Post-Birthday Post

Right, it's 7 May, so I'm now officially 39 years old. (Note to self: update biography.)

I'm looking forward to starting my massage training in two weeks. I'll be able to give basic massages from September (which is the date of my first exam), and I've had a chat with my local hairdresser who thinks setting myself up as a masseur locally is a great idea, so that's my plan of action.

After being out of an office for four months now, I can't imagine going back, to be honest. I don't wanna. (I might still return to my previous line of work if I get an amazing offer that helps me pay off the mortgage in a few years, but it would have to be an amazing offer - and none of those seem to be happening on the market. People are hiring journalists with my specialisation, but not editors, and no job offer could be amazing enough to return to journalism.) So I have to make a business plan for the massage part of my portfolio to generate a supplementary income. In August or so, I'll be starting to look at local therapy rooms to hire on a day-to-day basis, or maybe join forces with other health-and-wellness people.

The behemoth novel (code name: ROI), which I spent two weeks editing hard, was turned down because it's not romantic enough and essentially I'm not willing to turn it into a typical romance to increase expected sales numbers. It's a sound business decision. No hard feelings, though it came as a surprise and puts me into an awkward position where I have to fend for myself. You only notice how much work the team does when that support is no longer there.

I was considering sending ROI to agents and mainstream publishers, but I have to admit that I'm quite demanding in terms of what I want from a publisher, and impatient. I no longer have the stomach to wait months for an agent to get back to me, and then months and months for the publisher to get back, and then two to three more years until somebody can fit me into their catalogue. Also, it's a genre-buster. It's far too gay and explicit for the mainstream financial thriller crowd, it's too much a financial thriller for the coming-of-age crowd, and not nearly romantic enough for the romance crowd, and it's far too business-y for the erotica crowd. Hey, even I don't know how to market it or who could possibly be interested in reading this. This makes it very unsuited for all m/m publishers I know, and I have no real contacts to traditional LGBTQ presses (who will then have to work out how to sell this genre-cluster to anybody, really).

So, after careful consideration, I'm going to self-publish ROI in June or July via Amazon, likely Amazon exclusive (this keeps my book-keeping to a minimum and my royalties to a maximum). What I now need to sort out is editing, proofing, layout and cover and how to do all this. There's also tax documents to fill out. Essentially, I'm throwing this book at the mercy of you, my readers, making it the best I can on my very limited budget, and hope somebody loves it. Letting it die is no alternative, and I trust that any book finds the readers it's meant for, eventually. I'm hoping I'll have all the ducks in a row for a release in June/July.

I've also done some financial modelling, and done a cashflow analysis, and it's pretty clear I need to eventually go back to a second job in some capacity. I've deleted a long whiny post about why that's the case with proof and numbers, but it comes down to either writing books that sell significant amounts or writing the books that keep me up at night, and those aren't the same.

I've also done some soul-searching (I found one, I'm happy to report), and I remain unsuited to writing the type of books that sells vast amounts of copies. In marketing terms, I'm a solid midlist performer with an enthusiastic but small readerbase. I'm the type of author publishers won't lose money on, but they won't make them rich or hit bestseller lists. I do win some awards every now and then, but I'm also too proud to take money from my partner to "fund my dream". It's a life lesson from my mother who ended destitute and broken when she had to rely on a husband who was a functional sociopath and dropped her when she got ill.

I write the books I must, and that's the price for it. Not that I'd be any good writing any other type of book. The luxury of writing what I want means I need to find a way to pay my remaining bills with a second job (ideally massage, though we'll see how that goes). I'm hardly the first author who faces that decision, so no need for anybody to cry a river, least of all myself.

Generally, I don't expect this situation to get any better. I've had a look at my spreadsheet and I'm clearly drifting away from writing romance. Just this morning, I realised I have a series of at least four novels that won't have any romance in them. For me, that's 12 months of work. There's no way I can afford to write them if I want to live off writing.

But I'll still write them, sales be damned.