I'm going to tell this story only once, for posterity, perhaps, or maybe just because it's so bizarre that I'll want to have this record in a year or 10 years or 20, when I won't remember the fine details anymore.
Soon—very, very soon—my 10th novel will be out in the world, available in a variety of formats through just about any retailer that sells books. For the longest time—and that's part of the story, really, the loooong time—my assumption was that it would be called Dreaming Northward and would be released by the publisher behind my previous book, And It Will Be a Beautiful Life. We had a good relationship, this publisher and I, and I expected our association to go on and on, to the end of my career. But it didn't go that way. On March 11, the day before Dreaming Northward was set for a fractured release, with the e-book going out first and the hardcover and audiobook supposedly to follow at some ill-defined point, I asked the publisher to cancel the book and immediately revert all rights to me. (That request was granted, for which I am grateful.) I will not engage in a blow-by-blow description of all the ways I believe my trust and faith were compromised. And I have no desire to harm this publisher; indeed, despite it all, I have great affection for the guy running the operation and would even consider a return if certain factors that beleaguered this book were dealt with and overcome. Obviously, the publisher might not be interested in a reunion, given the events of the past week. I'm just being clear about where I am on this. I'm not mad. I'm not even hurt, not really. I'm just sad and disappointed over the outcome but also resolute that it had to happen. Dreaming Northward is gone. Northward Dreams lives.
So why did I do it? It's not like publishing contracts are easy to get. It's not like I'm a well enough known quantity that I can act like a spoiled child and get away with it (or even foment the impression that I'm a spoiled child). It's not like I have this notion that independent publishing is a dream trip. I've taken it, and it's not. It's a slog. It's exhausting. It's an endeavor undertaken with the odds ever against you.
So first, let me say this: I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a spoiled child. Second, I've been around enough publishing blocks—self-publishing, small publishing, big publishing with powerhouse marketing and backed by big-time agencies, etc.—to know that almost everything is a crapshoot for almost everybody. In this case, the promises made to me about how my book would be positioned and the marketing muscle that would be put behind it were, in retrospect, dependent on a round of funding my publisher kept promising was imminent, month after month after month. After this book slid from its original publication date in June 2023 all the way to the doorstep of last fall, I asked for a Spring 2024 date, thinking that might provide the necessary buffer for the funding to come through and for the marketing pieces to be put in play. Many, many times, I was told the funding was just a signature or a courier away from being realized. Month after month, it didn't show up. In late January, I asked if the March 12 release date was going to hold. Yes, I was told. But in the end, that cratered, too. The e-book was definitely going to come out, but the hardcover would have to be delayed. That was the eventual word. How long would the delay be? No one could say. I wasn't comfortable, but I was willing to go along and have faith. We were so close. Then came March 11 and word of another funding delay, and that ended my faith. I couldn't trust that the hardcover edition would ever come out. The more I considered it, the more I feared that the e-book would get launched, nothing else would come up behind, the whole thing would eventually crash, and I would have to pick up a barely breathing book and try to resuscitate it on the fly. It was just a bizarre episode. Not two days before I asked for a reversion, I stood in front of 50 people at the Billings Public Library, talked about And It Will Be a Beautiful Life (the most recent selection for the One Book Billings community reading program), and premiered a video about Dreaming Northward. (The video has been edited in light of recent events and can be seen below.)
I had every expectation that my book release, flawed as it might have been, would be realized. Then Monday dawned, and with it came another funding delay and my publisher's declaration that he was leaving his post for a couple of weeks amid this latest setback. He said he had to shore up his affairs in light of the situation. That was the final blow to my trust.
I asked for my book back. I made arrangements to publish it myself, through my own boutique house. In a frenzied 24-hour period, I conjured a new title, designed a new jacket, got hardcover files together and uploaded, got the e-book file to my designer, revamped this website, reworked marketing materials (such as Facebook headers and event posters), contacted booksellers and librarians who have already booked me, and, somewhere in there, bagged a few hours of sleep. Just last night, I approved the hardcover files with my printer/distributor and officially set a publication date: March 19, 2024. As I said on Facebook: I lost a week. I gained my whole book. It's not remotely what I anticipated or wanted. But it's my project now, and I'm determined to push it as far as it will go. I'll have to do some fundraising. I'll have to come up with some clever and creative marketing approaches. I'll have to look for people to say yes. Bring it on.
So the e-book comes out first. What's the big deal?
Look, I love e-books. That's how thousands and thousands of readers have been exposed to my work. But my passion lies in supporting independent bookstores, and this was always going to be a bookstore book. There were grand plans—personal letters to booksellers from my publisher and me, flashy campaigns through Bookshop.org, maybe a tour. All dependent on funding, of course. And it wasn't so much that the e-book would go first that bothered me as the fact that I no longer believed the hardcover would appear at all, given the dead promises along the way. There was no way to be OK with that. My faith was expended. That doesn't mean I wish bad things for my old publisher now that my book is out of the mix there. On the contrary, I hope I'm extraordinarily wrong about my suspicion of how that situation will finally play out. I hope he calls me in a few months and says, "You should have waited, buddy boy," and sends me videos of his lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills. I'd be thrilled for him because he's a good man, and he was hands down the best editorial partner I've ever had. Publishing is hard work. It's even harder on a shoestring budget (as I well know and am about to experience again). I don't hold my publisher's inability to do right by this book against him. He was trying. Hard. But it wasn't happening, and in the face of that reality, my loyalty had to be to my work. In short, even if my publisher's highest ambitions come to fruition, I made the right call, given the track record. At the moment I had to make a decision, I made what I consider to be the brave one. I chose my work. I chose my sense of integrity. "If it's not hell yes, it's no" is a great clarifier in matters of choice. Sticking to that rubric, even when the answers aren't easy and even when the wish is for a different outcome, can keep one from committing reservedly to something that requires one's whole heart. I was no longer at "hell yes." Therefore, it had to be "no."
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About CraigCraig Lancaster is an author, an editor, a publication designer, a layabout, a largely frustrated Dallas Mavericks fan, an eater of breakfast, a dreamer of dreams, a husband, a brother, a son, an uncle. And most of all, a man who values a T-shirt. Archives
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