adventure and have another look at it. And maybe start re-working the first book. But I don't know. I don't want to do all this only to be disappointed again.
 
It'd be a better use of your time than arguing with racists on Twitter :p. I'm sorry I don't have time to do a proper edit of the third book, but like I said before, I did enjoy it.

If you have ideas in mind already for how you'd like to work on the first book, then start there. If you believe in those enough, they'll come fluidly as you're working through it.

I've also toyed with the idea of putting all my fairy tales into one big book, but since I don't have a related project to promote, it doesn't seem worthwhile right now. You, on the other, do have a third book that would benefit from it, and you can release the other stuff not only as a Double Feature, but as a New Edition since you'll be doing edits and revisions.

I would get your expectations in order--nothing we do on our own is going to sell one million copies. In fact, I'd say the publication world is shrinking as fewer people are buying the same books as each other and more are finding their niches and just reading stuff that's written for them. That's been freeing for me--I wrote a novel that was essentially greased to be mainstream friendly, but now I'm not sure I'll ever publish it. Maybe? But I'm not sure, because it lacks my personality and character. But everything since then has been very me, including the novel I'm trying to find an agent for at this time. The short stories I'm doing now? Subtle horror. I thought years ago I had to appeal to mainstream horror perspectives to get anywhere and I hated what I was writing, but no longer worrying about casting the widest net means getting to write the kind of horror I love most. I almost wish I could break down my first novel, because I had to add 100 pages of glue to turn what was essentially six or seven good short stories into one segmented novel. Hell, I still might since I'm no longer going to publish under my old name.


So with that said ... there's a group of people online who ... would probably really enjoy adult fiction like yours with anthropomorphic main characters. People who like animal people. I think you know who I'm talking about :p. I'm not saying adjust the books to meet their expectations, but they're out there, and would probably be willing to spend $2.99 for an ebook. I'm just throwing that out there. Sometimes it pays to get the attention of the right audience.
 
No need to apologize for being unable to do a proper edit. Like I said, it was TOTALLY understandable.

Heh, you're not the first person to suggest I promote to furries. And I think I did post on a furry Reddit once. It didn't make any difference. And I don't really want to write for that audience. I wish I could tap into the Ninja Turtle audience, honestly. As I've always said, Dill is like the sick lovechild of Mickey Spillane and Ninja Turtles. Tommy thinks the hard-boiled fans are more drawn to Dill than humour fans, but I honestly don't think that's the way to go. I think pushing the humour and comic booky themes is the better way to go. The biggest compliment I hear for my books is they're funny. My favourite story from one reader was when they were driving in the car with her husband. She was reading it aloud while he drove. They had to pull over because something she read (she couldn't remember) made them both laugh so hard, he had to pull over.

Also, I wish I could see everyone's reactions while they read. Zero Esc's comments in her edits always made me laugh. Like when Dill did something stupid and she wrote, "*headdesk* Goddammit, Dill." That still cracks me up.
 
I don't want to push it too much, but making a single post on Reddit isn't really promoting yourself. You kind of need to go hard with that type of thing. One and done won't cut it. I don't know a lot about advertising, but I know it can't be an isolated event.

On a complete aside:
Have you ever thought of writing something of Dill for kids? Not like a children's picture book--as inappropriately hilarious as that would be--but like a middle-grade level? I think a lot of kids would find entertaining considering how many bad decisions he makes and how grumpy he gets over the tiniest things.

Though that would have to be a new story, as you'd have to trim out the smoking, drugs, sex, cursing, and murder from any of the existing ones and then you'd be down to, like, two chapters a pop. :p
 
I don't want to push it too much, but making a single post on Reddit isn't really promoting yourself. You kind of need to go hard with that type of thing. One and done won't cut it. I don't know a lot about advertising, but I know it can't be an isolated event.

On a complete aside:
Have you ever thought of writing something of Dill for kids? Not like a children's picture book--as inappropriately hilarious as that would be--but like a middle-grade level? I think a lot of kids would find entertaining considering how many bad decisions he makes and how grumpy he gets over the tiniest things.

Though that would have to be a new story, as you'd have to trim out the smoking, drugs, sex, cursing, and murder from any of the existing ones and then you'd be down to, like, two chapters a pop. :p
Heh, yeah, that ain't happening. I'd love to do kid-friendly stuff, but Dill ain't it. I think it's safe enough for middle school age, though. I was reading Stephen King by that age and his content is MUCH worse.

But for that Reddit post, I guess that's it in nutshell: I don't know how to properly promote. Especially without being obnoxious about it like some writers I've seen.
 
Heh, yeah, that ain't happening. I'd love to do kid-friendly stuff, but Dill ain't it. I think it's safe enough for middle school age, though. I was reading Stephen King by that age and his content is MUCH worse.

But for that Reddit post, I guess that's it in nutshell: I don't know how to properly promote. Especially without being obnoxious about it like some writers I've seen.
Your options are to be obnoxious or hire someone to be obnoxious for you.
 
Drugs, sex, smoking, yes, but murder is not really out of the realm of Young Adult. Hunger Games and Maze Runner and that shit is all promoted as young adult material.
 
Drugs, sex, smoking, yes, but murder is not really out of the realm of Young Adult. Hunger Games and Maze Runner and that shit is all promoted as young adult material.
I was thinking middle grade, but yeah, YA has that stuff. Even sex if you count Twilight.
 
Middle School kids read YA, so that's why I mentioned it.
They do, but middle grade and YA are considered separate things in the publishing world (I don't have examples--maybe Goosebumps?) I mentioned it mainly because agents feel there's a dearth of content for boys in the middle grade category.
 
So...I kinda spent the afternoon completely reworking the first chapter. When I had this idea, I thought it'd be just little grammatical fixes. Or removing or rewriting dialogue descriptors.

Instead, some parts were a COMPLETE rewrite. And like old times, Dill even took over once or twice. I don't know how many of you remember the first chapter, but there was a moment where Dill skitters across a fallen support beam to reach a safe behind Tony's bar. I always felt that part was awkward, both in the set up and the writing. So I got to the part while editing and Dill suddenly went, "Yeah, screw that" and blasted the beam in half with the Daymaker! It made me cut like 2 or 3 entire paragraphs. But it not only works better and makes sense, but it's also funnier!

My favourite rewrite?

“Dammit Dill!” Tony Castillo wrapped a calloused hand around my snout. “My bar!”
“Mmf frming mrr frmmmur mur!” was all I could say in my defense.
“Oh hoooo no. Not that old excuse!” He shook his head and mine, then pulled me in so close, we almost headbutted. “You brought this mess. Think. Clean it up!”

I uploaded the rewrite (just the first chapter) to a Google doc if anyone's interested.
 
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