So I propose to a new young editor at Columbia, a pup who doesn’t know me from Adam’s Off Ox (what’s an off ox, anyway?), that we should do a new edition of The Essential Feature. He gives me a brush-off. I think, eff you, you little twit, and lay a new set of plans.
This effing of him comes easily, because in the meantime some other plans are afoot. Pretty clearly I need to get off my duff, abandon the evidently futile social media, and show up in front of living human beings to peddle my bookish wares.
And what, yea verily what do I have to sell? As Jackie wrestles with masses of content at Plain & Simple Press, we realize that of several content categories, “writing tips” is a) the largest and b) the most appealing on social media.
By extension, I conclude, the large “writing tips” category of my blog and print content probably represents a convenient shoehorn into various public speaking opportunities.
One plan is to try to offer a public-service course for one or more of the community colleges — how to self-publish your own book. Something along those lines could also be offered at the local bookstores, which tend to offer various presentations, and quite frankly I’m very sure I can find venues coming out the wazoo without much effort.
And what do we need to embellish these dog-and-pony shows?
Why…another book, of course!
Come to think of it, I realized that between the more timeless segments of the Columbia book, two yakkity blogs, and lecture material for five courses, there’s plenty of material to cobble together a book about how to write, self-edit, and self-publish your own magnum opus. Yes. You, too, boys and girls, can publish your very own Great Novel (or Great Self-Help) (or Great Memoir) (or Great Exposé) of the Western World.
Thanks to the “filter” function in WordPress, it didn’t take long to cobble together the skeleton of this thing. A few more hours and it was fleshed out, to the tune of about 85,000 words.
By the time the chaff is trimmed out, it should come to about 60,000 or 70,000 words, a good length for a nonfiction tome like this. I’ve been pouring the candidate material into one of Friedman’s Word book templates…am about 3/4 of the way done at about 43,000 words: 267 pages (so far) in a standard trade-book trim size.
Naturally, after weeks of nothin’ doin’, a new client shows up at the door, smack in the middle of this industrious little project.
He has 26 pages of abstruse academic copy written in, by his admission, darkest Chinglish. Needs it by the 29th. Just now in China it happens to be the 26th. He’s not paying much, but that’s OK: every little bit helps.
So tomorrow & the next day will be occupied by that project. Good. Which reminds me…my other honored Chinese client owes me a grand. Guess we’ll be importuning her before we start on this guy’s project.
🙂