Q: Just because you are ready to
break out doesn't mean New York is ready to break you out. Or even to let you break
yourself out.
They might still want to contain you, to isolate you, to quarantine
you.
A: That's the drama of it.
But I can stop doing things I know queer
my chances. Like publishing the book online, as I write it.
Q: The ideal place to record a live performance is on the web. Not afterwards, with the editors hovering over your shoulder. The overdub engineers, who want to buff it up. Or take the bite out of it.
A: Publishers want an exclusive.
Something other publishers are
competing for is okay.
But not something that's already been given away,
free.
That takes it out of the class of economic goods. It's free, like
water or air.
Q: Is the Buzzard Cult going to miss you, when you're gone?
A: They'll understand.
Is the Buzzard Cult going to pay my bills?
Q: They may want you to succeed.
It shows how astute they were.
A: If you believe the movie Ray, Ahmet Ertegun wished Ray Charles
luck, when he went with a major label.
No hard feelings. Business is business.
Q: A writer who is off the rails is not an easy sell. Transgressive writers.
William S. Burroughs, John Rechy, and Hubert Selby, Jr. would have a hard time finding
a publisher today.
A: Steve Almond writes about Michael Jackson's penis. Did he bleach it white?
Q: What convinced you to stop publishing your books online? Something an agent said in a rejection letter?
A: A discussion about print-on-demand publishing at Democratic Underground.
A woman said she could get her book published cheap, in small quantities, and someone
else said, yes, but bookstores won't stock it, newspapers won't review it, and publishers
won't reprint it.
I thought, So that's what I'm doing wrong.
I thought the quality of the writing would overcome the bias, but if they won't read
it--and they won't--you have sabotaged yourself in advance.
You have given
your enemies a sword.
Q: So you're going to give them what they want.
A: Yes.
If they still don't want it, I learned something.
About them, about me.
Then, I can look for a small press to publish it, or
I can publish it myself, in small quantities, print-on-demand.
Prevent FOD.
Foreign-object damage.
Prevent POD. Publication-on-demand.
Little magazines will review it.
I can sell it myself, at zine fests.
I can sell it out of my musette bag on the streets of my native town.
I can
sell them through the mail, or over the Internet.
Q: Plus, it might break out.
A publisher might publish it and break
you out.
A: That's possible. Theoretically.