Does my presence entertain you?

Lurking around Twitter might be having dividends on some vague interest of late. I've had a better week than I've had in months, but I don't see many profile clicks from any tweets that have done "numbers". Work on the picture book has gained has been amped up but I'm still hesitant to get it out there right now. I've said I'll postpone if necessary, I can't figure out how to do a presale so it might be easier to just launch it and see how quickly I can get it listed on Amazon. Admittedly it took me a while to realise how I was supposed to even sell it, and I can't do split distribution, it's Amazon or Blurb, so I may as well go with Amazon so then people can't complain when they ask where to get it. I know it sucks, I should feel better going through non Zon distributors but fuck, the option's available. I don't know whether to have a Twitter presence anymore now, I couldn't say for certain this is what's made the difference.

Try and Try Again?

Years ago, I was told a particular website wanted to publish a piece I wrote on not having a diagnosis. Then they never got back to me. Then when I bothered to follow it up later, I was told to email someone else, but I couldn't be bothered at that point. And all I came away with was the thought that it's a good thing I don't have rejection issues or any illness that causes me to have a breakdown over being ignored. Because a website supposedly existing to support people with mental illnesses should really be careful about who they disregard, their core audience has difficulties with emotional connections and rejection and you... ignored one of them.

Anyway, I also like magazines who use Submittable for submissions, I also hate it because if you put up barriers to submissions I won't bother as much, so Submittable makes it too easy. And I don't like the process, but every now and then I think, hey if I could get a piece in put up on an online magazine, that wouldn't be so bad. I had a short rejected while I was waiting for my first trad pub, I mentioned in my letter I was trad pubbed, because I can say that. I'm still trying to own it. Apparently they're not interested in people's publication history, so I just glossed over it, gave them three sentences of my bio which I recycle, and sent an edited version of the piece the other website never gave me an answer on. It was the right word length. I'm just waiting for them to say, yeah this wasn't what we were asking for. I guess I'm also sick of reading other human interest stories on the ABC that end up mentioning a book deal someone got for leaving a particular job to write about it or who had some harrowing experience worthy of a book deal, where the piece is almost an add for their book as well. Which is a bit thin considering it's a public broadcaster that doesn't have ads.

I don't particularly care if it is rejected. But they did say they wanted stories about mental illness. I have one. It just got ignored by a website that claimed to want to publish it then completely forgot to even get back to me, never mind publish it.

Now it's over I'm dead and I haven't done anything that I want

A thought crosses my mind from time to time about what I'll do about my book accounts before I die. I keep switching between leaving them there and shutting it all down and making them inaccessible to others, they can just become out of print, it happens. Except Amazon's ability to allow third parties to continue selling hard copies so their listings will never go away. Without anyone owning the rights to this shit, a lot of self-pubbed books will probably land in some kind of limbo until the 50 years after death of the creator (depending if Disney genuinely give up trying to extend this, I think they may have lost their last effort). Even then, you're not going to get access to their specific Amazon accounts unless someone has authority. So do I give people that access or do I just tap out of the game? Smashwords could stay there, I don't know if some kind of inactivity clause exists that they can shut down accounts that haven't been accessed, but I can't find any clauses. I'm basing all this on me having time before I die to do this, that I don't have a plan of action for a sudden death, that I didn't bring it up in my will even though I probably should have, I guess this just all becomes part of the infinite archive on the internet. My messages float in their bottles on the ether until the end of the world. That would be okay, I guess. The highly unlikely event of some filmmaker finding my work and wanting to option it despite the fact it never made any money, they wouldn't be able to reach me and if my family was contacted, I don't think they'd just agree to them taking it. But then there's public domain clauses, and maybe the time will have come and they can do whatever they like with it. Why should I care? I'll be dead.

But my point is, having read a Britney Spears post with a quote from Sophia Loren stating the fountain of youth exists within ourselves, and as an extension, through what we create, I have achieved abstract immortality. I'm supposed to be dead to a reader. I don't care about it. I don't want it to cause a headache for whomever outlives me.

Momentum

I set a tentative date for the children's book, which is at the end of this month, however at this point, I don't know what stamina I'll have putting it all together. I'm going to strip down the pictures and only upload what is ready for print; up until now I was using a lot of mockups to place. I can always muck around with the alignments now I'm not stuck with a structure or sections I was so bent on. I don't know if it's the idea of going to print that's making me apprehensive. I'm happy with the text as least, I'll have to do a final look-over by way of prints. I feel okay with giving this to one other person to look over, least if it's a small piece you're not demanding much time from anyone. I guess I don't want it to come out looking bad but I have a luxury in being able to make minor adjustments.

I think if this year hadn't had so many needlessly draining moments, I'd have more energy to face this with positivity.