I'm trying something new here. By now, you guys are used to my rather rigid interview format that has for goal to help my insecure ass keep control of the conversation and introduce you to new writers through my perspective and centers of interest because let's face it, Dead End Follies is my ideological dictatorship. Max Booth III and I know each other better than I know most authors and kind of get along, so I'm trying a new, free-flowing conversation format inspired by the legendary Simmons vs Gladwell model.
In order to celebrate the release of Max's new novel HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY KIDNAP STRANGERS, maximized the potential of out disembodied, yet oddly personal internet relationship and discussed Online Writing Communities, Social Media Promotion for Writers and other important life lessons for men, because this is what you do on the internet: get way too personal with people you've never met in person. We both hope you enjoy it and make sure to pick up Max's new novel, it's his best work yet.
Ben: Max. You've just released a novel called HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY KIDNAP STRANGERS, which is a SUCCESSFUL satire of indie publishing culture and online writing communities. So, congratulations for that. It'll probably earn you a lifetime of grief and adversity, but also the satisfaction of a job well-done. The rise of indie publishing, online writing communities and social media are intimately intertwined. Do you think a small press, like for example YOURS (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing) could thrive without having to put yourself through this grinding gauntlet.
Booth: Hey, thanks, Ben. I doubt the book will ever be successful. Nothing worthwhile is successful. Everything good in this world is destined to fail horribly and beautifully. You remember that now, Ben. Whisper them to strangers on the bus and watch them nod in recognition.
I do not think Perpetual Motion Machin Publishing would have any chance of surviving without adapting to the multilayered cake of the Internet. I don't think any publishing company has a chance without fully embracing it all. Especially small presses, which typically and understandably don't have nearly as much money as one of the Big Five publishers. Online communities are vital for the survival of the small press. We must always be making connections. We do not have an office in some city where potential writers and editors and readers can just stroll in and shoot the shit. Online communities are our coffee shops. Our bars. The world has changed and this is the new way of conducting business. There is no such thing as "off the clock".
And obviously social media is important, yes, but hell, social media rules everything now. Even fucking Play-Doh has a Twitter account. If your business isn't present EVERYWHERE, then people's attention spans drop it from view and focus on something that IS present. We are all fragile creatures suffering from massive ADHD. As a small press, I must be visible every direction a set of eyeballs is liable to look.
Ben: Then, the name of the game for you to sort the prospects from the water-treading assholes, am I wrong? I mean, the most perverse effect I've observed from the various online writing communities I'm a part of is that it's weeding the people writing for the wrong reasons out of the equation. I mean, you don't get rid of them. If you have something they want (a publishing opportunity, a semi-successful book reviewing blog), they'll always been in your face waving and begging you to fill the existential void of their lives, to validate their existence through publishing.
Without naming names, what is the worst experience you've ever had with the online writing community? Were you ever kidnapped? Tortured? Whether you're telling me the truth or not, just be entertaining, please. Also, please feel at ease to ask me questions too. This is not an interview. This is just a random email exchange between two friends. I'm not going to put this up on the blog. At all.
Promise.
Booth: This is the issue with writing communities. Everybody wants to get ahead, so everyone is kissing the asses of those slightly more popular than them. Nobody wants to piss anyone off or be honest and risk the possibility of someone not "liking" or sharing their latest writing publication. Your friends list no longer feels authentic because you can no longer tell who is actually interested in you as a person and who just wants to use your status to benefit their own career. I noticed this much more once I began my own press. Everybody wants to be published, everybody wants to be patted on the head and told they're worth something, even if it means pretending to be someone you really aren't. I've encountered a lot of people I thought were actually my friends only to discover they didn't really care about me, they just wanted me to share their links and compliment their massive amounts of talent. It reminds me of high school (well, high school movies; I didn't actually attend a normal high school). All the kids talking shit behind everybody's back, but acting like they're all best friends face-to-face.
I think one of my worst experiences have been on the multiple occasions when I publicly call out some shitty publisher for not treating their writers well. Usually some press that's open for story submissions but isn't offering payment and/or contributor copies. God help them if they're also charging a submission fee. But yeah, I never hesitate to shame these poor bastards on social media whenever I come across them, because this kind of business conduct is pathetic and gives a bad name to publishing. But here's the sad part: every time I do this, for every dozen people who agree with me, there's another two dozen attempting to defend the press in question. They'll say I'm being an asshole (which is true, but besides the point) and that money isn't everything when it comes to writing. And yeah, money ISN'T everything, but it certainly plays a big fucking part in it. It just depresses me how many writers are so eager to defend such awful presses.
We are all connected. Sometimes we become accidentally connected with people who later go on to start small presses that turn out to be terrible companies, then we are left with a choice: call these people out on their poor business practices, or defend them out of fear of not being accepted into their next no-pay anthology.
I'm sure you get stuff like this more than me, though. You run a review website. Don't you interact with writers pretending to want to be friends, only to discover their only real agenda is getting you to review their books?
"Hey, Ben, how are you today? Oh, Canada, huh? Wow, that's interesting. Maple syrup joke. Maple syrup joke. Oh hey you know what would be cool, why don't you review my book."
Ben: Max, I'll be honest. If I had a novel to publish, I'd beg you on my knees to publish it, but this novel doesn't yet exist, so I think our relationship is safe. The authenticity of our friendship is going to die a horrible death on that very day, though. I'm warning you. A lot of people don't know I'm writing fiction, but boy oh boy, when I'll release this novel of mine, they will drop to one knee, call me Mr. Foster Wallace and buy my mom a drink at the bar ( you don't want to do that).
I do have a lot of review requests even when I'm out of season (like, right now. I'm currently closed) and I am terrible at saying no. I wrote an article about small presses lately and it got me a shitload of review requests. Someone offers me a self-published novel with a hand drawn cover (happened more than once) and I'll battle every one of my instincts screaming to say yes in order to turn that author away. I could not tell you why that is. A shrink would tell you that it is a lack of self-confidence and that I was bullied in my childhood, but it would negate the fact that I'm just a narcissistic jock at heart. I tend to say yes to whoever approaches me in an earnest way and has been published by someone else. Then they stop giving me the time of day after I reviewed their book. And I weep. Story of my life.
Have you ever rejected a great novel because an author rubbed you the wrong way? Are the editing and the publishing process so intimate that it would make your life hell to work with a social media schmuck? Do you find validation in getting published? Why don't you publish books with PMMP? ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR LIFE, MAX BOOTH III? ARE YOU PROUD OF YOURSELF? PUBLISH MY BOOK. PLEASE.
Booth: Yeah, I always forget you write fiction, given how little you mention it. I know you had something in Joe Clifford's Bruce Springsteen anthology *, but I kind of avoided that anthology due to never listening to Springsteen before in my life. Have you started a novel yet? What are you even interested in writing? I assume more crime fiction, since that seems to be where you lean toward the most on your reading habits. Weren't you going to submit to LOST SIGNALS? What's your idea for that anthology?
But you see how paranoid all this closeness can make us? Just look at you and I. I'm a publisher, you run a book review site. Sometimes you review books I publish. But we're also friends. Where do we draw the line here? To me you've always been fair in your reviews, even your write-up of my TRUTH OR DARE anthology had some negativity to it. But maybe to other people the reviews seem less than genuine, or maybe people just don't give a shit, I don't know.
I can't think of a specific example of anyone I've received a book from that I've rejected because of how they act on social media, but I wouldn't put it past myself. If I receive a book from someone I know is annoying asshole on Facebook, I'm not going to bother with their book because I don't want to continue to deal with them. When it comes to small presses, the authors and editors must have good relationships, otherwise the book is destined to fail. A publisher isn't just taking on a new title to their catalog, they're welcoming a new author to their family.
Are you asking me why I don't self-publish my own writing with PMMP? Also, WRITE A BOOK and then we'll talk about it. Are you actually working on one right now?
Ben: I do. I write fiction. Not all that often and I'm not very comfortable talking about it, but I do and there's nothing that makes me feel as good as that, right now. Except for sex. I've been focusing on a story for LOST SIGNALS and wrestling with real life for a couple weeks now, though. So watch your mailbox BRO. There might be a story in there. Or porn. Or a virus. It all lies on you, Max Booth. What will be in your mailbox lies on how you treat me because I'm special.
* fap fap fap fap fap fap *
The issues I had with TRUTH OR DARE are issues I have with most short story anthologies. It was a pretty ambitious concept, so I'm not surprised the pertinence of the stories varied like that. I mean, I didn't even understand what the collection was about until I started reading it. There were a couple of really cool stories though and what I like was that they all came from authors I didn't previously know. I figure that if the book doesn't completely knock it out of the park, the best thing I can do is offer some constructive criticism. Except if you're James Patterson. Fuck that guy. I'm a reviewer, you know. Not a salesman. If people get pissed because I don't SELL their book, fuck em'. I'm not even that original of reviewer I guess, because I can't find a reason to like James Patterson.
I guess that's why I identified to Harlan Anderson a little bit in HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY KIDNAP STRANGERS. I guess I'm very afraid all my writing are going to end up like his novel THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID. Is there a character you most identify with in this novel? I felt like there was a lot of yourself in that book and that's why it worked so well.
Booth: You know what's depressing is I've read a shit ton of James Patterson books. He used to be one of my favorite authors when I was a lot younger, before I could understand the concept of terrible writing. Back then I devoured pretty much anything in my mom's paperback collection. Of course, that's also how I discovered Stephen King, so I guess it balances out. Which makes me curious who you read in your pre-teen years, too. What authors started your obsession with books?
TRUTH OR DARE was definitely ambitious, and I fear I did fail slightly when it came to presenting the overall concept. It's still a strong anthology, though, just not as strong as I envisioned. Moving on! I'm all about LOST SIGNALS right now. The theme is way less restricting, and also cool as hell. This anthology will be outstanding. I hope you get something in. The good thing about friends submitting to me is I don't even read the initial submissions sent to me, whether it's flash fiction, short stories, or novels. They all go through 'Anna DeVine first, and if she enjoys them, then I take a look.
Nick Twig is mostly inspired by myself, yeah, along with mixes of other small press owners around the wastelands of Facebook.
Ben: I got the best James Patterson story, man. One day I was at the bookstore, minding my own business and looking for something to read, when I see this guy browsing the Patterson section with an incongruous energy. So I walk up to him and tell him I haven't read Patterson. I ask him what kind of author he is (it was maybe two years before he started releasing 80 books a year). He gives me the best answer: ''He's the best, man. The absolute best. I only read him. I have literally never read a book that wasn't written by James Patterson in my life and I never will. Fuck that. Fuck everybody else.'' That explained a lot about his success, I thought. When you don't know better, MacDonald's is a delicacy. Except for your butthole. Buttholes always know what's up.
I'd say the book that got me reading was FIGHT CLUB, by Chuck Palahniuk. I had seen the film a couple times then, but stopping and reading his words slowly, that was quite the experience. It was the first book, I think, that I felt was talking to me directly, not to some bullshit objective reader.
Oh, I got a question man. What author do you think uses social media best? I love the playfulness of guys like Benjamin Whitmer, but business-wise, it's difficult to argue against Chuck Wendig's model, who build his entire brand off clever use of his blog and his social media channels. Guys like J. David Osborne and the Broken River crew, I think are leveraging many platforms to their advantage too, Facebook, Instagram, even Kickstarter. What do you think is the best usage of social media for an author and who's been doing it right?
Booth: James Patterson is the McDonald's of literature. Holy shit, that's perfect.
FIGHT CLUB is one of the few instances where I liked the movie more than the book. Although don't get me wrong, I still love the book, too. I think it has to do with the fact that I watched the movie long before I even knew it was a book. That's how I discovered Palahniuk, actually. Someone mentioned there was a novel of FIGHT CLUB, so I searched for him in my library.
Social media mystifies me. Everybody claims to have the secret formula and I think the secret formula is there ISN'T a secret formula. Basically just have interesting shit to say, and if you don't have anything interesting to say...well, I don't know, maybe rethink being a writer? Yeah, Osborne and BRP are tearing up social media. Whatever they're doing, it's working. Maybe it has to do with the Portland crowd. A lot of them live there, so it could just all be about local connections. I really have no idea.
Jessica McHugh is someone you ought to check out when it comes to social media, though. If there was ever such a thing as a "Facebook messiah", she might be the one. She manages to be funny, personal, and just...entertaining. Her personality online is also the same as it is offline, too. She's just a really outgoing person and people respond to that.
What are your thoughts on this? Right now, it still feels like the wild west. Nobody knows what the hell they're doing. We're just throwing spaghetti noodles at the wall and hoping one of 'em sticks.
Ben: I have a philosophy on this. I'm eventually planning a blog post (and potentially an eBook) about book promotion on social media, so I won't get into details here, but here's the gist of it: there are two things you can do on social media. Use them gracefully or sell stuff. If you want to use them to sell your books, you have to give your followers things they want: writing advice, free old books, coaching, contests, etc. It'll position you as someone people will want to get associated with. Chuck Wendig offers life affirming, profanity laced writing advice quips and the occasional life affirming, profanity laced leftist political tirade. People associate with that. He created an audience for himself by giving, rather than begging.
People like J. David Osborne and Jessica McHugh are also very successful because they're generous. They both share so much of who they are and what their lives are all about. They are both such magnetic people and their social media presence is about so much more than sales that whenever they're asking something, people are more than happy to participate. BRB's Kickstarter campaigns are the best example. I've funded one myself. People know who JDO is because of social media, they know he's a special person and they want to be a part of it. Too many authors think they bled enough on their novel and that it is their selfless contribution to society, but they are wrong. Finding success is about offering people something they don't have, solving problems in their lives, validating their existence. Social media is so idiosyncratic that this fact is too often misunderstood.
Anyway, I think HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY KIDNAP STRANGERS illustrates pretty well how self-centeredness ruins the lives of people in general. What Great Social Problem will you tackle in a juvenile, irreverent and delicious manner next, Max Boothiii **?
Booth: Everything you've said here makes sense and I agree. I also donated to the last BRP kickstarter. And speaking of which, how fucking amazing was Tiffany Scandal's JIGSAW YOUTH? I need to invite her to LOST SIGNALS, not sure how well she writes horror, though, but we'll see.
The book I'm currently working on is the hotel novel. I'm trying to illustrate how almost nobody knows how to do their jobs. Everybody is terrible at everything. Nobody wants to clock-in. Doesn't matter if you're pushing a broom or a badge. We all just want some fucking sleep. This book is destroying me, though. It's beginning to fuck up my mentality. I've written the majority of it while working shifts at the hotel, when I'm in a half-awake, half-asleep state of insanity. I think it'll make the book a lot better this way.
Ben: JIGSAW YOUTH was pretty fucking great indeed. I agree you need to invite her to LOST SIGNALS. I'd say she'd help the credibility of anybody's anthology right now. That's how highly I think of her writing.
Can't wait to read that hotel novel, man. Incompetence and perceived incompetence is another subject we need to dive into some other time, because I have a shitload of stuff to say about this, too. I've worked in a call center for 4 years. The stories I could tell you. Anything you want to add?
Booth: I actually sent her an email after replying to our last message. So now we wait.
I have nothing to add. WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER: THE SERIES was just added to Netflix, so I have...uh, stuff to go do.
* co-released by Zelmer Pulp.
* I totally swiped this joke from George Cotronis' repertoire.
* co-released by Zelmer Pulp.
* I totally swiped this joke from George Cotronis' repertoire.