Giving up on the Doomed Collection

[Richard H. Fay]

I've given up on my dream of seeing my ill-fated illustrated dark speculative poetry collection Dreadful Vision, Terrible Dreams published. The dream has become something of a nightmare, and my patience has finally worn out. I'm declaring the collection dead and ready to be dismembered.

It would have been nice to see this one in print; it had a solid theme throughout, and some damned good art, but I simply don't have the time and energy to keep that particular dream alive. It seems that this collection truly was damned.

[Rob K]

Why not try selling it on the Kindle, Richard? That seems to be working for some writers.

[Jaqhama]

Lulu and such like may well be your friend matey.

At the end of the day I write for myself and am happy if my family and friends enjoy the stories.
So LULU is good if you just want to hold your finished work as an actual book.
Still some satisfaction there.

Cheers: Jaq.

[Richard H. Fay]

Oh no! Self publishing? That's signals the death knell to ANY prospect of getting ANY respect in the writing world.

Seriously, there was a point when I considered publishing the collection myself. I had pondered that possibility after publisher number one pulled out and things weren't looking too good for my prospects of seeing publication by publisher number two. However, I don't think I want to spend the time and effort on formatting it all myself, in taking on the role of publisher as well as poet and artist. I simply have too many other things on my plate at the moment, including a rather ambitious collection-in-progress that a publisher fully intends to publish once the collection is completed. Lot's of drawing left to do, drawing I won't be able to get to if I'm spending all my time formatting the cursed collection.

If it were the choice between a self published collection or no collection, I might still go the self publishing route. After all, the collection had already gone through the editing process, and I was told by one of the ever-changing poetry editors at publisher number two that the collection was so polished even before being edited that it could have been published as-is. However, if it's a choice of dividing my efforts between two collections, and perhaps never seeing either one published, or concentrating on finishing one while dismembering another, I'll choose the latter option. At the end of it all, I'll still have one collection in hand, even if it isn't the collection I originally hoped for.

Besides, I'm getting to the point with this writing and art thing that I want more out of it than merely seeing my works in print. That particular goal was fulfilled long ago. My mother-in-law keeps a collection of all the zines that my poems, articles, and illustrations have been published in, and she says it surpassed twenty quite a while ago (probably closer to thirty by now). I also keep all my contributor's copies, but I haven't actually counted them. Granted, having one or even a handful works in a magazine or anthology isn't the same as having one whole book consisting of all your own works, but I'll get there yet. It just won't be with the ill-fated Dreadful Visions, Terrible Dreams. Perhaps that's for the best.

[darkbow]

Don't give up completely. Keeping a project on the backburner is fine. You might eventually have the time to publish it yourself, or maybe another publisher will eventually come along who is right for the project.

[Richard H. Fay]

Don't give up completely. Keeping a project on the backburner is fine. You might eventually have the time to publish it yourself, or maybe another publisher will eventually come along who is right for the project.

Too late, it's already a done deal. I've already sent off several of the previously unpublished poems and illustrations as separate submissions to various markets.

The thing is, putting the collection on the backburner would tie-up too many good poems and illustrations, material that I simply don't want tied up any longer. I would rather have a shot at getting SOME of it seen than NONE of it.

[Mike Griffiths]

Things could pan out in the future, but I agree self publishing is bunk.

Sometimes your epic dreams are harder. Like my seven book series where is book is like 200k ha ha. I'll have to make it big with some other project for someone to look at that one seriously.

MDG