Scott Carson is Now a Franchise

     OK, so this is what's been going on behind the scenes here in Gotham City:
     Anyone who knows anything about writing and publishing knows about #Pitmad. That's the hashtag for Pitch Madness. It's held four times a year on Twitter and gives authors looking for representation three chances per account to pitch their books to agents in 280 or fewer characters. The last #Pitmad was early last month so I sent a couple out for THE DOLL MAKER on my Scott Carson Twitter account then forgot about them. I usually disregard them and move on because in the last year since I joined the rat race on #Pitmad day, every single one of my pitches had gone, typically, completely ignored by those morons otherwise known as literary agents.
     Then days later, I logged on to my Scott Carson Twitter account and found that someone had "liked" one of my #Pitmad tweets. Now, according to the rules of Pitch Madness, when a literary agency "likes" your #Pitmad tweet, they're saying in their cool, understated way they want you to submit a proposal to them. This time was different in that #1, someone showed interest in THE DOLL MAKER and that, #2, this was from the Twitter account of a startup publisher.
     So I followed the linkage, looked at their website and they seemed legit to me. So I sent them, per their submission guidelines, the first three chapters of THE DOLL MAKER. The next day, their executive assistant excitedly wrote me that the editors wanted to see the first 50% of the book. So, after giving the front half another go over, I did.
     Two server crashes on their end and three days later, they requested the rest of it so after I combed through that for typos (Yes, there were still some), I sent it off. A few days ago, they sent me a sample contract and announced they were going to publish it, assuming I'd approve the terms. So I downloaded and printed up this massive 21 page contract and went over it with a fine tooth comb. After a flurry of questions between me and the executive assistant last night, I decided to accept them as my publisher.
     As previously stated, they're a startup company and haven't even made their debut, yet (that'll be later this fall). But, as their massive contract showed me right away, they seem to be serious about legal indemnification and are a serious outfit overall, They seem to know what they're doing and my guess is everyone who works there has prior experience in publishing from the executives and senior editors down to the assistants and graphic designers.
     What they'd offered was two hard cover deals (One with a dust jacket and one case), a paperback, ebook and audiobook editions. I get limited creative control over the cover art, interior and audiobook auditions. They're also positioned to market my book and to get it in brick and mortar stores. And because they're tied in with Ingram, the world's biggest book distributor, they have immediate and full access to over 39,000 distribution points. My royalty rate, depending on the format, will range from 35-51%, which is incredibly competitive. They also pay quarterly, as opposed to the twice a year structure of the Big Fivers.
     Here's the thing: While emailing the executive assistant last night, I'd mentioned that THE DOLL MAKER is actually the second book in the Scott Carson series and that I'd already written and self published the series premiere, TATTERDEMALION, three and a half years ago. So she said her publishing company really ought to publish that, first, then THE DOLL MAKER. So, they want to see that, too.
     Now, obviously, since they're drafting out the contract as I write this and are going to rush it via snail mail to my house, I can't reveal who this publisher is until it's signed by both parties. But once the "wet signature" is made, I'll be able to reveal who my new publisher is. So watch this space.
     An amusing personal aside: By this morning, I'd received two form rejection letters for TATTERDEMALION (I'd sent off a little over 100 since early last month), from UK literary agents, one of them from a flunky. One said he'd have to "follow my instincts" on my book. So this is what I'd sent in response:
     "As I've recently expedited with minimal effort what would've been the most difficult part of your job, I'll just tell my new publisher to send the hard cover, paperback, ebook and audiobook contract straightaway to my house, thereby saving me 15% on my royalties. It's been nice not doing business with you. Good luck "following (your) instincts" in the future, mate. Very sincerely, Robert Crawford."
     One of them, the flunky, actually doubled down and defended her boss's failure to sign me. I'm sure she didn't like my answer to that.
     Now this segues neatly into my last point and observation on this matter before I can finally reveal who my new publisher is:
     I've been saying for years now that what's keeping me in the game is sheer stubbornness and spite, a militant refusal to gently go into that good night. At times, I felt like the very delineation of Einstein's definition of insanity: Doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.
     I haven't had an agent since 1997 and what's happened over these past three or four days also proved something I've been saying over many of those 21 years: Authors don't need literary agents. I'm living proof of that. Placing literary agents squarely between the hashmarks and making them mandatory gatekeepers you must pass before going on to the Promised Land may have worked for those jackals over the last four decades but that has now changed.
     Desktop publishing, startup publishers and all the technology that make these things possible are making literary agents more and more redundant. And with every rejection letter I ever got (and I have literally over 1000 in my Yahoo mail folders for every single book I ever wound up self publishing) made me more determined than ever with each book I wrote. It quickly got to the point I was hearing the same thing over and over again from these self-satisfied, back-patting "boutique" literary agencies: "Due to the large volume of submissions we receive.." "Fiction is a tough sell these days..." "This is such a subjective business..." "Don't take this as a final no. I'm sure other agents will feel differently..."
     Sure. Which was why I kept hearing the same boilerplate from literally every fiction-repping literary agent in the English-speaking world.
     So I went Old School and approached a publisher who'd first approached me, which is the way things used to be done before literary agents got surreptitiously and softly parachuted onto the playing field all those decades ago. Startup publishers like my new one have made it possible for us to do a 360 and make books the way they used to be made: Editor to author working cheek to jowl and no literary agent filching 15% of the author's money.
     There have been naysayers going "Neener neener" for years, those who told me I'd never get a publishing contract. I'm thinking of one stalker in Israel in particular (and I hope he can understand the schadenfreude I derive from the fact that I have a publisher while he does not). And those are the people who kept putting the steel in my resolve and made me more stubborn than ever to keep putting my work out there.
     I'm no Dickens or John Irving but I know I'm pretty good at what I do and that my novels succeed on a significant level what they endeavor to do.
     And no matter how much you may despise certain books or even certain authors, keep in mind that every book you see on a book shelf at a Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Riteaid or an airport gift shop started out as someone's dream. And that alone makes every book sacred to someone. Books are not just shrink-wrapped commodities and we're not human conveyor belts writing dreck for the proles. Books, as Stephen King once famously said, "are a uniquely portable magic." And it takes some hard dreaming, and even harder work, to make that magic a hard, palpable reality in our hard, pragmatic world that tends to shrink even the humanities into shrink-wrapped commodities in a heartless profit center.
     I simply refused to give up on my dreams and so should you refuse. Because of their non-competitive turnaround time, my publisher won't bring out my first book until I'm at least 60 or 61. But, as the old saying goes, "Better late than never."
     And this is just the beginning...