Tales From A Young Author
Some time back, I posed a set of questions on an online author-centric group in which I participate, looking for a possible guest blogger. I particularly wanted an ebook-only author or an author who used a pen name specifically for ebooks. My interest was in why authors have chosen to go the ebook route and how they see themselves fitting in with brick & mortar bookstores other than the ones with their own ereaders. Bottomline, I wanted to be persuaded that ebooks are a good thing for me as a small independent bookseller, not as a reader.
No author responded to my request with regards to bookstores but Justin Murphy, a young man with quite a bit of writing under his belt, is here to share his experiences with ebooks as a way of breaking into the publishing world.
Born November 26, 1985, in Dothan, Alabama, Justin Murphy started writing short stories and screenplays about The Lost Continent of Atlantis four years before he was first published with his novella Dothan, soon followed by the release of Everyone Loves A Scandal at the now defunct Epstein Publishing in 2004 and 2005 respectively. These works would be re-released by Aspen Mountain Press, along with a collection of short stories entitled The Young South between 2006 and 2007.
In addition to his screenwriting pursuits, he has has also been on working on a few full length novels in the last few years. After signing with Amazon Kindle, he once again released editions of his previous published work, along with new material such as the novellas, The Martian Conspiracy and The House With The Question Mark. In addition to this, he also composed the short story collection entitled Century of Weird and A Fan’s Guide To Steven Spielberg. These latter works first appeared on Associated Content, where he wrote numerous articles and short stories, while the fan guide was derived from a column he wrote about Spielberg’s career at Examiner.
His long range goal is to either become a bestselling novelist or a high paid screenwriter for film and television. From a young age, he has spent years climbing his way there for little money. He is working on a first person novel seen through the eyes of an autistic child. His experiences helping raise younger brother is the basis for this novel.
There are many reasons why authors choose to go down the eBook road. Their writing may not meet the standards of agents in New York, much less any small presses. They may even make the mistake of self-publishing their material for a POD or vanity press. The Internet is pretty much where I’ve spent my career. It might be the only option I, along with several others, have to get our work out there. Whether it be due to quality of writing, or a chasm in the marketplace. Publishing has sunk farther and farther as an industry in the past twenty years. Many debat whether it may be changing tastes in our culture. Or it may have to do with economic and financial issues. Yet many overlook the fact film and television are also big factors. Their audience grows more and more while publishing’s interest from readers is increasingly less and less. Yet the ironic Catch 22 in all of this is despite publishing’s declining fortunes, the general public knows what short stories and novels are. Yet while film and television have taken center stage as our major forms of art and entertainment, not many outside of Los Angeles or New York even know what screenplays are.
I have been writing since the age of 15, when I wrote short stories about The Lost Continent of Atlantis. It was a goal of mine that these would launch me into a career as a screenwriter for film and television. Yet I could not approach any contacts there because I was underage at the time, and in vain, tried to make contacts in the industry all for a year after I turned 18. My professional career started when I was 19, when I release my first novella entitled Dothan with the now defunct Epstein Publishing. Where I also published another novella called Everyone Loves A Scandal. A year or so after, this publisher went out of business. Yet I managed to keep the rights, and those two novellas were then picked up by a new upstart called Aspen Mountain Press. They also released a new collection of short stories I wrote with the title The Young South. As the above indicates, another Catch 22 is that film and television pay lots of money, but it is much harder to get work. Yet while being a published author does not pay that much, it is an easier way of getting your work out there.
Century of Weird
During this period, I continued writing spec scripts for film and television in hopes of getting noticed, and even got the attention of a producer out in Santa Monica, California. One who said I did not have to pitch him anything, just send my ideas and screenplays, and then we would get to work. Yet I have only heard from him on rare occasions since, and he neither sent me non-disclosure agreements nor any money. To date, he has not used any of my ideas, andseveral of his films and television series have fallen through during the financial stages. While I still spoke with producers who loved my ideas, nothing eventful happened and I continued to hit a brick wall in my pursuits as a screenwriter.
After a couple years of Aspen Mountain Press having the rights to my material, I got the them back and mulled over the possibility of re-releasing them or abandoning them altogether. I also wrote my first full length novel entitled The Truth About Murder. This novel got the interest of four agents, but sooner or later they petered out. Along with the frustration of writing and rewriting the novel over the course of a few years, I also wrote articles and columns for the websites Associated Content and Examiner as a way of making a little money here and there. During all of this, the WGA strike and the recession affected film and television in a big way. So much that, with a few exceptions, I gave up screenwriting for the next two or three years.
In addition to writing my first novel, I re-released all of my past material in some form or another on Amazon Kindle. I proofread and published the works myself. Along with the previous releases, I then compiled batches of my short stories on Associated Content into a new short story collection entitled Century of Weird, along with two new novellas, The House With The Question Mark and The Martian Conspiracy. I also wrote a batch of short stories called The Ancient Astronaut Files on Associated Content, which then became the basis of another novel I wrote and pitched to agents. Yet while these Kindle releases got me listed on Amazon.com after five years of professional work, these full length novels got me nowhere with the big guys up in New York.
I still hold out hope that my novels The Truth About Murder, The Ancient Astronaut Files, or my current novel, Pookie will end up on bookshelves. Yet in an interview I did with best selling author Thom Racina at Associated Content, he admitted the publishing industry has been declining for years, and there is no room for new talent. Except for the established best sellers like Nora Roberts or Danielle Steele. Small presses can help fill such a gap, but only in a limited fashion depending on their financial status. Since 1990, there has been a steady decline in the publishing industry, almost to the point where most authors are lucky to even get one novel sold in bookstores after 2001. As opposed to the 1970′s and 1980′s, when it was much easier for Stephen King and others to have best sellers in the marketplace.
Everyone Loves a Scandal
Truth be told, many now prefer the visual image over the written word. Film had been a challenge for novels dating back to the early 1900′s, along with television arriving in the 1950′s. Yet as we gradually got more and more entrinched into the cable and home video markets after the 1980′s, publishing has been on the decline ever since. The advent of The Internet and other technological innovations since the 1990′s have hastened this decline even further. Publishing has fallen so far that only two major Los Angeles related entertainment companies still own major New York based publishers — the News Corp/FOX owned HarperCollins and the Viacom/CBS owned Simon & Schuster. In the event these two publishers ever get sold to companies outside the entertainment realm, the physical link between publishing and entertainment will be gone.
Also, the style and quality of the writing might be problem for larger outlets. I’ve been told many times that while my creativity and storytelling abilities are off the charts, my grammar has always been a problem, for some reason. I recently got a couple critiques saying ”I write too young” and that my vocabulary, sentence structure, tense, and narrative flow are off. There is no doubt that’s also an issue in some form for other writers as well, everyone has a weakness. Although the irony is, only a few ever complained about my grammar when reviewing my screenplays. The complaints on this front were more about structure and formatting. Something every screenwriter also had to deal with at sometime or another. The big difference is novels are free flowing narratives lasting 300 pages or more. A writer’s mind is able to go anywhere in terms of internal thought and emotion, along with all five senses. While screenplays are a more rigid structure unique to the individual yet collective medium of film and television. They are often no more than 110 pages with the writer’s mind required to focus on sight and sound.
As of this writing, I am almost halfway through Pookie, a first person novel seen through the eyes of an Autistic child. The basis of it comes from first hand experience of helping raise my brother from the time I was 12. A few indie producers have also approached me about making another attempt at screenwriting for film and television. Most of my contacts love the idea, and think I should pursue it. Yet I hope this attempt leads to non-disclosure agreements and being paid money. While there a few who believe that writers should not do both novels and screenplays, there have been many who have encouraged me to do both, with the belief one medium balances the other out. And for very little money and at such a young age, I’ve done it all — short stories, novellas, articles, and columns. Along with trying to get noticed for writing full length novels and feature length screenplays. Maybe they are right.
August 6, 2010
Posted in: Guest Blogs
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2 Responses
Believe it or not, some of the reasons I went to e-publishing eons ago–before anyone knew what that meant–are the same as the young man’s above–but in my case I had so many books and wasn’t getting anywhere the usual routes, I wanted my novels to get published.
For a bookseller, unless he or she also has an e-book outlet, this isn’t helpful. Now, the two small presses I’m with are e-publishers first but also publish trade paperback. Most of my fans are people who still want “regular” books.
Marilyn
Interesting in this publishing revolution. Who knows where things will shake out?
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