Well, Roll

On is back. It's been a minute a couple months. Was February the last time that

I think February. It's like we're quarterly now, man. I guess. I could live with that.

We'll see. We'll we'll see how this one goes.

So I'm auditioning right now?

Here. Here. Here. I wanna make a plea for those who enjoy the podcast on YouTube, the people who enjoy watching it. If you have not subscribed to the channel, but you're watching it, please subscribe. You just have to click that button. It's no big deal. And here's why.

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That's it.

It's right there.

Tom, I

have to It's the red one.

Yeah. I know.

Today's episode is brought to you by the awesome organizations that make this show possible. You just wrote a novel and that's being kind of pitched right now around, around publishing houses. And you're in that weird kind of liminal space where you're awaiting responses.

Right. It's, it's, we have, we're still out to like 20 different editors at different houses. And you know how it works? There's like, what is it? Four big houses and then like all these different imprints.

All the imprints. There's so many imprints, but they're really only, it's sort of like when you go to the grocery store and you think there's all these brands, but there's only like 2 or 3 companies that own all of them. It's similar in publishing.

It's like that.

Isn't it just one big thing?

It is. It's like, well, and it's what's strange is like, I've been doing this for so long and I still don't, I mean, I've had, I've had a book published by major publishers. I've gotten a second deal through David. David got the deal. But working with David got the deal. David Goggins. David Goggins. Got that another deal.

And we, we didn't end up going with it because he self published. And since that, I've been completely on the fringes of the publishing industry, do what I do. But like, I don't really know anybody or know anything. Right.

You're not interfacing with editors

and all

like, like the biz.

So I get the whole submission list and I'm like Googling everybody. And I realized I don't know anybody and it doesn't matter. And I thought I'd get, in the past, Bird has sent through like passes more frequently. And I think, this time they keep it all away from me. Like I've gotten some thoughts back from editors, like, but we still have the vast majority haven't gotten to that made their decision yet. So I'm going to take that as good news. I feel really good about it. Here's the best part is I've been working on it since 2000, since the pandemic and on and on.

2020. Yeah. Because we had to, we wrote never finished in there. So it wasn't like all my soul focused the whole time, but I did 20 drafts of this thing. And, I do believe it's my best work. I love it very much. And it's going to, it's going to happen, whether through a major publishing house, an indie or through under my own thing, that if I have to do it, I will do it. It's going to happen.

It's going to be out. And, Well, you've done the work. I've done the work.

The book

is done. I mean, this is the difference between, other types of books and novels. Usually you prepare a proposal, the proposal gets solicited, you know, spread around, and you get feedback and responses pretty quickly.

Right.

Whereas a novel, they actually have to read the whole thing.

Right.

So to me, the longer, the more time that goes by and the longer you're waiting, it feels like that might be a good sign. Yeah. Because if somebody got 2 chapters in and thought, no, you know, they would let you know right away.

I would think so. But you know, you just don't know. It's like it's an, and so the 1st week that we went out, I slept really well because I've always thought this, this book has been on a journey. And hopefully when it comes out, I'll, if I remember everything that happened, it was probably gonna be 10 other things to talk about. But, I'll go through the whole thing. But it was, my feeling was once we got out to the publishers, it's going to happen. I never thought it wouldn't. And I still feel that way.

I still am very positive. And I would like it to be under a major publisher because I feel like you can get into more stores. I don't have the social media engine that some people have where you can do an indie thing and know that you're gonna reach certain benchmarks in sales. Yeah. But like I said, you know, it's not up to me. And so all I can do is be in the gratitude space. And for the 1st week, I was able to do that. And the 2nd week, the 2nd week, I was like checking my email 5 times an hour.

Yeah. Is that normal?

I know what that feels like. Yeah. You know, when there's an anticipation. Yeah. And and the response can be something that could change your life in a in a in a pretty significant way. Yeah. Like, of course, you know, you're gonna wanna, I mean, it's not good. It's not healthy to be doing that all the time, but I can understand it.

No, so. I've certainly been that person.