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The Weird Time Delay on Writing and Publishing Mistakes

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The Weird Time Delay on Writing and Publishing Mistakes

Wibbly Wobbly Timeline Alert: This is your heads up that the post below speaks about two books that Brian Jar Press hasn’t officially announced yet, but will have available once this goes live on the blog in two weeks. 

This week, I started publishing books again.

The weirdest thing about publishing is this: you don’t pay for your mistakes in real-time. Stopped writing because of a serious illness? The books and stories you’ve already sold will keep appearing for another six months to two years, after which there will be a mysterious gap and the deafening silence feels like the end of your career.

Did your layout and design computer go boom, preventing work on new books in your small press publishing queue? The books you’ve already developed will chug along for a while, and it’s not until three-to-six months later that you’ve got no new releases and your cash-flow becomes the stuff of nightmares.

And the worst part: you forget the awful stuff happened. The flow of cause-and-effect gets muddy, and it never feels like you’re not publishing because bad stuff happened a while back, it feels like some personal flaw that means you should pack your bags up and give up this writing and publishing malarky for good.

Half the reason I embrace writing weekly newsletters about Brain Jar and my writing is so there’s an archive I can refer back to when it feels like shit is going wrong. I can trace the current problem back to its origin and see the decision I made at the time. It’s the back-up for my very fallible brain, which is prone to catastrophic thinking around pursuing a creative career.

Back in May, I made mistakes. Brain Jar Press went through a fallow period, where no new books were coming out. Those computer issues created a knot of problems that took time to work out, but they were hidden by projects that were already underway and ready to release when the computer noped out on us.

And yet, we’ve been quiet for three months now. The books that came out weren’t new releases, but projects from the in case of emergency draw. I went back to old logs a lot to remind myself how and why it was happening.

And now we’re through the gap, and the books are starting up. We’ve announced Sean Williams Little Labyrinths, and Kim Wilkins’ Headstrong Girl. The next round of books is underway, and it’s business as usual once more.

Some Updates From the Brain Jar

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Greetings, Lost and Lonely Blog Readers. It has, as they say, been a while. It’s the curse of having a lingering affection for an older, largely superceded form of online communication, plus the sheer pant-shitting terror of trying to launch a successful publishing company in the midst of global chaos. A good deal of the stuff that I used to blog about now finds its way into the weekly newsletter, which is itself supported by the Eclectic Projects Patreon where a lot of the conversations about what I’m posting tend to take place.

I’m also trying some new forms of online presence at the moment, which is a little terrifying in and of itself. I’ve fired up the ringlight and the webcam to start doing a little more video over on Facebook (itself a response to going offline for a week, and realising that a phone would still allow me to talk books and writing if people were used to seeing me on-screen as a face and voice instead of a stream of words).

Here’s the first attempt, talking about the recently launched chapbook edition of Angela Slatter’s No Good Deed.

There’s some slightly meatier vids coming about writing and publishing, which wil likely get crossposted here for folks who miss hearing me bang on about such things. Stay tuned, etcetera and so forth. More good things are coming.

In other Brain Jar news, we recently opened pre-orders on Kaaron Warren’s entry in the writer chaps series.

“Don’t write merely to shock. People are used to shock-horror. You need to get beneath the skin. Use a flensing knife and keep it sharp. It’s good to shock, but only as part of the story you tell.”

In these essays, Kaaron Warren—the Shirley Jackson Award-winning writer behind Slights, The Greif Hole, and Into Bones Like Oil—explores the craft and philosophy of trapping dark and disturbing fiction on the page.

Drawn from essays, workshops, and articles about the craft and business of writing, Capturing Ghosts On The Page feature’s Warren’s tips on writing ghost stories, overcoming professional jealousy, working to an anthology brief, tapping your dreams for inspiration, and more.

Whether you want an insight into the creative process that drives Warren’s dark and enchanting fiction, or you are an aspiring writer seeking tips from one of the most talented authors of horror fiction writing today, this chapbook is a peek into the mindset and practice of a celebrated Australian author.

It’s an outstanding book of writing advice, showing the kind of wit and insight that Kaaron Warren fans have long come to expect from her fiction. It comes out on June 15, and details are over on the Brain Jar Press website

An Important Publishing Lesson: Don’t Launch Your Company in November

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Ah, the holiday season is almost upon us. All the signs are there: Brisbane is turning into a sweltering slow cooker of humidity; Netflix swarms viewers with terrible Christmas movies (and, frankly, the temptation to watch them all is oddly overwhelming); NaNoWriMo is in full swing; and the sales of Brian Jar books evaporate into the ether as everyone waits for the Black Friday deals at the end of the month.

There are many lessons I’ve picked up the hard way in this publishing gig, but one of the biggest I’d pass on to aspiring indie publishers or writers is this: don’t launch your goddamn publishing company in November.

If you attempt it, you’re launching a new book into a maelstrom of distractions that will make it hard to nab the attention of readers. You’ll end up drowned out by the Black Friday promotions, American thanksgiving, the swarm of NaNoWriMo deals aimed at writers, and that lingering awareness everyone has that they’re about to blow a whole lot of cash on presents and Secret Santa exchanges at the office and a series of holidays celebrations.

Naturally, three years ago, I cluelessly ignored all of this and put my first Brain Jar Press book up for sale on November 30. And in every year since, I hit November and plan a celebratory new release to mark Brian Jar’s birthday, and quietly forget the lesson of the previous year about how difficult it is to sell books at this time of year.

Fortunately The Birdcage Heart & Other Strange Tales did pretty well, despite the handicap. It’s a solid perennial seller for Brian Jar Press, got shortlisted for Best Collection at the Aurealis Awards, and has evolved into a rather pretty books as I got better at the design and production.

To celebrate turning 3, we’re running a 30% off deal on the collection in print and ebook over at the Brain Jar Press store until December 1st.