I am a storyteller. For years, I called myself a writer. I titled this blog "A Writer Seeks," but, in the end, it is always, for me, about the story.
This was always my problem with the publishing industry. The training you get when you follow the path of traditional publication, (i.e, finding an agent, getting published, pursuing sales, etc) is to make it all about that instead of about the story. And that's fine - pursuing publication through traditional channels helps you hone your craft, hear what readers (or at least editors) want, learn to edit fiercely - and that is important training. But that is training in the business of writing, and, for years, as I published my first novel, then two nonfiction books, then a textbook, I was troubled by the notion that, in the pursuit of the business and the craft of preparing works for the market, that we were forgetting the art - forgetting the essence of the story - the real purpose that stories serve in our lives.
We are, have always been, a storytelling species. It is how we learn, how we teach others, how we warn children, how we communicate our hearts and souls to others on the planet. Someone once said (and I have searched vainly for the origin of this quote) that "he who controls the storytelling of a society controls the society." And therein, I think, lies the problem.
In our times, storytelling is largely communicated through the visual media. This is both a good and a bad thing. Through quality programming on television and quality movies, we are exposed to some transformative storytelling. Sometimes. The bulk of that media, unfortunately, has gotten us used to the quick fix, the easy story, being entertained. One of my favorite authors, Neil Postman, wrote a book several years ago titled "Amusing Ourselves To Death" in which he examines that phenomenon in depth. It is worth reading, more than once. But my point here is that this trend has also affected the publishing industry. What gets published is what will sell, and what will sell is driven by the market of entertainment-hungry consumers. Transformative storytelling is not the goal. Sales are.
And that became my problem with the traditional publishing industry - work driven by the market, by sales, instead of driven by the story. This is what drove me, a couple of years ago, to go the route of self-publishing. When I publish an e-book or a self-published novel (I have three out, now, and plan to release a fourth when I feel it's ready), I can write for the story and forget the rest, until it's ready to "go up." Then, if I haven't done my job, readers will let me know. And I love that.
When I published my first story, it was the second sci-fi novel I'd written. The first didn't feel done. I published Somewhere Never Traveled as an e-book first, and was stunned by the reaction it received - making it as high (at one point) as #17 on the Kindle sci-fi list, and quickly garnering six 5-star reviews. Two of them I solicited (but asked the reviewers to be fully honest if they chose to review) and the rest were complete surprises to me. As were the sales, which were remarkable for nearly six months. That success led me to rush the second book (The Heretic's Song) to publication - and readers let me know that was a mistake - hardly any sales at all for long periods, and only one tepid 3-star review ("A good attempt at first sci-fi novel, but it has problems.") I should have listened to my heart. Which I did do when preparing The Hapless Life of Samuel Joseph for publication. I took it through twenty-seven full revisions (and many smaller ones) based on feedback from eleven readers and their feedback before publication. And, when it finally went up, it got three immediate 5-star reviews (one solicited, the rest from random Amazon readers).
At a recent lunch with a friend, she remarked to me that I was "living my dream." And she was right - though I haven't published anything in the "traditional" market in a few years (and haven't submitted anything for more than three years to that market) I am, in fact, living my dream. I want to tell stories that speak to people - whether they are marketing successes or not, I want my stories to bring readers into the world I create, and make them care about it, and perhaps look at their own world a little differently thereafter.
There is a lot of debate about what the e-publishing industry is doing to reading, to the market, to traditional publishers, to the art of those who write. I'll leave those debate to others. For me, it is a free market that allows me to offer stories to readers, and hear what they tell me in return. That, as a storyteller, is all I need.
