Canister X – A.P. Fuchs: Zombie, Paranormal Romance and Superhero Novelist, Blogger, Artist, Publisher

March 8, 2006

Dear Dave:

Thanks for your recent letter, the latest having covered a lot of ground. I’ll just go through yours in order and do a point-by-point/section-by-section reply in the interest of staying organized.

My rate for copyediting is 1 cent US per word and for a Canadian client it’s still 1 cent US per word but then come invoice day, whatever the US total is, it is exchanged at that day’s current exchange rate to arrive at the Canadian dollar value of the total. Since the Canadian dollar is doing well these days (lately we’ve been hovering around 1.11-1.13 on the exchange), it’s not too big of a deal. If this was a few years ago where our dollar stunk and the exchange averaged at around 1.65, then unfortunately for the Canadian client, the service would cost them more.

The comment about “by Dave Sim as told to so-and-so,” I see where you’re coming from. I don’t believe it’s an editor’s job—copyeditor or just proofreader—to rewrite anything or “redo” anything. The job is to point out to the author where he/she messed up regarding continuity, grammar, spelling, etc. Sure, an editor corrects words or puts question marks beside word choices (especially ones that don’t fit the context of any given statement), but it’d have to be a super heavy “redo” for them to have any righteous claim to a joint byline. That, and any suggestion/correction an editor makes, the author can say no to especially if they’ve hired someone on a freelance basis to go over the manuscript. There’s always a written agreement, too, that so-and-so was hired for such-and-such a service, he/she is to be paid X amount for said service and that’s where the relationship ends.

I liked your idea of just stepping back from all this “creative” stuff and getting a McJob. Trust me, I hear you. I’ve toyed with that idea too and instead of being glued to my work station for 10-12 hours a day, it’d be nice to do my 8 hours and not worry about work until the next block of 8 hours rolled around. Ah, the price we pay for following our dreams and seeing our goals through. And, in truth, I wouldn’t trade this job for anything. Well, maybe being an action star.

You haven’t sent me a copy of the Cerebus Guide to Self-publishing, but it’s okay; I already have a copy (see my first letter to you). Thanks for the offer, though.

So on to the “meat” of our correspondence: our foray into the world of the gray stuff. You had used abortion as an example in your comments. After I first read it, I quickly saw that such a topic could open a door into a discussion on one’s morals and religious beliefs (yours, mine, whoever’s). But I’ll try to keep that separate for now as best I can because, since you and I are dealing in the medium of letter writing, I’ll attempt to keep things simple instead of sending you a 10-page letter each mailing and vice versa (though, of course, I’m not opposed to long letters written and sent by either one of us). So in summation, if I understood your point correctly, we take an issue like abortion, create a “spectrum of extremes”—so Abortion Yes on one end and Abortion No on the other—and then with our pens draw up lines where each line is connected to a “reason” for the abortion and depending where that line is on the spectrum, it would either be closer to Abortion Yes or Abortion No. Or am I making it too complicated? Before delving into that, I’m not sure if the jurisdictional approach to abortion (or the prison terms for a certain crime or whatnot) would work in that if I live in the north end of town and want an abortion but in my jurisdiction abortion is illegal, what would stop me from going to the south end, where it is allowed, to get it done? Unless, of course, that the jurisdiction you live in is the one you have to adhere to lest you face a fine or jail and even if you went to the south end they wouldn’t perform the procedure for you because you would be required to produce two pieces of ID that state your address and what jurisdiction you’re in. You’re from the north, tough beans, buddy!

The spectrum approach is an interesting one, but by allowing different nuances to see where upon it you fall, are we not then opening up the door to more gray stuff? If one end is white, the other black, the stuff in between has to be varying shades of gray. For the record, I’m pro-life (which we can always get into a discussion on at a different time) as murder’s murder no matter which way you slice it. Even when you kill someone in self-defense, you’ve still killed them. And depending how you look at it, abortion is a form of self-defense as the female is “saving” herself from something—fill-in-the-blank, here. But then what of our incest victims or our rape victims or our twelve-year-old teens who were taken advantage of by Daddy’s friend and are now with a thirty-year-old’s child? Wherever that situation(s) falls on the spectrum, should they be allowed to end a life if either a) it’s just a cluster of cells in the womb so by ending it you’re denying it the right to develop into a child and live or b) it’s a maturing fetus that’s four months into development but then you’re disallowing his/her birth? I think the real question is: where are we getting our laws from and what are we basing them on? This, of course, could sidetrack us into the religious arena so I’m trying to avoid that for now, but it does make one wonder from where/when we got our laws and who made them. The nuances thing could work but it would have to be on a very tight and, dare I say, rigid platform without room for leniency, because the thing with nuances is, in the context we are talking about here, each circumstance is different—especially when dealing with rape or incest (i.e. was the defendant coerced into the intercourse? Was it forced? Did they go into it willingly but then things got out of hand and so it was rape? etc.)—it opens the doors to a plethora of nuances and thickens the gray area. In Winnipeg alone, there are around 700,000 people and over half are women, so for the sake of discussion, if all the women in Winnipeg ended up being either rape or incest victims, we’re dealing with a possible 350,000+ unique circumstances that each carry nuances of their own. I know from this and from my previous letters to you that my personal desire to see the restoration or black and white in society may come off as if I want to live in a dictatorship or under a similar type of government. That’s not the case but I thought I should clarify that just in case. My main issue would be to challenge those “in charge” (and I use the term loosely) and Mr. Everyday Joe to take a real hard and objective look at how things are run, how we’re living our lives and, further, why we are heading down the road of “anything goes.” Which then kind of takes us back to the “each circumstance is different so yields a unique outcome” argument, the “we’re all different and unique so what I view as wrong might not be what you view as wrong” thing, which then takes us back again to why we think/feel the way we do. We only have three possible scenarios of outcome if two disagreeing people were to find out why they thought something: either I would be wrong, you would be right, or I would be right and you would be wrong, or we’re both wrong. The thing of it is, we can’t both be right when you’re dealing with yes or no, true or false, up or down, left or right, black or white issues (which most issues are if we dare to trim away all the “fat” that we’ve layered around the things of everyday life). But those “outcomes,” referring to the aforementioned “each circumstance is different so yields a unique outcome,” each yield a different specific result but on a broader scale. For the sake of example, let’s take murder. Whether I killed someone intentionally, killed them in self-defense, or abetted a murder, they all resulted in the specific outcome of someone’s death. Then the real question is to what degree should I be held accountable? Dare I say fully? Regardless of the original intention or circumstance, the way it panned out resulted in the loss of life. I’m responsible for that loss of life because of my actions. I was involved therefore I am responsible. Then what of my punishment? Should it be the same as that if I went out and killed someone I disliked or if I instead shot you because you had a gun aimed at my head? This is why other evidence comes into play when they sentence someone: was it premeditated? Was it done out of malice or out of defense? As a thought, how about a set penalty for a crime that can be added to based upon the “other crimes” perpetrated at the time of said crime? Example, the penalty for murder is ten years in the pen regardless of circumstance. If I pre-planned the murder, another five years. Was it one victim or two? If it’s one and it was intentional, I get put away for 15 years. If it’s two people, then I go away for 30 and/or a sentence where the death of each person on your deathlist has to be paid for in increments of, say, 5 years. That’s not to say a person’s life is only worth 5 year’s in the pen—as obviously the victim’s family would no doubt like to see you hanged or put away for good—but the point would be to set a set penalty for whatever crime. I’m not a lawyer, a cop nor politician nor will I pretend to know the law inside out and backwards. Maybe this approach is far too simple. But then again, maybe it isn’t.

Moving on…

I’m pleased to hear you possibly doing future Collected Letters editions. I’m still reading the first one. I admit to taking a break from it as I just dove in to and completed a 12-book fiction series so wanted to take the time to read those. But I’ll be getting back to your book any day now. As a suggestion—and also from the point of view as a consumer/reader—please consider making them at least 200 pages long, 250 being ideal, if/when you release more. From the consumer’s point of view, it’s the whole bang for your buck thing. The current 2004 edition is printed at 8.5” x 11”, right? If you decided to pursue POD for it, and utilize the Lightning Source option I suggested, as a FYI, to POD print at anything larger than 6.14” x 9.21” it increases your per unit cost (I believe that’s the top size before it costs more though I don’t have my notes in front of me; I know there is a page size limit before increase though). A suggestion might be—depending on how much material you have—to publish each volume as a quarterly publication, where, say, Jan-Mar ’05 would be in one book, Apr-Jun ’05 in another and so forth. Of course each book would be slightly bigger or smaller than the previous based on the volume of mail you received. Then if you took your reply letters and formatted them at, say, 5.5” x 8.5” or 6” x 9”, to fill that 200-250 pages wouldn’t be a problem and you’d save a little on your per unit print cost. As an idea, too, I wonder if adding even a three-page Cerebus story or one-panel/page Cerebus gag would get readers from the regular storyline to pick up the Letters book(s) because of the included art?

The other day I thought, “Gee, I wonder if Dave has ever thought about crossing over into the electronic publishing business either through Aardvark-Vanaheim or via a partnership with another firm?” I’m referring to eBooks. Though I don’t see them ever replacing an old-fashioned print book, they do open the doors to readers who prefer the electronic reading format. There’s 10+ different e-formats ranging from a simple PDF file you can read on your computer screen to a format where you can download the text into a handheld device that’s akin to a Tricorder and you can tote it around like a regular print book. I had thought, “I wonder if Dave has considered doing this for either his text-based Collected Letters volume(s) or even for the Cerebus trades?” Obviously the goal with any creator is to share his/her work with as many folks as possible. As a thought, putting the Cerebus trades into e-format might be beneficial to the sales of your phonebook volumes. Your phonebooks retail for about $25-30 Canadian. Well, if I’m new to Cerebus and his world or just have a partial interest in it, I might not be willing to spend the $25-30 for the book. However, I might be willing to spend $10 for the eBook edition (eBooks typically retail for less than the print version by about half). If I liked what I read/saw in the e-version, I might get the next volume in print and/or replace my e-version by shelling out for the print version (I know of some people who do this for novels). EBooks are a good way for people to try out authors they’ve never heard of or are just interested in but are unsure if that author can deliver the same wallop every outing like, say, Stephen King or Alan Moore. Anyway, it’s just a thought, Dave, but since eBooks require zero maintenance save the initial work to format them, the profits yielded might be a nice additional income during your retirement. Passive income. I believe Gerhard has a site set up for auctioning off some original art, right? If you pursued the “e-option,” he could put up some links on there as to where online readers can purchase the e-versions of Cerebus, make an announcement to the Yahoos, send out a press release online, and all the rest.

Anyway, I’ve rattled on a little longer than I originally estimated. I hope all is well with you. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Bag of Bones by Stephen King is one of my favorite books. I read it very early on in my writing career and it’s stuck with me ever since. I heard they were making a movie of it but, like a lot of things in Hollywood, it hasn’t come to fruition.

This book has a special place on my shelf, and it should have one on yours, too.

Click Here to Order from Amazon.com

November 3, 2010
Blog: Reading Angel
Web: http://www.readingangel.com/2010/11/scott-nicholson-guest-post-and-kindle.html
Comment:

“Yet clearly I don’t want to believe it, or I would have embraced that incident as proof of the afterlife.”

This statement piqued my interest. Do you have any idea why you don’t want to believe in an afterlife?

Actually, to fine tune the question even more: what is it about the possibility of an afterlife that scares you hence, it seems, making you not want to believe in one? Because, frankly, what each and every one of us believe has no bearing on what really is. Truth is truth, fact is fact, and beliefs–no matter how varied–don’t change that.

Thanks.

November 4, 2010
Blog: The True Book Addict
Web: http://thetruebookaddict.blogspot.com/2010/11/scott-nicholson-guest-post-and-kindle.html#idc-container
Comment:

Never got into reading during the school years, mainly because you were forced to read certain books and, frankly, none of them really appealed to me. However, after high school, I started reading books I wanted to read and suddenly a whole new world was opened up.

Terry Goodkind, Stephen King, John Grisham, Alan Moore, Warren Ellis–man, just such good material.

These days, my influences are from all over the place, especially as I’ve been exploring the world of indie comics and have been finding some real cool voices (Alec Longstreth, for example).

I agree. With all the options out there in the digital era, we’ll never be bored.

November 5, 2010
Blog: Chrissie’s Corner
Web: http://www.chrissiescorner.co.uk/?p=3122
Comment:

Good post. Thanks, Scott. Please put me down for Kindle.

November 6, 2010
Blog: McQuestionable Musings
Web: http://mcquestionablemusings.blogspot.com/2010/11/guest-post-with-author-scott-nicholson.html
Comment:

Ahh, the beauty of the Internet: the ability to publish a rejected manuscript and no one says boo about it.

However, at least you took the time for rewrites, edits, overhauls, etc., the stuff sometimes needed to make a book worth reading.

If anything, you’re kind of straddling the line here, yeah? The idea of a writer taking a rejected book and self-publishing it because he believes in it?

(And, yes, I crossed that line many years ago. However, the difference between you and I is I subsidy-published mine out of naivety and not really know what the reading audience required, whereas you’re doing this properly and with experience built in when creating the final product.)

Let’s hope this “sucky” book does real well for you, man.

November 7, 2010
Blog: Sparkling Reviews
Web: http://www.sparklingreviews.com/2010/11/kindles.html
Comment:

I’ve been debating for a while on which e-reader I want. A Kindle would almost seem like the default, but at the same time, I like the idea of color as I would want to read comics on it as well, so at present I’m leaning toward the iPad with the Kindle app.

I know that Kindle is where it’s at in terms of the action and selection, but yeah, that color thing for a comic geek like me . . .

*Note* Though the information below is somewhat dated, and I’ve since adjusted my stance on a couple things, the “meat” of the article remains true in that self-publishing is hardwork and not simply “upload and go” like is being hyped nowadays. The below info is not just for e-publishing, but also self-publishing your material in print as well. I also want to add that I’m not longer interested in landing a traditional publisher for myself unless they can go above and beyond what I can do on my own.

The Truth About Self-publishing
Originally published on-line February 10, 2006

Those who self-publish non-fiction works or information productions will draw a different conclusion compared to what I’m about to say, but for those who put out their own fiction works, the following is guaranteed . . . at least at the beginning.

Self-publishing fiction is hard. If you are going into it with the view that you will become rich and famous, respected and popular, you will be severely disappointed. Because you are putting out your work yourself, you are forced to focus on all aspects of publishing, not just the writing. Right there your mental energy and/or mental well-being will be divided into several parts and the days of worrying about only your latest story or editing your latest yarn will be long gone. You might even find with all these new responsibilities swirling around your head that your creative juices might slow their flow. That’s a shuddering thought for any fiction writer, but it’s also a realistic one.

Self-publishing is no easy challenge. There is a great financial risk involved even if you use print-on-demand, a significant investment of time after your book is in its final edited form, and the looming thought that it might not yield any results—in any capacity—at all. If I had hyped self-publishing as a Godsend in my previous articles, I apologize. If you decide to self-publish your work, I can guarantee you a long, uphill battle in getting your book into bookstores (you will then have to do business on their terms using their discounts and their returns policy), but most importantly, you will have to fight to get your stuff into the hands of readers. You must be willing to hustle your butt every day to make readers aware of your work and, better yet, making sure they wind up with the book in their hands, bought and paid for. If you think setting up a website is all it takes, you’re in for a world of hurt. The sales will not come to you even if you had gone the traditional route and had someone else publish you in an effort to ensure sales as their responsibility (though I will add I believe every author big name or small should get out there and promote their work nonstop until—and this takes a good long while, if at all—their name on the cover alone is enough to sell millions of copies). You will be met by prejudice and rude comments if you begin hanging out with traditionally-published authors. Not only will such remarks come from them, but from bookstores as well. And if a bookstore does not express their distaste for self-publishing from their lips, you will see it in their eyes, in their expression. I’ve been there and other authors have as well. It won’t matter if your book is completely error-free, is the greatest and most intense story ever written, has the most beautiful cover—because you self-published it, the stigma that is primarily the fault of vanity and subsidy presses will haunt you.

I implore you, if you are one to be easily discouraged or if you lack the confidence needed to take a chance and put your work out on your own, your heart will be broken and it might be hard to pick up the pieces afterward. You will need a thick skin and an unshakeable drive to see things through even when things get so hard you want to throw your computer out with the morning trash.

Self-publishing in this industry is basically a declaration that you are doing things your way and are walking your own path toward your final publishing goal. To go back to the first entry in this little series, if you wish to use self-publishing as an entry point as I’m doing, that’s fine and I wish you all the best. But if you expect to self-publish and only self-publish and become as huge success like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, it’s not going to happen. I wish that wasn’t the case, but that’s just how it is. The publishing world is a huge one, and, at best, self-publishing can act as your small-to-medium-sized press entry point (depending on your success). To go beyond that, you will need that big traditional contract I mentioned back in the first entry. I will always stand by self-publishing as a great way to get started and get your name out there and build your resume (and even then, more often than not, a self-published book on your resume in the eyes of big publishing firms doesn’t count), but if you only wish to write and only wish to worry about your stories, seek a traditional publisher. Please.

The choice is yours.

October 3, 2010
Blog: Cheryl’s Book Nook
Web: http://cherylsbooknook.blogspot.com/2010/10/chatting-with-author-scott-nicholson.html
Comment:

Whether you knew it or not, you just revealed a great truth in your article here: one of the main secrets of indie publishing. What is it? Niche publishing. By streamlining your stuff into a “genre” rather than a vague mix of speculative fiction, you just catered your product to your target audience.

That’s how it works. Jack of all trades if a master of none, and all that. Specialization is key.

October 4, 2010
Blog: Simple Stacie Product and Book Reviews
Web: http://simplystacie.net/scott-nicholson-blog-tour-twenty-kindle-giveaway/
Comment:

You’re one crazy dude, Scott, but this is a brilliant marketing plan. If book sales are founded on one principle, it’s not ads, but word-of-mouth. That’s why publishers are big on reviews. That’s why books that become movies suddenly become bestsellers. It’s all word-of-mouth, and your 20-Kindle Giveaway is sure to generate a crazy amount of buzz about you and your books.

Nice work.

October 5, 2010
Blog: A Journey of Books
Web: http://ajourneyofbooks.halfzero.net/2010/10/guest-post-with-author-scott-nicholson.html
Comment:

What a crazy surprise!

But, you know, you might have done yourself a favor with this and your L.C. Glazebrook stuff might get a boost in sales. I mean, looked what happened when Joe Hill was outed as Stephen King’s son?

October 6, 2010
Blog: Bookgasm
Web: http://www.bookgasm.com/features/i-am-the-digger/
Comment:

Comics is the greatest medium in the world–and this is coming from someone who makes his living writing and publishing novels. Comics were what got me writing in the first place, me writing scripts for guys in my art class.

Comics can do things no other medium can. They can paint pictures, be read at any pace, and can carry more layers and depth than any book or film.

I’ll have to check out your comics work at some point, Scott.

Peace.

October 6, 2010
Blog: My Blood Approves
Web: http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/2010/10/zombiepalooza-giveaway-guestblog.html
Comment:

“Some writers tell me life gets in the way of their writing, and I am always amazed, because writing IS my life . . .”

I’m the same way. Always have been even before I actually put ink on paper. Make-believe is where I’ve lived since as far back as I can remember. It’s where I lived as I strived to “pretend” for a day job. It’s where I live now because it is my day job.

I never understood the “life gets in the way” argument as to why authors or artists or whoever don’t get stuff done on their craft. If it’s important to you–if you have a goal–then you make the time for it. I remember countless nights without sleep because I had to get my writing in. I remember the countless mornings getting up at 6AM to go to the day job even though I went to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning the night before because I was building my business.

To make your craft your life, you need to lay the groundwork. You need to work at it. You need to actually do it instead of talking about it.

You need to remember that once you cross that line and make your craft your fulltime gig, you’ll have the freedom to let “life get in the way” once in a while. (Face it, it happens.) But each day you put off your goal, that’s one more day until you achieve it.

Your call. Your choice.

Because going down into the dark recesses of the harddrive and pulling up old files is easier during my current hectic schedule:

Check Your Ego at the Door
Originally published on-line January 27, 2006

A person has the potential to do anything, to be anything and to become anything. One of the greatest hindrances of any person’s life is to give in to the limits you impose on yourself. I’m not the first person to have said this and I won’t be the last. However, along with having the potential, we must also understand and know our current limitations. Having the potential for something doesn’t always mean you are immediately capable of doing it.

Self-publishing is labeled “vanity” publishing for a reason. Like the word implies, it is the vanity of some (possibly you; I know for myself I fell in to this trap early in my career) which has led to the many stigmas of self-publishing. Many authors believe their work is nothing short of phenomenal, that in spite of rejections from publishers, from critiques from editors/other authors/writing groups, the way they had their story written was, is and will always be, incredible. It’s usually at this point after a rejection(s) that they choose the self-publishing route and get their work out there despite many suggestions and warnings from others that their work isn’t ready.

Depending on how you end up publishing the book without the assistance from a traditional publisher, you’re going to quickly see there’s more to the final book itself than just your manuscript. Now, if you go the vanity/subsidy route, more often than not, these companies will help you with the final steps from transforming your manuscript to finished book. Example: editing services, interior layout, cover design, etc. All for a fee, of course. (And a high fee at that!)

For the true self-publisher, the one who acts as the publisher of their book and takes on the costs thereof, who operates a publishing company even just to put out their own material—and this is really only the real way to go if you want to self-publish your book well—you will have to run through a checklist of what needs to be done presentation-wise for your book before it’s ready for the public. We’ve already talked about editing in the previous entry, but I’ll say it again: get an editor. Do it. Don’t ask questions. You’ll thank me later. For the remainder of the tasks to be done, you will need to ask yourself—and you will need to be 100% honest with yourself—what of the remaining tasks can you do as well as a traditional big time publishing firm and what do you need help on?

All this is distilled to one thing: the book’s presentation both inside and out. Because of authors who thought they can handle all the final steps themselves, it is yet another reason why self-published works come off secondhand or amateur. Can you layout the interior of your book so it’s exactly like something coming off the press from, say, Random House? Do you know what is required precisely in your interior to make it appear as if your one-person publishing company uses the same technology and/or software that a multi-person firm uses? Do you know what software to use, how to use it properly and what is currently available? If you’re not sure, either learn how or hire out the laying out of your interior while you learn the ropes. It is worth the wait, the money, the experience.

Cover art. Aside from a writer, are you an artist who can produce artwork on par with the professional artwork being published on the covers of books today? If so, then great. If not, then find someone who is, pay them, then rest easy knowing that the image on your cover is of the same quality as that of a Stephen King or John Grisham book.

Do you know how to place text on a cover? Do you know how the human eye works when following the design of an image? Yes? Good. No? Learn about it. Same goes for the back cover.

Just because you have an idea of how something is put together, that doesn’t mean you understand it. Though the joy for any writer is in the creating of their story, there are—depending on the individual—many not-so-joyous tasks that must be completed before you’re ready to release your book into the marketplace. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking you know everything or have an idea how everything works. Only vain idiots do that. You’re much better off knowing where you fall short, saving up to pay a professional for the required tasks, and knowing in the end you have a well-put-together book than to release something that would be distinguishable from a big firm-published book if you put the two side by side. In publishing, big picture thinking is crucial if you wish to make a career writing and/or publishing your work. If you’re shortsighted and just want your book out, you’re wasting your time and your career will fail. Just because others—mostly those who use vanity/subsidy publishing—have gotten away with it doesn’t mean you should follow in their footsteps.

There’s no shame in admitting what you cannot do. In fact, it is commendable because then you have discovered an opportunity to learn and grow as a person.

Now you’re making me sound like a parent.

Canister X Newsletter Vol. 1, No. 1

April 2010

Writing and publishing for a living is a dream come true for me. Sounds horrifically cliché, that last bit, but the truth is it’s what I’ve wanted for about ten years, and the ability to not have to go to a 9-5 for even longer.

I look back at high school and all my friends talking about their plans for the future, what universities they were enrolled in, the profession they were aiming for—direction. I never had that. Sure, I had “direction” in the context of wanting to be a comic book artist for DC or Marvel, but in terms of the “how” I’d get there, I didn’t know. Not really. Something about commercial art, but nothing specific. We don’t have cartooning schools here, you see.

Oddly, there was a comfort in not knowing the precise steps but knowing I’d get there eventually. When most of my friends were cramming for exams, staying up ’til all hours studying for tests, aiming for the high marks—to be honest, I was more concerned with just getting by. Not getting by as in barely passing, but if I got a C, I was fine with it. The way I saw it, was aim for average and if you score better, you’ll feel like a genius. So there I was, kind of cocky, thinking, “Man, so glad I won’t have to bust my butt to get good grades just to get some job I don’t like.”

When I was a kid and I thought of what I’d be doing for a living, I didn’t have an answer. All I knew was that it’d be “something.” Maybe something at a desk. Writing on paper. Maybe signing my name on a few things, but not much else. In terms of what industry or specific job, I didn’t know.

Then I got into comic art in grade eleven and found out I could express my love of superheroes for actual money and not just as a fan.
It’s been a long road since then and I’ll tell you about it sometime when I post my memoirs here. I’ve already begun putting to paper my writing journey as a separate series of entries.

Back to the beginning: writing and publishing for a living is a dream come true, but it can also be a frustrating one sometimes, and remember that bit I said about not having to bust my butt? Well, I might not have done so academically, but I can tell you I’m working it hard every day to bring you entertainment, whether it’s my own personal books or the books of those I publish through Coscom Entertainment.

And so here we are, frustrated again because I’m writing this super long entry which is my second attempt at a monthly newsletter. I started Coscomment: The Next Generation a while back, before I was posting daily at www.CanisterX.com, the idea being that instead of maintaining a blog, I could just send out a monthly newsletter. Well, it turns out I could maintain a daily blog and have developed the habit of doing so, but I still also like the idea of a newsletter, one giant info session discussing everything from writing, to publishing, to cooking, to my day-to-day life and areas of interest not related to my career as an artist. Almost a brain dump of sorts, but with a little more structure.

It’s fun to just kind of ramble and deposit a large amount of information in one go.

So here we are, back to doing a newsletter.

The frustration? The pretentious statement of “always having something to write,” starting one project after another, sometimes not finishing what you start because, believe it or not, folks, a lot of writers have novels and stories that go bust on them and they dump them off into the nether regions of their hard drives, never to be seen or heard from again, remaining unknown to the general public.

And this monthly newsletter attempt is me yet again having “something to write,” and something to try and entertain you with, and if not that, at least keep your interest.

Hopefully it hits the mark.

Guess I just can’t shut up.

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Been busy as all get out. This month alone I finished up Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead, signed a deal with Simon and Schuster’s Gallery Books imprint; did all the tasks associated with that deal; launched a free online serial on www.CanisterX.com called Zomtropolis: A Record of Life in a Dead City; edited a book for Coscom Entertainment; did author royalties; have to get ready to send taxes before we head off on a short holiday; got a chunk of the Coscom catalog up on Smashwords.com; launched Animal Behavior and Other Tales of Lycanthropy by Keith Gouveia; arranged a book launch for Zombie Fight Night with a local bookstore; never mind all the other tasks that comes with being a fulltime writer and publisher (including a financial institution switch for the business after my current one really screwed me over). Yeah, crazy busy, but it needs to get done and I’m not complaining. Just feeling the burn, if you know what I mean.

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My compost bin has been collecting various compostable items all winter. Of course they freeze during those months so not much happens rotting-wise, but now it’s all thawed and I’d say the stuff is around 80% ready. The problem is I only have one compost bin—and they’re not cheap: $30-$60, depending if you can get them on sale or not like we did—and if I keep adding fresh items to it every few days from our small kitchen bin, those new items have to start at the beginning of the process, thus slowing down the rest of it in terms of getting the stuff to the garden. Anyway, lately I’ve been leaving what’s in the bin in the bin, and any new stuff is in small plastic bags from the kitchen bin and sitting on our porch in a diaper box. That’s fine for a few bags of new stuff, but with the weather heating up, I don’t want bugs to start swarming around them or the neighbor’s cats tearing them open. I’m thinking a week or so I’ll bury the almost-ready compost from the main bin in the garden and let it sit for a few more weeks then plant, in turn starting a fresh batch with the stuff from the bags.

My current compostable items list includes (and I’m always open to suggestions for more items from other composters):

- fruit and vegetable scraps
- paper
- soft cardboard (i.e. egg cartons)
- hair
- yard clippings
- grass
- dryer lint

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I admit I’m a latecomer to this—especially since I’m really not one to follow the trends and don’t give in to hype or do something because “everyone else is doing it”—but I seem to have an addiction to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and find myself having it play in the background on Youtube while I’m trying to beat Mahjong Dark Dimensions over at Arcadeboss.com. It’s catchy, and I try to counter that addiction a bit by viewing the Key of Awesome’s Lady Gaga spoof, “Lady Gaga: Bad Romance parody (feat. Lord Gaga) #6.”

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Since Zombie Fight Night is so close to coming out as I write this, I’ve also been getting things ready for my local tour and am trying to get local media attention onto the book. I have nearly all the stores interested (still need to make a couple phone calls), but so far only have one event scheduled for May 20 at 7pm at McNally Robinson’s Booksellers. That’s okay. And just the other day I honed my idea to get the attention of those in the store during the event.

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Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead officially launched on Thursday, April 23, 2010. I’m very proud of this book because it combines two of my favorite genres: martial arts and zombies. This is my ode to B-fight movies. If you like action, zombies and Fight Club, you’ll dig this. It’s available at Amazon.com both in Paperback and Kindle, as well as via the usual paperback and eBook channels that I use.

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Watched a Stephen King documentary on the 23rd as well, the one from A&E Biography called Fear, Fame and Fortune. Back when I started writing this was an important source of inspiration to me. That and American Movie. I own the King doc on VHS, which goes to show how old it is. I haven’t seen it in years. I could relate to a whole lot in there, especially the being poorer-than-poor part. The one theme that kept coming up during the documentary was Stephen King’s persistence at making a career out of writing.

And it’s true. In this game you need to push, push, push and keep going even when you want to give up. Even when others say you should give up. You have to. Persistence is what separates the aspiring writers from the real writers. Aspiring writers only want to write, whereas real writers actually write.

This is an industry that is based on getting things done. If you can’t produce then you’re out of the game.

Like I say around the Coscom Entertainment office, “Get it done.”

- A.P. Fuchs
Winnipeg, MB

Originally published on-line at the old Coscomment blog on November 22, 2006

Being a writer ain’t easy.

The writing aspect of it, that’s a breeze and is a most-rewarding experience. To sit down and create, to put dreams to paper, to speak one’s mind on various subjects and provide commentary on life all wrapped up in an exciting tale—that is sheer joy. There’s nothing I’d rather do. Ever since as far back as I could remember, I was always making stuff up, living in my head more than I lived in the real world. It started with superheroes and my own superheroic fantasies as Superman and Batman. When I got older, those fantasies turned into creating my own heroes (Axiom-man, for example, whom I first created the story for when I was 13) and, as I got older still, creating other stories that were non-superheroic but had more to do with life and the ups and downs thereof.

Writing is cathartic in a lot of ways. The latter part of my novel, A Stranger Dead, and the whole of my unpublished novel, For The Cause, helped me deal with some strong emotional issues I had at the time. April, my love story written as Peter Fox, was also an exercise in making a point about love and how I felt—and still feel—about the most beautiful yet complex of all human emotions. Writing those stories was sheer bliss and once I finished each tale, the sense of accomplishment was overwhelming.

Writing is so powerful and seeing your ideas and dreams realized on the printed page is just as powerful.

But that’s where it stops for a lot of writers, and for those who attempt the next step—publication—that’s a whole other experience completely.

Most writers would tell you that the creative process is what keeps them going in life, the undying need to commit their thoughts and imagination to paper. We can’t help ourselves. Even if not a single story of ours got published, we’d still spend day after day typing away, emptying our full heads onto the page. Most writers, as well, will also tell you there is one thing they hate about being a writer: the business side of it.

This is a tough field. The reality is writers—and any other kind of artist—are a dime a dozen. Virtually everybody on the face of the earth has some form of creative ability. Some are better at it than others, naturally, and some have the drive and need to create more than others as well. Regardless, artists and writers alike are everywhere and if a writer is going to take the next—and final—step in the creative process, he or she is going to go up against some very stiff competition.

Last I heard, there was close to 200,000 titles published annually (fiction and non-fiction). Amazing, and there’s also no way to know how many other books are written that never see print. Using what we know, though, that means that every year, when an author puts out a book, he or she goes up against nearly 200,000 other people. 200,000! Let me ask you, out of those 200,000, how many authors can you name? A dozen? Maybe two? That’s only 24 out of 200,000 or just .012%. It’s no wonder that most authors—the ones you don’t see gracing the bestseller wall at your local bookstore—are banging their heads against the wall trying to come up with ways to get their books and names in front of readers. It’s no wonder that a lot of writers who couldn’t break into traditional print—not necessarily out of lack of talent or literary merit—are utilizing subsidy presses or are self-publishing their books.

And thus is the challenge. How does one get their title out there?

I hang out with a lot of writers, their station on the publishing industry ladder ranging from bestsellers to midlist to small pressers and self-publishers. And, like in any other industry, you’ll get a wide variety of opinions on “what’s best” for your career. Thus where a lot of writers find themselves frustrated, especially beginning ones. The newbie author has high hopes and large dreams. More than anything they’d love to see themselves as the next King or Grisham, their first book netting them a massive advance and guaranteed shelf space on bookstores worldwide. This rarely—and I mean rarely—ever happens. As mentioned above, a small, small percentage of books put out each year are by “name” authors; the rest are by guys and girls most folks haven’t even heard of.

A newbie author will often seek advice from those in the business on how to get published and in turn gets bombarded with a myriad of opinions.

If you hang out with a lot of writers, you know there are many in the what’s been dubbed “publishing elite” category. The thinking from this group is that you must get an agent then get picked up by a huge New York firm to be considered a “real” author. If you don’t, you haven’t made it yet. Others in this camp state that you have to get picked up by a firm willing to pay you an advance and print up at least 5000+ copies of your book in order to be a “real” author. Their condescending tone is unmistakable and it’s always their way or bust. No room for negotiation or second opinion. As a result, the newbie author gets frustrated when he or she can’t land an agent, can’t land a contract and ends up going the small press route or self-publishes. I admit, I’ve been there. I’ve been fooled.

Then I discovered a little secret to success in this business, and the secret is this: it’s all about the writing. That’s the only way a writer will find fulfillment. If one is stuck fighting in the trenches all the time, he or she begins to get tired of fighting and eventually gives up. That’s why a lot of would-be writers drop out of the game after receiving a boatload of rejection slips. They’ve become so blinded by the have-to-get-traditionally-published-so-I-can-be-a-real-author attitude that they’ve lost their first love, and that is the creative act itself.

Furthermore, if you are seeking publication for your work, you have to at first ask yourself what your goals are in this business and where you’d like to see yourself. From that starting point, you can easily take a pragmatic approach to your career. Do you want to be famous? Do you want loads of money? Believe it or not, a lot of authors love their day job and writing is just a thing they do on the side. Some don’t want to be famous. Some have decided to write for niche audiences only. The idea here is goal-setting.

I know a guy who writes fulltime and is famous. That was his goal and he achieved it. I know another who loves his day job and just writes because he has to and isn’t concerned with “getting the big contract” but publishes only in the small press. I know another who writes novels and posts them on his blog. What do these three have in common? The craft. It’s all about the craft and because each had discovered what their goals were and what worked for them in this business, each of them is fulfilled in their career as an author. And, yes, I consider them real authors. A contract doesn’t mean anything. If you’re always writing something, you’re a writer. If you’re always authoring something, you’re an author. If you’re always painting something, you’re a painter.

That’s the secret. You have to find out what works for you in this business, not what works for the big names on the bestseller lists or what works for the writing buddies you hang out with. You need to know what your goals are and pursue those goals. Then, and only then, will you be happy.

As mentioned above, I once lost sight of that. To me it became a New-York-or-die attitude and that tore me up inside because I was having a hard time “breaking in” (and these days breaking into New York isn’t easy; splitting hairs with your teeth would bring a faster return). But then I reassessed my goals and formulated my own approach to this business. I decided to put my own material and build an audience. I decided to use the small press as a stepping stone. In other words, I decided to put the writing first and the business aspect of it second. As a result, I’ve had New York doors open up to me. I can only attribute this to both God’s blessing and my willingness to pursue my goal based on what worked for me and not what others said I should do in order to become a “real” author. Many who read this will probably disagree, but then I’d have to ask you what is more important: writing something solely on the basis of what sells or writing something that’s being true to you as the creator? Writing is an honest act. Why lie about it or sell out? There’s an audience out there for anything. The issue is how much of an audience, but if you know where to reach them, how you reach them is meaningless. The point is that you do reach them.

It is my encouragement to you if you’re feeling down and out about this business to reassess your goals and find a publishing method that works for you and you alone. Resolve yourself to press on ahead despite the clamor from the publishing elite and makes roads where there are none. Your confidence and drive will take you a long way.

It’ll take you to where you want to be and you will be rewarded.

Click Here to Order from Amazon.com

4 out of 5

If you had the chance to start over, would you take it? If you could program your entire life in a better world, would you do it? These questions are asked (and answered) in Faith Awakened, the new novel by Grace Bridges.

Enter Mariah, trapped in a life—and a world—filled with trouble. And not just any “trouble,” but the Trouble, a series of events that has left the world near void of human life save for a small band of survivors. Struggling to put the pieces of a broken life back together is no easy challenge, but thanks to the company of a few close friends and the guidance of an ever-present Awakener, Mariah seems to pull through. That is, until, something even worse happens and she is left with no choice but retreat into a virtual reality program for several decades until it passes. Once inside, and without memory of her previous life, Mariah must discover what it truly means to live, to find purpose in life, and how to truly be awakened.

It’s hard to imagine this is Bridge’s first book. The way Faith Awakened is written makes you think she’s been at this for a long time. The prose is detailed yet smooth, firm in approach yet comforting, well-articulated yet easy to read.

I’ve always been a fan of end-of-the-world type of stories and while reading this book I was often reminded of Stephen King’s The Stand, where a super virus has taken out most of mankind. Bridges captures the loneliness of an empty world, one filled with dead streets and empty houses, with only pockets of life (human or otherwise) scattered here or there. She truly makes you feel for these characters and care about their every move.

Told as a dual narrative (one following Mariah and the other a girl named Faith), Bridges seamlessly blends two storylines with ease, ones where I wish they had gone on once each were finished. There are rumors she might start up a sequel.

This reviewer is hoping for it.

Recommended.