Louis Shalako
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
My name is John, and I have a problem.
I am a binge publisher.
It began innocently enough.
I was a social publisher at first. That’s how it
starts. At parties, maybe once or twice a year, with a few friends.
It’s insidious. It’s seductive. You get sucked in
over time.
You, know, where we’d sit around in our friend’s
basement apartment, with their parents thumping around up above, and experimenting
with words, and poems, and writing stuff, and ultimately, yes: publishing.
Even now, I don’t consider myself a publishaholic.
There may be some level of denial there, but the truth is that I have a problem
and that’s why I’m here tonight.
Every so often, it’s like I just can’t stand it any
more. It’s like I’ve been on the wagon long enough and it’s time to dive
overboard and wallow in it.
My
habit.
The
monkey on this old back, ladies and gentlemen.
And
I’m tired, and I want to go home.
As
if you could ever really go back there again, eh?
Oh, yeah, eh. This time I’ve got a whole shit-load
of stuff. The
Mysterious Case of Betty Blue was published
exclusively on Kindle Select Program. After ninety days, I get her back. Then
she must be published on Smashwords,
OmniLit,
Google Books and Google
Play,
and then it will go into all of those distribution channels. That one is
already published in 4 x 7” and 5 x 8” in Createspace
and Lulu
paperbacks, which doesn’t conflict with the terms of Kindle Select.
My new mystery novel, The Architect of His Own Destruction, will be done in the next few
days. I’m not going with Kindle Select on that one. I want the book in all
stores, using all distribution platforms, by Christmas. There is some time lag
when using Smashwords, and it takes time to filter through. They don’t have
real time automatic shipping and distribution as there is an internal human
review process. Simply put, they ship on Thursdays, and you need to have it in
and vetted on time. The stores at the other end have their own internal time lags.
It's my bag, ladies and gentlemen. It's what I do.
Between the five pen-names I have, there are six
more books published either exclusively on Kindle (without actually being
enrolled in Select) or coming out of Select in the next two or three months.
What that means is that I get to publish six books over all of those other stores/platforms.
The most time-consuming is OmniLit, where they don’t have a
grinder-process, and you have to upload multiple file formats…sorry, I forgot
myself for a moment there.
It was getting so bad, I had to make a list. Seriously.
I just published a couple of horror short stories,
and knowing me, it’s like I’m fricking rummaging around in drawers and closets,
trying to see if I got something worth selling. I’m wracking my brains trying
to remember somebody, anybody that might owe me money. Where can I borrow seven
or eight bucks for a marketing image? Who can I talk into giving me a lift to
take them beer empties back? Do I have few rolls of nickels or even pennies in
the back of a drawer?
Never
know, might as well have a look.
'Cause I know damn well there's more stuff I could publish.
There has to be. It didn't all just dry up and blow away now, did it?
Right?
That’s just how it is, sometimes, ladies and
gentlemen. You’re desperate, and you’ll do almost anything short of looking for
work in order to get a fix…you know what I’m talking about.
You been there too.
Right?
So that’s why I came out this evening.
Maybe some kind of twelve-step program can help me.
I mean, seriously, when I first started out, a couple of books, a story or two
a year were enough to keep me going. But it’s getting bad lately, it really is.
There’s never enough to satisfy me any more, and it’s like a real bad craving.
It’s all you think about from the time you wake up
in the morning to the time you go to bed. You see it in your dreams…and you
drool just a little bit.
I don’t know, ladies and gentlemen. I might have
waited too long and left it too late.
The odds are that I am incorrigible, and that no
matter how hard I try, I can never be saved.
Which is kind of sad, when you think about it.
END
