NYC Events

I almost never do public events in NYC anymore. It's just nto worth the effort.

Take tonight's event: they had misspelled my name in every single magazine that ran a listing (Schimmel with two Ms when I have only one) and also on the poster that was up at the bar. Not a single listing mentioned the title of the graphic novel, which was the point of agreeing to do this. The only place that ran my photo was the poster at the bar, even though I'd sent it to the organizer in early Feb with plenty of time to get it out to places, and actually sent it myself to a handful of queer weeklies.

And hardly anyone showed up--despite there being 4 speakers, so it's not just that I didn't draw a crowd to somethign that was hardly publicized.

That said, it was an excuse to see my friend Charles, who I had planned to meet there toward the end of it, and we went to dinner.

And one person I know did decide to come because he'd read about it in NEXT, and he happens to be going to Amsterdam next spring as a professor of queer studies and he invited me to come speak in Amsterdam if they could work up the funding. (One thing that's nice is that this is being done with enough advance warning that funding should be arrangeable.)

So, sometimes it's worth doing these things after all, even though it didn't work for what I wanted, which was to try and generate some NYC publicity for the comic, since none of the local gay rags have mentioned it or reviewed it.

(Did I mention yet that it got an eight-word mention in the current issue of OUT magazine? At least they ran a cover image, which is what will sell the book, if anyone a) actually stops to read the book review page and b) has a magnifying glass out...)

If I sound bitter it's more at myself, because I knew there was a reason I stopped doing events here, and if I'm mad at anyone it's myself for thinking this time things would be different.

But, hey, I may've gotten a free trip to Amsterdam out of tonight's sitting around in the bar waiting for my 15 minute interview... So worth the 8-10pm stint.

at least it's not trains

I finally got the texts for a bodega's promotional magazine to translate. It's such a relief not to be translating about trains for a change! Although I did get another 5 week's worth of trains-lations yesterday, too.

While this translation work is boring, at least it's income, and this is not a bad thing. NYC has been expensive!

It's also good to have projects with deinfed deadlines and to be able to get them over and done with.

The problem is that it takes up a good chunk of typing time, so I'm not able to focus on or work on other projects, and I'm already so lazy lately that any excuse not to sit down and write is a good excuse. Ah, well.

Maybe I'll shower after translating another section or two and then go treat myself to some yummy Thai food now that Pad Thai is open again...

Publishers. Sigh.

It's really true that one shouldn't publish books with the wrong publishers. A case in point is my comics publisher here in the u.S. They're a very well-known comics publisher, but they don't know the gay market at all, and he has fought me on every little thing--even when it turns out well. I just dont' get it.

I have been after him to get in touch with my contact at Bookspan's gay book club. I hound him, I hound him, he drags his feet, I send a copy myself, the editor loves it, he's a bit busy, it really is the publisher's job to be after the book club to pick up the title.

We're not talking about a minor deal here. The publisher printed 3,000 copies of the graphic novel. The book club took 2,000 copies, which the publisher is printing especially for them. I think this would've been worth a call on my publisher's part, and so I wouldn't have to be hounding him all the time, because that takes up my time, remembering to nag, etc. It keeps the issue in the to be deal with list as opposed to if I could just pass on the contact and assume it would be done.

But this has happened repeatedly. With a 3,000 print run, a 200 copy sale is not chump change. Again, worth a call on my publisher's part to get the credit card info from them, I should think, especially after I'd arranged everything else for the deal. I cannot colelct money for him, however. But he says he's too busy to call, so he's not gotten the credit card info. I told him Spain is not like the U.S. and that a call will get him the immediately whereas an email will be read and forgotten.

I hate incompetence, and also lack of drive.

Especially when it has repercussions on my own books!

But this is why, if I had published this comic with someplace like Alyson or another gay press, all of these would be givens. I wouldn't have to invent the wheel.

Let me tell you, it is very difficult being Prometheus all over again, every time you publish a book because it's with a new publisher.

(At the same time, I have such difficulty doing something--a book, a genre, etc.--I've already done. Which is great for making my C.V. eclectic but not good for building an audience, nor for my blood pressure since I have to try and train new publishers far too often...)

In more cheerful news (well, I thought the extra 2,000 copies sold to the book club was pretty cheering news, even if the publisher never bothered to TELL me about it once he finally did get in touch with the book club, sigh) the German editor who bought a gay erotica collection from one of my clients said he'll take another collection from a different client, too. These're not major sales, but it's still nice to have them, since the authors don't have to do any work and it's a bit of extra change and maybe some royalties down the line. Plus, I love being able to finally place a book that's been unsold for years; I forget if I mentioned selling Spanish rights to Delia Sherman's THROUGH A BRAZEN MIRROR last month? I'd sold German rights shortly after the Circlet Press edition came out, but it's nice to still be finding homes for a 1989 title, shows how perserverence can pay off, and also, I guess, having something represented by the right kind of agent/publisher. (Not so much to pat myself on the back, but because the previous publishers and agents hadn't been able to find homes for these titles in translation, not to mention many other books, because they go about it wrong, or the books are too small for them to bother with.)