Fact(mostly)

I am nervous. A couple weeks ago, I submitted Bote Manchas Metro to Reedsy Discovery. Reedsy Discovery is a promotional website started by Reedsy. Okay, Reedsy is a site where anyone can hire writing professionals most of whom have actual publishing experience. For amateur authors, like me, hiring editors from Reedsy gives me access to good editors. They have some good advice. Unfortunately, my writing may never meet publisher criteria for actual publishing. That’s okay with me. I am not trying to write a mass market best seller. It would be nice, but I have trouble choosing which genre label applies to my work. Not a good sign. I write because I have something to say, a story to tell and/or a way I want to tell a story.

I have been lucky. Most of the editors I’ve hired through Reedsy understand and appreciate what I’m trying to achieve. At some point, however, their training and experience want the effort to be more publishable, more accessible or just plain better. I make a few adjustments, but I want it to be more true to my goals. Eventually, the relationship with the editors breaks down. As the author, I am responsible for the work. It is mine. The editors did their best to guide the effort, and I thank them for it.

Reedsy Discovery helps … well … all sorts of people. As an author, it helps me launch my book. After submitting your work to Reedsy Discovery, any of a large pool of reviewers read your novel and write a review. Authors are allowed to use pull-quotes and put the review in the Amazon listing, so unless the review comes in before this entry gets posted, look forward to an entry about the review.

Novels receiving the most up-votes are promoted in Reedsy Discovery publications like a weekly email promoting those books. They also have a good search engine for readers to find something they’d like to read. As a reader, I’ve picked up several books on Reedsy. I leave my reviews on Amazon. Since I do not like the vast majority of books I read, I don’t think my reviews would be well received on Reedsy Discovery.

As a self published (KDP) author, I think supporting other striving authors (found on Reedsy Discovery) is a good idea. I may leave critical reviews on Amazon, but they a sale and an honest response to their work. So far, it doesn’t look like they return the favor. If they did, they could find much in my novels apart to rip.

Bote Manchas Metro is not an easy novel. It was not meant to be. Three things motivated its creation. First, the failure of my previous novel. Not sales failure, I didn’t expect much, but there were flaws in the novel that I never could work out. Frontal Lobe Override was an experiment in structure and I wanted another attempt at that structure. Second, headlines. The issues addressed I the novel reverberated in the media and in personal conversations with friends, neighbors and family. Third, I had a spark, a concept.

As I said, I wanted to write a novel as a mix tape of characters. In FLO I felt the need to have deejays introduce and tie together the chapters/characters/songs. In that book, a couple of lawyers preparing their case served that role. Editors kept pushing me to develop the lawyers more, but to me, they were just a narrative device. Moreover, I’m sorta sick of the limited type of people featured in American fiction. It’s always cops and criminals, doctors, lawyers, politicians, entertainers, soldiers and spies. There are a few businessmen, but they generally fall into the criminal category. FLO had florists, computer programmers, real estate agents and the heroine was a forensic epidemiologist.

In Bote Manchas Metro, there are seamstresses, a secretary, a radio show producers, a college professor, think tank fellows, a homeless person, and the spark, the genesis, a misanthropic bus driver. More importantly, there are no deejays in Bote Manchas Metro. I did use framing chapters, so it’s not a pure mix tape, but the frames are more like medleys, so I think they work just fine.

This time the editors wanted less dialog especially between two characters, known by the bus driver as The Professor of Practical Philosophy and Real Prof. On a radio show, they participate in a discussion of abortion. In a special lecture, the discuss the existence of God. These are the two extended dialogues all the editors disliked most.

I tried my best, but it’s hard put two philosophers together in a discussion about important topics without reverting to my take of a Platonic dialog. As I said, there is stuff in Bote Manchas Metro for reviewers to dislike.

It’s been over two weeks since I submitted the novel to Reedsy Discovery for review and eleven days since a reviewer picked up the assignment. There is a lot to like about the novel. All of the editors like several chapters, especially the Mumbling Bob chapter. Mumbling Bob is the bus driver’s name for Hector Manning, a homeless former materials and processes engineer whose job was off-shored to India. Anyways, I’m nervous.

FLO received a five (out of five) star review on Reedsy Discovery. Back then, five star reviews were somewhat common. Now a days, most favored novels receive four stars. Perhaps Reedsy Discovery made an effort to curtail star inflation. I would be happy with a four star review, but I sit here, nervously, preparing myself for anything even a one star review.

In my mind, Bote Manchas Metro is much better written than Frontal Lobe Override. It should get a five star review as well.

Let’s see.