AWESOME UPDATE: Eikaiwa Bums is out! This post is about how I queried the press and signed the contract, but you can also read about what happened when it actually came out, or cut to the chase and order a copy from my webstore.
So a little while ago I got some REALLY amazing news: in August, Blue Cubicle Press will be publishing my short story, Eikaiwa Bums, as a chapbook in its Overtime series of fiction about work. And just like that, I’ll have a book out.
Though this is hardly my first time getting my writing published, the Eikaiwa Bums chapbook feels like a BIG step because it’s an actual printed book that people can hold in their hand and read, as opposed to reading online or as part of a bigger magazine. (Don’t despair, virtual readers: there’ll still be a PDF version for easy downloading.) Having my own print book has been a dream of mine for a long time, and to have it finally becoming real has been both exhilarating and an incredible confidence boost as I keep moving forward along the long, long way I’ve still got to go.
(Also, in case you’re not sure, a chapbook is a small paperback book, usually short enough to read in one sitting. The chapbook Wikipedia page explains it pretty well, and has lots of cool medieval drawings.)
This particular acceptance also means a lot because Eikaiwa Bums is about a twentysomething working at a for-profit English school in Japan who’s baffled and confused by Japanese workplace culture—in short, it has a lot in common with my Japan novel, Nails, which I’m still trying to find a publisher for. Those of you I’ve sent Nails to will definitely recognize more than a few features of the novel, including:
- The draconian ONIX Corporation of English schools who directs its employees to teach, act, and think according to its labyrinthine rules
- Two male teachers who sit around talking about sex
- The Japanese separation of work and home life
- Whether it’s OK for a teacher to date students (adult students, not the underage kind, you perv)
Part of the story stems from early outtakes that never made it into the finished version of the novel, so it felt really good to find a home for these older bits. The finished story is separate from the novel but covers a lot of the same thematic ground—so if you’re curious about life in Japan but don’t want to read a whole novel, the 25-page version might be for you ;-)
So, Like, How Did You Get the Book Deal, Anyway?
When I was younger, getting books published always felt like this secret process that involved a lot of important business contacts and high-profile dealing. (Looking back, I think I had getting a book published confused with becoming a Hollywood actor.) When I got to grad school, though, we talked about the publishing process a lot, which made it less intimidating…but I also got the feeling that a lot of book deals still get made outside of the traditional query process, and those were the ones I REALLY wanted to know about.
That’s why I wanted to share how I got Eikaiwa Bums picked up, since I want to give those of you reading ideas for how to get your own work out there. (After all, that’s kind of the point of this blog!)
From Query to Contract
I finished my Japan novel, Nails, back in the fall of 2015 when I was still living in Nebraska and working days in a greenhouse. I say finished because by then I finally had a version I felt 100% comfortable showing to strangers and that I felt it represented the best novel I could possibly write, and I knew that I wouldn’t need to make a bunch of excuses about parts of it that weren’t working well.
That’s when I started pulling up sites like Query Tracker and Agent Query and looking through long lists of literary agents, since those are the people you send your book to when it’s done. Usually you just send the agent an email saying what your book is about, how long it is, etc., and then include the first chapter so they can take a look. (Each agent has different preferences for how much they want to see, though, so be sure to read their directions or you risk becoming that guy.) If the agent likes your query they’ll ask you for the full manuscript, and if they like the full manuscript they’ll make a deal to try and sell it so you can get published and they can make that mad agent commission money (usually 10%).
Throughout my long, LONG search I hunted for agents who seemed interested in novels that took place in other countries or who seemed like they wanted novels that were funny or smart or slightly offbeat in the way that mine is. I also gravitated toward younger agents or newer ones who might be more willing to take a chance on a first-time author, as well as ones whose bios made them seem like real people that I’d want to sit down and have a beer with.
As you can imagine, this whole process took a LONG time, and sometimes the agents also took a LONG time to respond. Over the next year, I contacted 62 agents (!) and got three requests to see the full novel (!!!), but sadly, none of these went anywhere (sad face).
Let’s Try Small Presses Next…
But wait! A lot of fiction, especially literary fiction (which I guess my novel fits into because there aren’t any vampires, orcs, or spaceships in it) also gets published through small presses. With small presses, the distribution is smaller (e.g., your book won’t be on the shelf at Barnes and Noble but you can order it on Amazon) and the payments are a lot lower, but small presses usually care less about making a lot of money and more about bringing kick-ass books into the public eye, including those by first-time authors. So this seemed like a logical place to try next.
Again I delved back into the research process, this time using sites like Newpages that listed all the small presses that were out there. Over a few weeks I weeded out all the presses that weren’t accepting queries or whose outlook or publishing histories didn’t seem to sync with my style—I tried to find presses who wanted cool, interesting books that were also funny, or even books that took place in other countries.
This is the process I’m in the middle of now. Applying to small presses can be more complicated than applying to agents, so my pace has been a lot slower on this front—as of now, I’ve applied to 25 (!) small presses and I’m still waiting for a lot of responses.
Is This How You Found Blue Cubicle Press?
Indeed—I found Blue Cubicle Press in the B section of the Newpages list. (Because I’d started at Z and moved backwards, I found them on my last day of research.) They’re a small press based out of Texas that’s been around since 2005, and they caught my attention immediately because they only publish books about work.
Now those of you who’ve read Nails know that most of the novel takes place in the Japanese office/English school where the main character works—it’s about his relationship to his job, and not understanding the way that the Japanese take on socially acceptable personas when they enter the workplace. This causes the main character a lot of stress, especially when the workplace persona he’s supposed to adopt feels false, unhelpful, and belittling to the people around him. In short, the foreign workplace culture is arguably the theme from the novel that stands out the most.
So I wrote an email to David LaBounty, the editor, per the website instructions (“Here’s where we get picky”), explaining what Nails has to say about the Japanese workplace and how it holds a mirror up to Western workplace culture that helps readers understand their own working lives better. I wrote this email especially for Blue Cubicle Press and avoided any of the form emails I’d been using to send to agents in earlier months.
Within a day David sent me back a response: he’d very much like to read the book, and could I send it over?
Then What Happened???
Then I played the waiting game—for two months, to be exact, until September when he sent me back this reply:
Dear Ian –
My sincerest apologies for holding on to your novel for so long. I did enjoy the story, and I thought the writing was excellent, but I wasn’t engrossed as I had hoped. I did go back and try to pull out some sections that I thought would fit well with our Overtime series, but I felt I was just cannibalizing, and I didn’t want to do that to your story. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to pass on the novel, but I do wish you all the best with it.
Best,
David
I read this email on my lunch hour one day and was pretty disappointed—getting rejected of course makes you feel like shit, but this one bothered me especially because I’d really had a good feeling about my chances.
After a few days of stewing I reread the email and realized that it was more personal and promising than most of my other rejections, and the reference to the Overtime series stuck out as something the editor had at least given a shot to. I had no idea what the Overtime series was, so I decided to at least try and find out.
A quick Google search revealed that in addition to putting out novels, Blue Cubicle also published several chapbooks a year as part of its Overtime series, each one consisting of a work-related short story. The chapbooks were available as both hard copies and PDF downloads, sold either on their own or as a subscription.
Seeing the series gave me an idea—I had a lot of old pages from Nails that never made it into the finished novel, and knew right away that I could turn them into something that would work for the format by using a different voice and narration.
I emailed David back pitching him the idea—a short story for the Overtime series that also took place at an ONIX eikaiwa in Japan, but one written in the first-person that focused more squarely on work. Two days later he replied saying he’d like to read it.
But You Didn’t Have the Actual Story Yet, Right?
….no, I didn’t, so I had to write it. It also became immediately clear that the old Nails pages had to be entirely rewritten if they were going to work as part of anything, and meanwhile I also had to put together the Art Swap and deal with some mad crazy end-of-the-year overtime at my Secret Office Day Job, which had me reeling with exhaustion at the end of every night. Amidst the chaos, I somehow made the time (mostly on weekends) to draft and then revise Eikaiwa Bums—a task that some of you might remember from my earlier updates as Secret Project #2.
I knew that I absolutely had to get the story finished before I left for India, and because the end of the year was going to be a madhouse I set a personal deadline of sending the finished story by Christmas. I hadn’t given the editor an exact date, but I didn’t want to let the query grow too cold and risk him forgetting.
I put the final polishes on Eikaiwa Bums on December 23rd and sent it off that afternoon before dashing out to do a fury of last-minute shopping. Then I waited.
And Then????????
Four days after getting back from India, I got a reply: David had really enjoyed Eikaiwa Bums and thought it would make a great addition to Overtime.
His reply included a contract for First North American Serial Rights (a standard agreement where the writer retains the copyright but agrees to let the publisher print the story) in exchange for payment—the first payment I’d ever gotten as a fiction writer. It didn’t bother me that the amount was less than I make before lunch at my Day Job—it was real money that I’d earned for doing something meaningful that I’d wanted to do.
We exchanged a few more emails about technicalities, including the publication date of August 15th, and agreed to get back in touch over the summer to check the final revisions. And just like that, I’d made my first book deal.
So that’s where I’m at now—August’s a ways away, but it’ll probably come sooner than I think ;-) I’ve got a lot of work to do in the meantime, and I’ll definitely keep you all posted on where and how to pick the book up when it comes out. If I’ve learned anything from this experience, though, it’s that you should never see a big project (like a novel!) as the be-all end-all, and should always stay on the lookout for side gigs you can do to supplement it, especially if they work in conjunction with the bigger project.
So keep your eyes open—that’s how it’s done.
Oh, and one more thing—when the book comes out I’ll totally be giving away FREE copies to people who join my email list, so sign up now and watch for your chance to enter and win!