{"id":996,"date":"2009-04-28T08:29:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-28T15:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2009\/04\/28\/the-stigma-of-self-publishing-part-2-scratch-beginnings\/"},"modified":"2009-04-28T08:29:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-28T15:29:00","slug":"the-stigma-of-self-publishing-part-2-scratch-beginnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2009\/04\/28\/the-stigma-of-self-publishing-part-2-scratch-beginnings\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stigma of Self-Publishing, Part 2: Scratch Beginnings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scratch Beginnings<\/span> is not a well-written book. To his credit, the author–Adam Shepard–admits in the introduction that he is not a good writer. But someone telling you he’s an awful cook won’t make the meal taste any better.<\/p>\n

I became interested in this book based on the description of the author’s recent visit to Powell’s<\/a>. I didn’t attend the event, having learned of it after the fact, and that’s probably a good thing; I might have been tempted to actually purchase the book, and I would have suffered some serious buyer’s remorse around page 12. (I later found it at my local library.)<\/p>\n

The gimmicky high concept of Scratch Beginnings<\/span>–which is a good hook, I’ll admit–is a recent college graduate’s personal experiment to bootstrap himself out of poverty. He selected an east coast city at random, traveled there by train, and debarked with only $25 to his name. His goal was to go from homelessness to having an apartment, a car, and $2,500 in the bank by the end of one year.<\/p>\n

I’ll save you the pain of having to read the book: he succeeded. To be honest, I never doubted that he would; I was curious about the details of his actual experience. And the stuff about the homeless shelter was interesting, but his frequent use of sentence fragments and constant self-aggrandizement got old real quick. Several sections could have been summarized thusly: “Dear diary, today I did cool things and made people like me. Because I am awesome!”<\/p>\n

Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh, but it really does get that bad at some points. I’m pretty sure “Shep” is one of the “white people” from Stuff White People Like<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even though Scratch Beginnings<\/span> and Daemon<\/span><\/a> are touted as self-publishing success stories, it’s important to note two things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. They are the exception, not<\/span> the rule; and<\/li>\n
  2. both authors took pains to disguise the fact that they were self-published.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Daemon<\/span> was put out by “Verdugo Press,” a company created by the author and his wife for the express purpose of marketing the novel. Scratch Beginnings<\/span> came from “SB Press,” whose business address is a condominium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Guess where Adam Shepard’s family lives? Yup.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Scratch Beginnings<\/span> has since been acquired by the Collins imprint of HarperCollins and reissued in hardcover–hence the book tour. Isn’t it interesting that the ultimate goal of most self-published authors seems to be getting an actual<\/span> book deal from a real<\/span> publisher?<\/p>\n

    Anyway, here’s a half-hour interview with Adam Shepard from a Triangle<\/a>-based public access cable show. He seems like a nice kid, and I hope he enjoys his fifteen minutes:<\/p>\n

    <\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object>
    http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qz_BNXuBgq0<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

    ~CKL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Scratch Beginnings is not a well-written book. To his credit, the author–Adam Shepard–admits in the introduction that he is not a good writer. But someone telling you he’s an awful cook won’t make the meal taste any better. I became…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[25,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-publishing","category-writing"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}