I've been working on repainting the 19 pictures for my children's book a fair bit this year, and in doing so have de-prioritised my current writing project. I feel so guilty about it. I've managed to knock out about as many words of the first draft as I've written for the entirety of my first manuscript, but this story isn't more than two-thirds of the way to the end (and it feels like less than halfway, if I'm realistic about my plan)...but I've managed to advance it significantly beyond the initial point where I left off last year, at what felt like the end of the first "act" - a completely arbitrary point, really, as I'd never planned it in parts, but it really felt like the conclusion of some part of the story. In short, it's languishing a bit in the dusty corner of my memory stick, from where it sends little messages to ask me why I've spurned it, why I've forgotten it, whether it's just another of those misbegotten attempts at telling a pointless tale that'll go nowhere. No, little story. I'll come back for you, and I'll take you out for ice cream to make up for it, I promise.
This kids' book is something I've had in my mind since I was maybe 13 or 14 - so it's been a great idea in my head for over half of my life. Not just in my head, actually: after the end of a fairly significant relationship way back in 2008, I realised I had to make time for myself and for the things I wanted to get done - rather than focusing all of my energy on trying to sort out the mess of that ended entanglement. And I did - I spent the next two years working piecemeal on deciding which words to use and crafting pictures. By some time during 2010 I had a retinue of watercolour paintings depicting what I wanted to show - and I was really pleased with the result. Looking back I can see the flaws and the faults; I'd never really been into painting very much prior, so it was a bit of a learning process for me - but then, for the first intimidating attempt at committing paint to paper as more than a last resort I had done pretty well.
In 2013 I returned to school to study graphic design, having successfully trained and worked for three years as a registered nurse. The two are completely related, obviously. I devoted hour upon hour to achieving results in that course, and felt overwhelmingly as if I were doing what I should have been doing from day one vocationally. One of the projects was the creation of a book - and most of my classmates chose to create a children's book. It seemed a fairly universal desire among us to write and illustrate a book, quite apart from learning the basics of book-binding as well as page imposition, how to create book signatures, how to design dust jackets, and so on. I created one of the by-then several kids' books I'd made plans for since 2008, and then returned to it and created another book for my end-of-year project - and painting approximately 35 painted pages across the pair of them, taking perhaps 25 days for each set of illustrations.
You can probably imagine that I didn't have time to choose actual watercolour paper, to stretch the low-quality paper I had to use, or to even get excellent photos/scans of the pages. While I was extremely pleased at what for me was a monumental effort and its outcome, I've known since I completed them that as first editions of these books they were good as concepts - but not really market-ready. Quite apart from that, response to them has been mixed: some, like my design tutor, spoke nothing but praise for them, while others, such as a manuscript assessor I engaged with, offered less encouraging critique. And that's fine - I wouldn't want stuff that could be improved to not be brought up, even if I don't agree with it in the end. I appreciate feedback.
In any case, as I mentioned I've been working this year predominantly on redoing the paintings for the original story, which was the "other" book I produced as part of my end-of-year project - and this time on watercolour paper that I've stretched myself. So far the paintings have turned out (as expected) a great deal more refined and polished - though I wouldn't make any claim to be a watercolour master, the pictures are in a style I've become comfortable with. I have 19 to do, and have completed a third of them - which is well on track for having them finished before the end of the year (though not for having them finished by the end of June, as I'd wondered about doing).
But what then, when I do finish them? Well...I guess here again falls the shadow of self-publishing. Did I ever tell you about that one time I sought information from a self-publishing company and ended up regretting it, a whole freaking lot? Yes? No? Well, just in case I haven't, I'll tell you again.
I made the mistake some time in 2014 of searching for self-publishing companies on the internet. I should probably take that back, really - the mistake wasn't searching, but rather the assumption that I made that if a company has a web address that ends in ".co.nz" then it's probably more aligned with my outlook as a New Zealand-based or a New Zealand-associated company. Why was that assumption made in error? Well, mostly because it's a marketing tactic - on the one hand it appeals to nationalism, and the idea that if it's locally-made or locally-sourced then it must be better (I don't subscribe to this notion, or to nationalism as a mindset); on the other it counts on the consumer's feelings of trust or mistrust, because if a company is based closer to home then it will operate under socially-recognise rules of fairness, be more accessible, and have the interests of the locals at heart, right? Well, perhaps - after all, I might be able to speak in real time to a person representing a local company and a certain (false) sense of camaraderie might make them less officious and more prone to want to solve problems I might have or seek the best outcome for me. Or maybe not - but those are the assumptions that people make (and often why so many people are against outsourcing, quite apart from their notions that a company outsourcing their customer service department, for instance, takes jobs away from the local economy [even this is a bit of an assumption - after all, perhaps the company just can't afford to have a local department due to overheads, due to how many employees, infrastructure...who knows?]. Unfortunately it starts to go beyond nationalism and into outright xenophobia - but that's a subject for some other time, and maybe some other blog out there).
In any case, I selected one agency with a .co.nz, and made an enquiry - basically just wanting to find out more information on what services there were available. In the enquiry I asked to be emailed, but for some reason or other I supplied my mobile phone number - either because I was required to, or because I tend to provide extra information even when I don't have to. I'm a real dork like that.
Not long after, I received a phone call from a "publishing agent" (i.e. a salesperson) who proceeded to try to sell me a deal they had. I said to him at the time that I had really only wanted to find out information, but I also made the stupid mistake of not saying "I was not wishing to buy anything at this time and this conversation doesn't appear to be about providing me with information, so I will be hanging up now. Thanks, goodbye". Instead I stayed on the phone, politely saying "that deal sounds interesting, however I would like to receive information in written form so could you email it to me so I can have a look at what the deals are?" for 40 minutes. What really got me was that rather than being listened to (and this is said with full recognition that the guy was trying to make a sale and earn commission, and that I should have terminated the phone call when it became clear that it did not meet my needs), the sales rep heard my lack of enthusiasm as "I need more convincing, so convince me". I'm sure you can imagine the lines he started reeling off to me: "I have every faith that your book will be amazing", "I love children's books. They really fire the imagination. I would love to read yours to my kids" and "I don't want you to miss out on this opportunity. If you never take the plunge it might never be published and everyone will miss out". And I'm sure you can imagine the tone in which everything was said - that I'm-insincere-but-I'm-trying-to-sound-as-if-I-mean-it tone that I think is more offensive than if someone is clearly not interested and isn't going to pretend otherwise, because they go from knowing you can see they don't care to appealing to your vanity, for one, and treating you like you're an idiot who can't see through their act. It wasn't as if the guy had a sample of my work, or knew anything about me - and yet there he was on the other end of the phone telling me he knew in his heart that my book would be a success and that he wanted to read it himself.
At length I managed to conclude the conversation, appreciating the assurance of this sales rep that he would wait for me to be in touch if I "had enough faith in my own book" to go ahead with it. He sent me the information, which I skim-read - seeing it was clearly not information I really had use for - and decided not to reply. Not long later I received another phone call - same guy, same situation, same amount of time wasted on the phone. I should know, really, that if I don't want to be on the phone then I don't have to be. I have respect for others enough to know that a conversation just abruptly terminated without a conclusion is downright rude - so I never just hang up the phone. However, again I should have said to him "this conversation is not one I feel meets my needs, so I will say goodbye. Thanks for your time", and have hung up then - clearly letting him know why I were hanging up. But no, instead I listened to him, repeating myself over and over again about how it wasn't the right time for me to be pursuing any of these deals, and that the deals didn't match my needs. I got more of the same lines, though I remember them being more skewed towards "well if you haven't got the faith to stand behind your book..." - clearly the company in question, and certainly their sales rep, thought that manipulating someone by calling them spineless in the face of opportunity was a great way to secure a sale and make money. The conversation didn't really advance, though I did tell him at one stage that I didn't want to spend as much money as the deals required when I wasn't ready to publish and that I was still at work on my book - and that again I had really only wanted information at this stage. So we terminated the conversation at that stage, and I felt I had respectfully made my position clear.
I heard nothing until one evening I got another call about six months after my initial enquiry. The numbers had always been preceded by 001 (the US calling code), though for some reason the sales rep had always spoken of calling from Australia, and I have several friends who live in the US - so I assumed that after six months of non-contact that it might have been someone I knew calling from a different number. Nope, it was the same guy.
"Hello, Simone? I'm calling to let you know we have 50% off our deals at the moment. As soon as I got the memo today I thought of you as I know you'd said one of your concerns was the price of our deals" he said. It took him till the third time of saying my name to get it right (apparently "Simon" is a fairly unusual name, though with the number of times I've encountered others with it in my lifetime I'd not have assumed so), and at this stage I was fairly unimpressed. I remained polite, but I kept the conversation short this time - after all, how honest can a person claim to be in their statements of "as soon as I was made aware of this I thought of you, though I couldn't for the life of me remember the pronunciation of your name"? Made worse, of course, by the fact that he would have had my file on his screen, so his mispronunciation really wasn't excusable. I said to him that he was welcome to send the information to my email (where it would go directly to my junk folder) and that if I were interested I would get in touch with him.
After that I saved the number under a name I knew not to pick up to, and further received perhaps five or six calls from it. After several I was emailed about not missing out on the opportunity to self-publish, and am in fact still, two years after I initially requested information, receiving emails trying to convince me to buy-in: "Please let us know if you would like to embark on the journey of self-publishing with us". I'd say my over-all lack of response at this point should be indication enough that I am not interested, but after the second phone call I had ignored (and fifth call in total) I had also sent an email to the general contact address asking for my information to be taken off their system as I was at this point feeling moderately harassed. Clearly I wasn't listened to - and that makes me think that the sales rep was and is actually following company policy by becoming so insistent about me becoming a customer and not letting me return to them when and if I were ever ready. And if this is company policy...well, it doesn't inspire confidence in their overall business model.
What lesson did I take from this? Well, mostly: do not seek information from companies which wish to sell something - this will be taken as a sales lead. Personally I felt so hounded that I have become a dedicated non-customer of this particular self-publishing company, and will discourage others on a person-to-person basis from contacting them or engaging with them. Certainly this is a technical loss of business for the company in question, but obviously their tactics of hounding people into being customers work on some level - or they'd change their approach. I'm not suggesting people are necessarily being bullied into buying - if they're anything like me, even their desire to maintain respectful communication and their wish to remain polite won't result in them spending money they do not want to spend. But I do wonder whether sometimes people who don't know better do feel pressured, coerced and manipulated by sales tactics like this; after all, enough people must respond to flattery regarding how their book just must be made available for the world because it's certain to be that special (even though it has never been seen by the person paying such compliments) by buying a self-publishing package that this approach helps to keep the company afloat.
What I also learnt is that if I do not wish to speak to someone about something then I don't have to. I'm usually pretty good at concluding phone calls I don't wish to remain participant of these days, but every-so-often I remember the two 40-minute phone calls I had with the sales rep from this company and it re-steels me against wasting my time and my energy on things I know I'm not interested in.
So, what am I doing at this point? Not investigating what my options are. If something crosses my path I might make note of it and secrete that information away somewhere for reference later on, but for now concentrating on what I need to get done at this point is probably the better thing to do. Don't try to run before you can walk, as the saying (sort-of) goes: do what must be done and then do what must be done next, rather than trying to get everything all lined up ahead of time. Early preparation is a good way to approach things, but things can change. Like aeroplane ticket prices, for instance. The best idea is to have a plan and a timeline of sorts, otherwise you end up being chased and pressured by parts of the process that shouldn't even be rearing their heads yet. I still have painting to get done.
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