Release Day

Good people of the world:

The day hath arrived. My third book and first fiction novel, Emails from Heaven, has been released in kindle and paperback formats.

I put everything I had into this one, gang, and I think you’ll like it. Or at the very least, find it interesting. One quick nugget about the process of putting this book together:

I did everything wrong. And I don’t care.

I don’t mean there are grammatical errors or I put ampersands where periods are supposed to be or anything. It just means that there is prevailing wisdom about the “right” way to do things when writing and publishing books, and I generally ignored all of it.

First, traditional publishing. The agent-brokered contract with a big New York publishing house, the monetary advance and print distribution in bookstores (those that are left, anyway). The long romanticized publishing dream and sure sign of literary status. Well, it doesn’t take more than a google search to learn that this dream is not in line with the reality of signing a deal with the Big 5 (4? 3? How many are we down to now?) book publishers, at least anymore. And for someone who watches the publishing industry as close as I do, it’s obvious that “traditional” publishing, at least as we know it today, is dying. A sad truth, but a truth nonetheless. This route isn’t a viable one anymore, at least not for someone like me, but luckily there are numerous other (better) options.

Second, genre-hopping. I wrote two nonfiction, anecdotal humor books, then switched to a quasi-thriller/suspense novel. This is considered a no-no; something about confusing your readers. But I’m out of short stories, at least for now, and I don’t plan on living in Alaska again anytime soon. This is the book I wanted to write.

I wrote a story with religious themes, but without a message of religious dogma. The characters use curse words. It doesn’t fit into one clear-cut genre. There’s no potential to turn it into a series. All these things are frowned upon, at least if you pay attention to conventional wisdom, but I don’t care.

I don’t care because, as I said before, I wrote the book I wanted to write, and told the story I wanted to tell, at least to the best of my ability. And on a base level, when all the marketing and window dressing is stripped away, we write because we love it. I loved writing this book, and now I want to share it with you. And if that’s as far as things go, I’m a happy man.