Coming Up for Air: Notes from a Hybrid Author (Part ???)

I think it was late August of 2016 when I was informed that my services would no longer be required at the one trade journalism gig I maintained outside of my fiction career. It was a sweet gig that ran for ten years, an absolute lifetime in the fickle world of freelance journalism. I wrote architecture and construction related pieces, and it paid well and I won a bunch of awards along the way.

But after the new owners came in and cleaned house, I searched for another similar job, but my heart wasn't in it, so I abandoned the search almost as soon as it began. Which lead me to the realization that I should be putting that extra time towards creating more fiction in the form of serial novels, stand-alone novels, short stories, and novellas. Material that would provide passive income for years and years, as opposed to journalism in which you get paid for your time.

That said, since September '16, I've written and completed two novels. The Ashes and the forthcoming The Embalmer, the pilot novel in what will be the new Steve Jobz PI series. I've written the pilot episode in a new CIA-inspired series called Assignment Rendition, and completed two new Chase Baker pulp thrillers, Chase Baker and the Dutch Diamonds and Chase Baker and the Spear of Destiny. At present, I'm closing in on the half-way point with another stand-alone thriller, The Girl Who Wasn't There.

Also completed are several short stories, including Moonlight Gets Served which appeared in Pulp Metal Magazine and Dressed to Kill (A Jack "Keeper" Marconi PI Short Shot), among them. The latter was also serialized in Pulp Metal and will be published in its entirety under my own label, Bear Pulp next week sometime. Add in maybe half a dozen essays for the Vox, and several guest posts and pieces, and it's been one hell of a busy six months.

In the midst of all the new work, I also managed to rewrite The Corruptions several times in preparation for its late January '17 publication (Polis Books), along with a new stand alone, The Detonator, which will appear in January '18 in hardcover (also Polis Books). Amazing when you stop to think that I consider this part-time work.

So, with all this material needing homes, kind of like lost, wayward orphans, I will have to make the decision on who will publish what and when. In the old days, you wrote maybe one book per year, and hoped your publisher would push the crap out of it (which they usually don't). But now you have options. You can maintain your own list of titles of which you control the writing and the marketing.

But I'm a strong believer in having your books in the bookstores as well, and that's where the traditional market comes in. I enjoy seeing my novels come out in hardcover and reviewed by the major trade journals and papers. It gives me professional satisfaction and the respect of my peers. But there's nothing like having total control over your books as well, and that's where the beauty of indie publishing becomes self-evident.

I guess some authors choose to go hybrid because they feel it's smart to take advantage of all the publishing options out there in this, the new golden age of genre fiction writing. I do it because I really have no choice. Just make a quick count of all those books and stories I mentioned above. No way a publisher is going to take on all that work. They wouldn't be able to keep up, nor would they want to. I'm curious to see how the next six months goes, and how many more stories and novels I can produce. At 2,000 words per day (good words), I suspect it will be quite a few.

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