Economics and ego
Having just completed yet another revision of the Great Book, I considered it again. The Book is now cut in half, down to 95,000 words, and is finally in a condition that makes it worthwhile trying to query. I have enough out-takes for another novel, although it would be an exceedingly dull one since the out-takes are all the boring bits. There were a lot of them.
Double-spaced, it'll print to a little under 400 A4 sheets. A lot of paper, a lot of printer ink, and an unfortunate waste of both since it needs one last pass for blunders before it goes out. I can't do that on screen. It makes my eyes hurt. So I have to kill some trees, and probably several ink cartridges, to print it all. All of that draft will be thrown away.I looked at Lulu again. To put together a primitive paperback would cost me £6.40 (about 12 Yankee dollars, for the sake of internationality) plus postage. Considering the price of ink cartridges in the UK, that might actually be cheaper than printing it myself. It would use less paper and put the whole thing in a bound book, which I can then fill with sticky notes and pen-marks. I won't lose pages. They're all stuck together. It's small enough to carry around so I can tut-tut at typos and other mistakes wherever I am. I can even do it while enjoying a bottle of Bob's Bile Beer on one of the swamp-loungers at the back of the castle. The wind won't blow pages away and it's no trouble to grab it and run for the house should the Scaly Swamp Thing decide to call in for a bite.
So that's the plan. It's an ego-boost, but I'll be the only one to see this Only Copy of This Version. Ever. It won’t go on sale at Lulu. Once the copy arrives, I’ll delete it from Lulu’s site. I’ll use that copy to make changes.I will not, of course, fall into the trap of sending a bound copy to an agent or editor. Such a move would be greeted with derision, and responded to with a small piece of paper carrying a very big ‘No’. Perhaps, also, a personal annotation by the editor to the effect of ‘Do Not Do This’.
No, the submissions will be on plain, unbound, A4 paper, printed double-spaced, just like it says in the Things You Must Do part of the Publisher’s rules—also known as ‘The Guidelines’. For that, I have no option but to refill my ink cartridges and print until the printer screams for mercy (It took a while to add that feature, but I like it).Should this book ever become famous, my descendants will have the option of auctioning the Old Version, of which there will be one copy only in existence, for a large bag of cash. Should the book flop, well, the paper Lulu prints on is quite soft and absorbent, so it won’t go to waste.
Comments
if you're just printing for yourself that's fine, but here's another reason to beware Lulu - recently heard they have apparently not been paying any of the writers for the books that do sell. Some issues there, it seems..
so, any day now The Book is going out into the big bad world, huh? better finish up my crits then..
Posted by: David de Beer | March 25, 2007 01:05 PM
I haven't seen anything about Lulu on this. It's not important to me since I'm only printing myself a copy, but it would be unfortunate if they went down. They're a useful resource for getting a good-quality, bound, printed copy of anything.
I doubt anyone will ever get rich fom self-publishing anyway, the only sensible way to make money is to persuade a publisher to do it all for you.
From what I hear, 'real' publishers can be a little lax with the royalty payments too!
Posted by: Dr. Dume | March 25, 2007 06:22 PM