Hello friends. I broke out the old electric type-writer for this one. My major news is that I’ve uploaded the complete draft of the Cynical Writer’s Guide To The Publishing Industry and it’s been accepted by the Amazon censors (they had initially objected to my title, for arcane reasons). Am very excited to be sharing it with the world soon! I think it’s all-in-all just an entertaining reading experience, and it’s my hope people can read it in the spirit in which it’s offered: as a salve, a balm, and a work of entertainment. It’s not gonna give you the secret to getting published, but it will tell you a whole bunch of stuff you haven’t heard elsewhere. And some of that stuff will even be true!

I’m not gonna do the cover reveal. Figure I’ll just share the Amazon link when it’s available. But the cover is beautiful! It’s priced at 5.99, and I’m hoping to get some reviews in from favorable reviewers and fans before it gets subjected to the hordes.

As I’ve mentioned before, I reread the book with an eye to "What would an unfriendly reader think of this?" And there is a considerable amount to object to! If the book becomes popular, it might provoke hot takes. I think the book is really fair to everyone: it goes deeply into the incentives that make the industry how it is. But people aren’t great readers, and they’re not interested in being fair (this is one of the themes of the book!)

We will see though! It’s really really exciting. I mean this is an entire book-length work that I made! Like, I made this. All by myself! It’s kind of a rush. I totally get why people self-publish.

I’m already thinking about upcoming volumes in the series. I am thinking of two: a guide to the world of literary fiction, and a guide to structuring a book so that people will feel compelled to read it even if they don’t like it.

But I don’t know if I can write them in less than a year. As a stopgap, I’m thinking of taking some of my more cynical columns from thirteen years of blogging and putting those out as a Cynical Pamphlet. We will see!

Other than this, I’ve nothing going on. I’ve been proofing the Cynical Guide for days, and I had a childcare interruption, so I was also taking care of our baby. This means I haven’t done any original writing in a while. I need to get back to it today. This blog post is really just a way of procrastinating on that. It’s always scary to go back to writing. You just wonder if anything will happen. Sometimes it doesn’t! But I have high hopes.

I continue to only read my work email once per day. It is very hard. I am frequently tempted to break my fast. But it’s been so good for my mental health to concentrate all that worry and rejection.