I am Legend... I was King of Golganooza

These days, thanks to technology, there are lots of things a writer can do when the constant round of sending out manuscripts and getting them returned with rejection slips is starting to become tedious.

At one time if you couldn't get published conventionally there was either self- publishing (which is by no means a modern phenomenon*) or the Vanity Press.
Anyone remember Johnboy, his look of pride as he unpacked boxes of hardbound books with his name on the spine- until he realised that he had to foot the bill?

Of course, we're too sophisticated to fall for something like that, aren't we? The problem these days is that there are other traps for the unwary- but also more opportunities in an alternative publishing world which is still in its infancy.

I will chronicle my forages into cyberspace publishing chronologically, and where possible leave you to make your own judgements.



Occasionally I will rant. Sometimes it takes me that way.

One of the first things I did was enter a competition in the Writers and Artists' yearbook. The prize was publication. I never heard anything, so I didn't win.

More recently I sent my novel to 'Macmillan New Writers.' The advantage of this is that you can upload your entire novel (which they promise to delete from their files if you are unsuccessful.) They say that if you've not heard from them within twelve weeks... now how long ago was that?

One of my earliest attempts to publish via an unconventional route was through a site called 'Golganooza.'

Golganooza came up when I typed something like 'new author wants to get published' into a search engine.

What Golgonooza offered to do was read a large portion of my novel (I think it was something like 25,000 words,) my covering letter and synopsis, and to provide me with a critique from an unnamed professional- who worked in publishing or the media.

It came at a cost,of course, but there was a reward. If your work was deemed eligible for their 'Gold Medal,' Golgonooza would approach publishers on your behalf and represent you.

I next did what I always do when I come across this type of site- I Googled its name. It's always a good idea to do this when you come across any site which seems to be offering a shortcut to publication. Even better, Google its name with the word 'review' attached. There are a lot of helpful people out there, some of whom have successfully used internet services, some of whom have been bitten by them, who have reviewed them for those who follow.

For 'Golgonooza' I was glad to find press releases praising the innovative nature of the scheme.

Another thing to do, especially if a site claims that its methods have led to booksales, is to look for that book on Amazon. In this case I found a genuine bestseller which had been a Golganooza Gold Medal Winner.

So far so good.

To use Golgonooza's service was going to cost about £75.00. For that I would get a professional critique (far cheaper than any comparable service) and possible recommendations to publishers. The idea- and it was a good one- was that if Golgonooza considered something worthy of publishing they would approach publishers and save them from having to wade any longer than necessary to discover your gem in the midst of the 'slush pile.'

(The slush pile, by the way, is a derogatory term in publishing, given to works which stand no chance of ever hitting the shelves. I wonder if this also includes the odd work of rare genius which publishers won't touch because They won't be able to 'move' enough 'units'?)

So I sent off my submission- through the website- and looked every day to see if the 'pending' icon had changed to 'reviewed.'

About one month later, it had.

I found the review quite balanced, encouraging, and professional. But I didn't get a Gold Medal.

After another year of revision I had incorporated all of the Golgonooza suggestions and decided to submit it again.

I uploaded to the site, paid my money, and waited... and waited.

After about two months I sent an email, asking where my revew was. No reply. I emailed again. No answer.

I then had the bright idea of writing on one of their forums. Again, no answer. So I wrote messages under each separate forum discussion, asking if anyone else had not received their review. Eventually I wrote warning people not to subscribe, just to see if this would provoke a response. It didn't.
Then I saw it. The last contribution to be made to the site before mine had been... exactly one year before.

I suddenly felt like a character in one of those 'last man in the world' movies- 'the Omega Man,' or 'I am Legend.'
My words seemed to echo back from the screen as I wandered empty cyberspace corridors.
I went back each day, the loneliness turning to mania. I left posting after posting like some demented graffiti artist:

there's no one there, is there? And I'm going to prove it: I'm going to write ****, and ****, and **** on your website, and you won't take it off, because you never look do you?

And they didn't. Obviously the experiment hadn't worked- either there were not enough people wanting to pay for reviews- or not enough were achieving publication. I don't know, and there was nothing on the website to explain.

But then came the day that I went on to the site... and someone else was there. I felt a rush of incredulity and exctement, like Robinson Crusoe finding Friday's footprints on the beach.

It was a guy called Rory. He thanked me for alerting him to the fact that this was a dead website before he parted with his money. We wished each other well with our books, and went our separate ways.
I continued to leave threats of small claims courts. My friend, Darren, who is a debt collecter offered to track the owners down, but we decided it was too much trouble over £75.

I was about to leave my lonely island forever when someone else left a message. He recommended a new thing called the 'Frontllist.' Another way of getting to a publisher.

So, a little bit wiser and a lot more wary, I set sail for the new site.

About a year later, out of interest, I tried to find Golganooza again. It no longer exists.






* The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield was self published, as were Eragon by Christopher Paolini and The Storms of Acias by Dominic Took. Other well-known self-publishers include: Stephen Crane, E. E. Cummings, Deepak Chopra, Benjamin Franklin, Zane Grey, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Paine, Edgar Allan Poe, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, George Bernard Shaw, Upton Sinclair, Gertrude Stein, Henry David Thoreau and Mark Twain.





Top Stories

Structure: a beginning, a muddle, and an end.

At the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence not only can you see 'David' but also several of Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures.

An assumption I had always held about sculpture was shattered the day I visited that gallery: I had always assumed that a sculptor would chip away at the front of his slab of marble, then gradually move round it, whittling it down to a figure. Not so Michelangelo- He worked from front to back- and the unfinished pieces look as if all you have to do is to break the remainder of the 'cocoon' from aroud them to reveal a complete statue.

Some writers work that way. Stephen King, for instance, starts at the beginning and writes until he gets to the end, developing characters and situations naturally as they emerge.

I don't think that I could write that way as long as I'd got a hole in my **** (or, for any American readers, ***.) I'm more of a potterer around the marble with my chisel sort of writer- I may start at the beginning, but in my mind I have scenes from the end or half way, and I need some sort of structure- loose as it may be- to hang the story on- a plan, an idea of major themes and significant scenes.

I don't mean anything too complicated, and it doesn't even have to be written- especially not on stone, so that once the characters start to find their feet they can run if they want to.

Having a structure can help when you hit the block- you might be getting bogged down with an earlier part of the story, but feel inspired by a theme which has flashed into your mind from further on. I would recommend that you go for that, write it (In these days of Word Processing it will hang around for you below the earlier pages until you catch up with it) then return to where you got stuck, refreshed with a dip into your creativity. Usually I go back to the sticking point after this and find that it is so below the level of what I've just been writing that I just delete it and start again.



And what about chapters and where to end them? Remember: each chapter MUST add something to the story- either in moving the story on or revealing something new about a character. If it doesn't, you might as well get rid of it. And try to end your chapters with 'page turners.' Although my last posting was partly a bit of fun, there is something to be learned from an aspect of Dan Brown's writing which is shamelessly parodied there. You get to the end of a Dan Brown chapter and there is always something there you didn't expect, or which makes you ask 'what happens next?' or 'how do they get out of that?'

To my mind, a lot of Brown's page turners draw too much attention to themselves for what they are, and I think that he produces tiny chapters in order to do this (Look at chapters 53-59 of 'Deception Point' for example.) But who am I to knock this? I have read and enjoyed all of Dan Brown's novels (with reservations about the DaVinci Code because I am a qualified theologian and know just how much he twisted the 'evidence'- but hey, this is entertainment, and his sales figures speak for themselves.)

The point is, if you want to know what a page turner is, just go through a Dan Brown novel and simply read the last line of every chapter.

And when you've done that, if you are a writer, go through the last lines of each chapter of your novel. Do they just fizzle out, or do they make the reader want to read on?

This is your homework until next time.