Baboon Fart Story

There appears to be an ongoing feud between self-published authors and authors who get published through traditional methods by an established publisher. Self-published authors believe that they can earn more money by publishing their novels on their own and they do not like getting rejected over and over again by publishing firms and agents. Those who get published traditionally believe that self-published books are trash as they have not been vetted through agents, editors, etc.

I can see both sides of the argument. There are many self-published piles of manure. There are also piles of manure that are published by the Big 5 publishers. Granted, they are well edited piles of manure, but they still stink.

Chuck Wendig wrote on his blog, Terrible Minds, the following statement about self-published books:

This usually sounds something like “The only real choice is either self-publishing your work or submitting to the gatekeepers,” where the gist is, understandably, that self-publishing is like getting to jump right onto your flight and go wherever you want to go, and traditional publishing means submitting to an invasive colonic cavity search before you’re even allowed near the gate.
 This is true-ish, in that I can literally write the word “fart” 100,000 times and slap a cover of baboon urinating into his own mouth, then upload that cool motherfucker right to Amazon. Nobody would stop me. Whereas, at the Kept Gates, a dozen editors and agents would slap my Baboon Fart Story to the ground like an errant badminton birdie.

Within 24 hours, a writer only known as Phronk took up his challenge and self-published Baboon Fart Story and was selling it for 99 cents.

This fine tomb was the word “fart” written 100,000 times. It was actually formatted as you would expect, with paragraphs and chapters. However, only the word “fart” was used. The book even had a baboon urinating into his own mouth on the cover.

The reviews for this book were awesome. But, alas, it appears that Amazon has gatekeepers of their own and removed the book. Shame, too, as I am sure it was a much better read than 50 Shades of Dumb.

According to the author, the book sold 21 copies before Amazon removed it. This was the email he received:

We’re writing to let you know that readers have reported a poor customer experience when reading the following book: Baboon Fart Story: An experiment inspired by Chuck Wending. As a result, we have removed the book from the Kindle Store. Indicators of poor customer experience are surfaced through a variety of methods, such as customer refunds, customer reviews/star ratings and direct customer feedback. Per our KDP Content Guidelines, we reserve the right to determine whether content provides an acceptable experience for customers.

This experiment proves a couple of things…

First, you can publish anything you want. Anything. This book, with 21 sold copies, was ranked #9 under the Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Books & Reading > General category on Amazon.

Second, you can publish a book quickly if you want to. This book was up on Amazon within 24 hours of the original blog post.

And third, there will always be gatekeepers. Whether it is an agent, a publisher, or the cry of a multitude of unhappy readers to Amazon, bad books will be banished.

When It Is Right

In my journey of self-discovery as a writer (that’s a nicer way of saying “my feeble attempts to write”), I am amazed at the emotional roller coaster ride. I am discovering an entire plethora of emotions while performing the simple act of “writing”.

Fear – every writer feels this. I found this the easiest to overcome with one simple statement: what is the worse I can do, write a crappy story? Surprisingly, fear is the simplest emotion for a writer to conquer once you realize a simple fact about humanity: haters are gonna hate. There will be more people displeased with your writing than those who like it. Accept that and your fear will vanish. You aren’t writing for those people. You are writing for yourself and for those who enjoy the way you write.

Confusion – yes, writing can be confusing. Grammar and spelling confuse the hell out of me. The English language is the least logical concept ever developed by mankind.

Anxiety – wait, what? Yes, anxiety. The feeling that is born of fear, but I am not referring to the fear of writing. Anxiety sets in when you don’t know what words to put down next. Planning and outlining resolve this emotion.

Obsessiveness – OCD waiting in the corners of your brain. All it takes is one small, seemingly insignificant, unresolved detail that will turn the sanest person into a completely neurotic obsessive compulsive freak. In my case it was the title for my first book. Every time I sat down to write the fact that the title I had chosen was wrong would cloud my thoughts.

Exhilaration – complete and utter bliss. This normally occurs after you conquered one of emotions above or achieved one of your goals.

The original title for my book, Duality, was born from a scene I envisioned between the protagonist and one of the antagonists.  After completing the outline, the antagonist in the envisioned scene wound up being a minor character and the scene that occurs actually is a minor event.

For three weeks I agonized about the title. I needed something dark as that is the theme of the entire series. Book two is titled The Dark Legions and book three is The War for False Hope. Those titles are set in stone. Both of those titles describe a character or an event. The title for book one needed to describe a concept.

I believe that there should only be three types of titles: an event, a person or group of people (or even an organization), or a concept that the story conveys, such as a motivation. It’s the third type that is tricky. If the concept is described too thoroughly by the title, then the reader will not experience the ride associated with learning of the concept through the story. If the concept is not thoroughly described through the title then the reader will not understand why the title is what it is.

The concept title should be completely revealed near the end of the book and articulated fully for the reader. It could be a phrase used in one of the final conversations, preferably right before the final climax of the novel.

This is what makes the concept title so difficult. Easy to do for the names of individual chapters, but for the whole novel it is difficult.

But when it hits, you will know it. You will know it because it is right. Then you will experience exhilaration.

The title for my first book is The Gods That Punish. The full title is The Arkkaim Prophecies Book 1: The Gods That Punish.

It is right because, in retrospect, that is the only title it could be.

Outline Completed!

The outline for my first novel is complete! 44 chapters and an estimated 96,000 words of a novel. It is funny because I feel like I’ve accomplished something great and I really want to celebrate, but I don’t think anyone would really understand. I am discovering that writing is difficult because it is so solitary.

My methodology for writing has some very defined milestones. The outline was a huge milestone because it frees me up to actually write the novel. Now I only need to focus on 2,000 words at a time. Each section of the outline describes a chapter, which is around 2,000 words. Some chapters are estimated at 3,000 words because they need to cover a lot material. The next step is to sit down and focus on one chapter at a time.

The first thought that came to my mind when I completed the outline was “if I were to write a novel, this is how it would flow”. This is exactly what I like to read. The manipulation of the protagonist and the antagonist. The reoccurring themes. The events that happen early in the story appearing quite significantly at the end. The build up to the finale. The finale being such a huge event that it is like the last few minutes of a fireworks show.

Yes, this is exactly the type of story I like to read.

Now I just need to do it justice by filing in the details.

44 small milestones to go…