I've been getting an awful lot of traffic over the last few days -- due primarily to links on boinGboinG and SciFi.com which mentioned that I was discovered on LiveJournal. This has turned out to be a strange and special sort of notoriety because LJ, for all its populist accessibility, is not exactly considered the creme de la creme of internet gathering, after all.

You see, it's one thing for popular authors to be drawn into LJ once they've established themselves; but to have someone get a book deal through LJ is tantamount to going from "dog bites man" to "man bites dog." Apparently, that's news.

Of course, the story itself is very convoluted and not altogether pleasant. There was a lot of swearing, threats of violence and legal action, a lot of confusion, and years of hard work between my first tentative LJ posts and my eventual deal with Tor; so naturally this story is of some interest to the writing and book-loving masses. In this entry I'm going to try to break it down to a highlights reel; and some of what follows will be excerpted from my original interview for the SciFi.com piece. That having been said ... here you go.*

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Back in 2001 I sent out a round of optimistic queries regarding a half-finished manuscript I was working on, called Four and Twenty Blackbirds.  Because I believe in aiming high, one of those queries went to Tor -- and was subsequently returned with a polite rejection a few weeks later.  Remember this bit.  It'll be important later.

As the book began to take a more solid form, I started putting chapter installments up for public inspection on my first (now deleted) LiveJournal -- fourandtwenty.  Mostly I did this to test the waters and get a little feedback and to share with some of my real-life friends. I didn't honestly expect anything to come of it.

Then one day I got an email from prosphoros, who was an editor at a small press based out of the Atlanta, Georgia, area.  prosphoros had been reading me for a bit through a mutual friend (martinhesselius).  Liking what I'd posted so far, this fine editor-type person wanted to see the whole manuscript.  Back then, the manuscript was only barely "whole" but I wrapped it up (too quickly) and sent it along.  A few months later, the publisher of the small press prosphoros represented contacted me with an offer. 

The press was small, but it had released several reputable titles in the previous years -- at least one of which had been nominated for some big awards. The publisher himself seemed like a genial sort of chap who was happy to have me on board. The contract he offered me came with a $300 advance and a requirement of two books in the next 2 years. I didn't have an agent, but I didn't have any other offers beating down my door ... so I signed it.

Almost immediately there were signs that this wasn't the most professional operation and I might have acted in haste.  My editor (who I would like to insist – I still dearly love) and the publisher seemed to have drastically different ideas about how things needed to work, and there were rumors that my publisher was failing to pay the people who ran/developed his website, as well as the periodical email declarations that various assorted important-to-the-press people were being fired and/or storming away from the operation in furious huffs.

Every little thing became an ordeal. As an example:  moriarty6 (a talented designer in his own right) designed the original cover [for free, at the last minute] from one of my photographs, because the person my publisher had retained to do it got angry and declined to work with him further (or so I'm led to understand).  At the last minute, just four days before the book was to go to press, the publisher called and told me that it was nearly 4000 words too short for the way he'd set up the layout, and he demanded more material on the spot.  Imagine my delight. In the end, we added an unrelated short story I'd written into the back in order to flesh it out.  This short story was originally intended to be part of another anthology produced by the same publisher … but the (well-known and well-respected) editor he'd conned into doing it got angry and declined to work with him anymore.  The pattern that emerged was not exactly confidence-inspiring.

Within a few months of the book's debut, my publisher chased away my beloved editor and that editor's friends on the web team.  I was on my own, with just the publisher himself to serve as my contact.  And then things really got bad.  I hadn't realized the extent to which my editor had been serving as a stupidity buffer between me and the head honcho.

My publisher – by the terms of the contract he had written – owed me sales figures and other assorted payment or documentation every six months.  When the first six months rolled around and I got the first packet of information, I was incensed.  It was pitifully incomplete, and featured only the most sadly sparse accounting of where all the books had gone.  Apparently I was supposed to take his word for the fact that I actually owed him money.    According to him, I had never earned out my $300 advance and he had plenty of books just lying around, not selling.  But since he'd paid for several print ads for my book (untrue, as we later learned), and since he'd send me a box of books that I hadn't asked for (as payment for screwing up my hotel reservations one conference – long story), it was obvious to him that I owed him several hundred dollars.  But since he was such a nice guy, he'd take it out of future sales and not bill me then and there.

So I did what any grown-up, mature, responsible sort of writer does – I got drunk and made a rambling, irate post on my LiveJournal about it.  I kept it locked so that only people on my list could see it, but there was definitely some need to vent.

Only a couple of days earlier, I had noticed that an author I liked – warren_ellis** – had started up an LJ as well; and I had added him to my reading list.  At some point, he noticed I'd added him -- and he chose just this turbulent time to begin reading my page as well.  The day following my self-indulgent pity party on the 'net, he sent me a sympathetic email which actually did make me feel better.  I mean, life sucks but hey – email from Warren Ellis. Things could be worse.

And, somewhere around this time, I got another interesting email out of the blue – from an editor named Liz Gorinsky with Tor, in NYC.   As it turned out, my proposal from nearly 2 years before had never been thrown away, though it had been initially rejected.  It had wound up (if I remember correctly) in the floor of someone's office in a slush pile … from which Liz had retrieved it [correct me if I'm wrong here, Liz].  She loved it and wanted to see more, and she hoped that I was still checking my old email address; in the intervening time, I had moved – and none of the other contact information I'd submitted was correct anymore.  Unfortunately, the book was being held hostage in the miserable deal that had been forged in the meantime.  Liz and I continued to correspond, though; we discussed other options – other manuscripts, other rights that might be up for purchase.  But she really wanted 4&20bb.

At any rate -– after a reading for the Chattanooga Writer's Guild where we met, I acquired my agent – Lantz Powell – and Lantz helped me legally disentangle myself from the second book in the contract.  Then, as Lantz began to put some pressure on my publisher to get a CPA to check out the suspicious documentation, my publisher decided that he was sick and tired of dealing with me … and he was going to pull 4&20bb from print.  I made a post on my LJ telling my readers that if they'd ever wanted to pick up the book, now was the time. Supplies were going fast.  Limited time offer, and all that. 

Upon seeing this, Warren decided he'd give sales a shot in the arm by mentioning it on his (now abandoned) site DiePunyHumans.  To say that I was intensely grateful, and that I would cheerfully give him my firstborn child, and would throw rose petals at his feet for the rest of his days … is still to understate the depths of my gratitude for his support.  Thanks in no small part to his internet assistance, the first edition of 4&20bb went on to stay on the Amazon.com's horror bestseller list for the next couple of weeks.  Liz is a big fan of Warren's too, and it certainly didn't hurt me any for Tor to see his announcement.

So as soon as the ink was dry on the revised contract and the rescinding of the rights to yours truly, Lantz and I went skipping over to Tor.  And after another few months of hammering out the details, Tor invited me into the fold with a 3-book deal. 

But of course, the saga with the previous publisher doesn't end there. Heavens, no. Despite the fact that he had signed a contract stating that he would cease and desist production of 4&20bb and turned over all rights to me, what he apparently meant was, "I'm going to keep printing and selling this on the sly, and deny it for about six months until your agent threatens to turn me over to the IRS." You can read the full story on that over at this post. Go and read it if you're interested. This entry is long enough already without repeating that episode here.

To date, I do not know how many books were printed or sold, and I have never received any royalties. Last I heard, he was willing to admit that yes, he did owe me a little bit of money now, but he was too broke to pay me. That was about a year and a half ago, and that was the last I heard from him.

But at any rate.

With the help of the mighty and indefatigable Liz, 4&20bb has been extensively revised and expanded.  The new edition that was so recently released is about 20% longer and much, much smoother than the first incarnation of the story.  It also features a gorgeous cover with art by the incomparable John Jude Palencar, and I'm so proud of the thing that I could just burst.  It's all I can do not to carry it around with me and pet it all the time like a supervillain's cat.

My experience with Tor has been inversely proportional to my first foray into publishing.  The people there have absolutely spoiled me, and I have nothing but wonderful things to say about them (and I'm not just saying that because Liz baked me cookies shaped like little birds the other day).  But the moral of this story, if there is one, is that all you can do is keep trying. Be as visible as possible and continuously polish your writing, and network like a fiend.

But above all, keep working at it.
You never know who's reading.

~w_w~

[P.S. - Go here for general ordering information, if you are so inclined.]

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* I'm not naming names for the sake of the search engines, but it's no big secret. Thirty seconds on google will turn up my former publisher's company as well as the man himself.
** Under a different LJ at the time.