John Lemanski

Spring is my favorite season. The trees are reawakening, the flowers throw out blooms first gently, then brashly without apology. (Hay fevers be damned.) It is the season of renewal and capitalizing on the hope of what, in winter, only seemed like a loose thread of memory and the promise of something better.

Late winter, I sent about three dozen query letters out to date on my novel, Shatter.  I have had some polite rejections, but of yet I’ve had no interest or engagement from an agent to move things forward.  

I am reminded of the fact that my muse/favorite poet of all time, Nikki Giovanni, self-published her first collection of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, and literally ran the full hustle for exposure. She served as author, publisher, agent, promoter and distributor – printing and binding her own book and selling copies to bookstores in the Village — just to lose money on every copy. But, she knew that the effort would get her work into readers’ hands.  She provided herself, through sweat and tears, the chance to be seen and to be heard.

And was she ever.

I don’t carry an iota of the magic or talent of Nikki, but I also am savvy enough to know how much the world has changed, and the landscape of publishing itself is uniquely bleak, if you will.  It is estimated that there are something like 3 million books self-published, in the United States alone, each year, and an incredibly miniscule number of books are actually picked up by agents for representation. Those are generally from already published (market-successful) authors and whose particular genres or niches are deemed most profitable, because, like every other business, the end game is profit.  Yes, even art must be commodified.

Self-publishing is a double-edged sword, but I think the deepest cut winds along the author’s hand.  With the absolute glut of books pushed out into digital spaces, there is no center, no real measure to separate quality from quantity.  There is no real way, even if most self-published works were worthy and qualifiable as engaging or important, for an audience to possibly navigate the deluge to find the ones that would be most important or impactful to them.  It’s asking a reader to wander the 200-acre vineyard for the perfect grape, or the single, golden cherry hidden among the vines.

Still, this isn’t a post about giving up.  On the contrary, this is a reminder to myself (albeit shared publicly) that some things remain fighting for and, hell or high water, I am determined to introduce Curry Norton’s story to the universe.  For those of you who have served as editors and readers, I thank you. I thank you most for sharing the outlook that the story deserves to be shared.

I’m not sure where this hustle is going (lots of hustle with, thus far, little flow) but I’m determined to keep the ship afloat.  And most importantly, this blog post is intended as a thank you to anyone who reads it, for being supportive of the book, for being curious enough to spend these last six or seven minutes here on this mild page to receive this thought, and for allowing me the space to question, to worry, to reflect, and I suppose, ultimately, to hope.

It is Spring, after all.