The Bookseller's Bottom Bitch

In the past, we’ve gotten a lot of letters asking about our collaborative novels. And since we’re planning to release our first e-book within the next week, we thought it would be helpful to bring you up to speed on the razorblade rollercoaster of our combined literary careers thus far.

In the past six years, Bryan and I have learned a lot. For starters, we found that we didn’t know shit about the traditional publishing industry.

            Of course, our ignorance made us prime targets for getting fucked. We lost money to bogus agencies and vanity publishers.

             We even started our own independent printing press. The paper cutter was made/assembled in three different third-world countries, and I’m pretty sure the binding machine glue was made of pure cancer.

Even if it was carcinogenic, it was still better than Twilight.

              But then we went to a literary conference and had our heads pulled out of our asses. Over the next few years we grew, matured, and learned the ways of the industry...
              First, Bryan got an agent.

              This man, a very prestigious agent from a highly esteemed literary agency, said he'd sell Bryan's book. And then Bryan waited, and waited, and waited for that call, like a teenage girl waiting by the phone for the high school jock to ask her to prom.

            And after waiting 6 months, Bryan started to reach out and call the agent. And though he called and called and called, Bryan could never get a hold of the agent (as the agent was always at lunch, even if it was 8 in the morning or 5 at night). Finally he gave up.

            But after another 6 months, the high school jock agent finally called.

       ...And that time, it only took 8 months for the agent to call back.

       He still hadn't even tried to sell Bryan's book because of what he called 'personal problems', but he was interested in selling Brandon and Bryan's first collaborative book at the same time he got on the ball about selling Bryan's independent novel. At last, the two starving artists were hoping to see some success, though they were still at the mercy of the almighty agent.

        A year and a half later, and the agent still hasn't called. Bryan still sits by his phone shaking and crying.

        But worry not, dear reader, for Brandon and Bryan were quite proactive. At another conference, they met the vice president of a huge publishing company... a company so big you've no doubt heard of it. And this big jock of a publishing company loved B&B's collaborate novel so much that they wanted to buy it for a unique program they were going to introduce in the immediate future... something that would revolutionize bookselling.

        And again, the eager high school girls waited by the phone for this huge jock of a publishing company to call and ask them to prom. But this time, the wait was worth it, because the VP had assured them it was a done deal! Where's my dress, bitches?

         And after 6 months, the jock finally called... To say nothing of use.

            And then another 3 months passed, and the time came for the poor starving writers to beg for their scraps once again.

           Yes, that's right, after all that time and after a slew of unanswered e-mails, Brandon and Bryan got a 2 sentence courtesy e-mail that said the program was being canceled, and that was the end of it.

            And so, after 3 years of being told by the publishing industry that we were golden only to be dumped off like refuse, and after being the bitch to a business that will only talk to you when it feels like talking to you, we got fed up. We asked ourselves why the people that wrote the novels had to be the ones with the least amount of power--the least amount of say, the least amount of money, the least amount of respect--and so we're trying something different by releasing our E-book ourselves.

            No endless waiting. No politics. No bullshit. Just a good novel that deserves a chance to be read. And whether we sell one or one thousand, we just want to know that at the end of the day, we tried our hardest, and we never gave up on something we believed in. 

            Now... if you'll excuse me, I have to go wait by my phone. I have to check to see if there's a dial tone and obsessively check my voice messages in case one got through without alerting me.

Cheers and stay classy, friends,

B&B

Beer: Bells Two Hearted Ale
Music: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club