Oh God. Dad’s Finished His Book.
by Kate Rados
Before you make that face, let me stress that I am 1,000% supportive of anything he wants to do. Just as I’m totally supportive of him getting a degree in Archeology at the spry age of 68. However, I’ll kill him if he calls me Junior.
I honestly thought that he would treat this project like our family basement refinishing: He would get 85% of the way through painting a villa/landscape mural and leave it to sputter out into a series of well-intended pencil lines. I never thought after 10 years he would actually FINISH writing his story.
So, now he’s looking to me for advice and it’s flipped my usual mindset. Do I sugarcoat everything because he’s my dad and I want him to be happy? Do I do my usual ‘no bull’ approach and warn him he might not make it past a self-published work for family/friends because he doesn’t have a platform? Do I drop everything each weekend and market the hell out of it, no matter how good/bad it is?
And how the hell do I explain ePub?!
How do I guide him through this process? He’s not going to be on Twitter. He doesn’t have a platform. He thinks ‘blog’ is a marketing term for nasal congestion.
On one side of my brain, I know what kind of writer my father is: meticulous, verbose, and writing in a language that is not his native tongue (he was born in Greece), so it needs editing. My inner businesswoman can’t shake the cold voice of skepticism I bring to every acquisition meeting. It’s not like I can hand him a copy of Tribes (DRINK) and tell him to go forth and Tweet.
On the flipside, he’s the smartest person I know. And, perhaps more importantly: the King of Charm. Bring us to a Greek diner and we’ll be eating for free after a quick word in the kitchen. He’s best friends with the former Connecticut Secretary of State – who he met at a random fundraiser. He’s the artist/photographer/taxi-driver/bridge inspector/travel agent/bus driver renaissance man – who’s never interviewed for a job. He’s gotten them because he’s the master of one on one conversations.
Here he is, looking at his fairly successful daughter in the publishing industry and here I am, looking at my father, who has written a hefty Historical-Fiction novel without one clue how to bring it from words on a screen into a bound achievement.
I’m probably being selfish by even questioning the next step (shut up and support him, ya jerk!), but I can’t help feeling protective of my Pop, wanting to keep his expectations low, for his obstacles are many.
Is this my punditry coming back to bite me square in the press release? Yeah, probably.
More to come on this subject, as Dad and I pursue his dream together.
Comments
good luck to you and to him! I hope its a great book, and I’d say be as honest as you can. Sounds like a fun adventure.
What kind of book is it?
Whether he needs to look at the self-published route or might be published by someone else will depend on the topic and the audience.
Forget that it’s your father for a moment, and look at the book. What’s it about? Who might read it, and why? Is it a book that will have an audience beyond family and friends? Is it a book you can see an actual publisher being interested in?
The best course for you might be to point him at someone else you know who can help him take it to the next stage. Someone who *isn’t* you, and doesn’t have the inherent conflicts of being family.
A while back, a friend of mine asked me for advice, because she knew I knew people. A friend of hers had written a novel set in a period and place she was an expert on. She read the book, and was conflicted. He’d done his homework, and had his facts straight, but didn’t know how to tell a *story*. But he *was* a friend, and she didn’t want to chance the unhappiness that would ensue by saying so.
I gave her contact info for a couple of folks I knew who were published authors and former editors who provided book doctor services, and said “Tell him you read his manuscript and you agree he has his history right, but you don’t feel qualified to assess the literary merits. These folks are experienced professionals who *can* do that, and help him make it better for a fee.”
You might be in a similar position. By all means, be honest with your Dad about the uphill battle he faces in getting published. If you think you can make it comprehensible, tell him a bit about ebooks and the options for self-publishing. But if you know someone you can point him at, let someone else deal with the question of whether the book is any good, and what he needs to do next.
(Incidentally, please don’t use ePub as a noun indicating electronic publishing. The problem is, epub already has an established meaning: it’s the name of an ebook format championed by Adobe, stemming from the work of the IDPF (http://www.idpf.org/) and a successor to that body’s Open Ebook specification, and used as the main format by the Sony Reader and Barnes and Noble nook dedicated readers. There’s simply too much room for confusion.)
______
Dennis
@Kat Thanks!
@Dennis Thanks very much for your note. The book is historical fiction, and the last time I read a few pages, it mixed Greek history with the journey of a soldier. I was waiting to read it when he sent me the file.
Oh and re: ePub, I’m with ya. That sentence was purely punchline
Great idea to have a friend explain the challenges to Dad. I may try that route!