Books |
My novel: Feel me, read me, tell me, heal me
By
Published: Jun 11, 2013
Category:
Fiction
“The most beautiful woman in the world is a woman reading a book.”
I wrote that.
It’s the first line of my novel, which I’ve been writing as long as I’ve been editing Head Butler.
This book has gone through a gazillion rewrites, and now it’s as good as I can make it.
Is it as good as it can be? I’m too close to it to tell.
So, before my agent submits the manuscript to publishers, I want to create a focus group — I’d like Head Butler readers to read the novel and comment on it.
Consumer warning: This is a novel about a New York married couple in their 40s. It’s a love story. A very realistic love story — there is graphic sex in this book, and not just once. It’s not ’50 Shades,’ but it isn’t Nicholas Sparks either. If reading about what lovers do when the lights are off bothers you, spare yourself.
Time factor: The book is 37,000 words (that’s l0,000 words shorter than ‘The Great Gatsby’). I need readers who can plow through it promptly — that is, in a week or so.
Still with me?
It should be obvious that this is not an exercise in making me feel good. It’s business. And so there’s a process.
Like this: I need to choose a diverse collection of readers — 25 seems like a manageable number. It’s fair to assume that more than 25 of you will want to participate. Which means we’ll start with a questionnaire. If you’re interested in reading the book now, please send an e-mail to headbutlernyc@aol.com with the following information (or I could just ask the NSA):
Your name
Your address, with zip code
Your age (within 20 years)
How many books you buy a year
The titles of the last 2-3 novels you’ve read
I will then send 25 of you, via regular mail, a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) — a legal document protecting the confidentiality of our communications and giving me an important piece of ammunition in case you decide to breach the agreement. Why do this? Because, as you may have noticed, information has a habit of not remaining secret.
No writer I know does what I’m proposing, and for two good reasons.
1) There’s always some asshole who thinks copyright is a joke and would be delighted to publish a legally protected manuscript under his/her name.
2) Everyone who reads Head Butler is no more than six degrees from media and/or book publishers. And some people feel important divulging privileged information. When I was a journalist, I loved sources like that. As a novelist with an unpublished book, I don’t.
Bottom line: If you are even a little ethically challenged, sit this one out.
After I choose you as a reader and after you’ll sign and return the NDA by regular mail, I’ll send you — again, by regular mail — a manuscript, with your name printed at the top of every page. You can violate the NDA if you insist, but this personalization makes identification of the leaker much simpler.
Finally, I’ll ask you to complete an e-mail questionnaire and, if you like, add comments. I want to find out if you love it or hate it, but that’s secondary: I care a lot more why you love or hate it. Do you have suggestions for character or plot changes? Have I left out scenes you think should be there? If you didn’t finish it, where did you stop, and why? And, yeah, I’d be interested in learning that you started reading after dinner, skipped The Daily Show and didn’t stop reading until you finished it.
Sorry if this sounds prissy or cold. In a better world, I’d send the manuscript to everyone who wants to read it. But this is too important to me to be so casual.
And there is a small reward: When the book is published, the 25 get a signed copy.
“The secret of being a bore,” Voltaire wrote, “is to say everything.” So let me just blurt out that I’m grateful for your interest. And nervous? Beyond.
