Self publishing. What a horrible sounding phrase. It brings up visions of self-produced CD’s, paint by number art, and all manner of “amateur” productions.
But yes, I joined the self-publishing revolution last month by joining SCRIBD and finally publishing my memoir BURNED. The manuscript was written back in 2005, and I sat on it for years. I considered seeking a publisher, had some lunch dates with lit agents in NYC back in 2006 when I was living in Brooklyn for a spell, but never quite felt the time was right to unleash BURNED upon good society.
I was rather surprised at myself that I finally DID release BURNED last month. I started making some noises about self-publishing the book, and one of my best tech-geek friend suggested SCRIBD. I always listen to this person, he has never steered me wrong, and so off to the races I went.
I just did an interview with Writer’s News Weekly concerning BURNED, and they asked me some hard questions about the book. A couple of days ago, I had submitted the book to Wordclay, as there are some readers who really want a paper edition of my book, and I would like to have copies of the book available for people to buy at my gigs! But Wordclay was understandably scared to death of my content, since it might be potentially libel or slander or other litigious terms. SCANDALOUS!
The legal staff at Wordclay has been very helpful to me, and pointed out several parts of BURNED that could present problems for me and the publisher of the book in the future. On some points, I agreed with them fully, and have already made some changes to minor characters who really added very little to the story. I have removed some last names, and basically tidied up a little bit.
However, there are some main characters that are essential to the story, such as a very famous 90s grunge band musician who was a member of one of the most notorious heroin-ridden Seattle bands ever, and this musician just spent a year on VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” show. Does anyone think this person has any reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to his drug use? He’s making a living off of it on public television!
Writer’s News Weekly asked me what I hoped to accomplish with my book, and I’m gonna share that with you now – my hope is that addicts/alcoholics everywhere will draw strength and inspiration from my book. I hope young musicians read it, and realize there are some roads they do NOT want to go down. I hope readers everywhere get a kick out of all the crazy stuff that happened in my life. How many people do you know that have been near death 7 times, been in 6 bands, been married 5 times, been to 4 rehabs, 3 times in college, 2 meetings with God, and can pour it all into 1 book?
The final analysis for me is that BURNED is what it is. It’s a book about my life, unvarnished and raw. The book has had over 5800 reads here on SCRIBD in under one month. It has not been extensively edited and polished, and it was written during my time in Key West when I was really feeling the literary spirit of the town and spending a lot of time in Ernest Hemingway’s garden with my laptop and a thermos of coffee.
I spent an ENTIRE YEAR in Key West without having ONE drink.
So I wrote this book instead.
I really hope you enjoy it!
8/04/10
Bobby DeVito
