Nicholas Ponticello's Blog, page 8

DO NOT RESUSCITATE in Hardback

Check it out! I just published Do Not Resuscitate in its final format: Hardcover! Now you can get it in all the available formats here! The hardcover edition is sturdy and clean-looking. I’d love it if you’d give it a shot and buy a copy. Every sale makes my day (I track sales daily).

Vote On My New Cover

I need your feedback. Which new cover do you like most?

Cover 1, 2, 3, or 4.

Amazon Introduces Hardcover Editions for Self-Published Authors

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! It’s a little early, I know. But any cause to celebrate these days is worth mentioning. It’s been a dark winter with Omicron and the anniversary of January 6th and just the general state of things in the country. But I’m feeling optimistic as the COVID case numbers drop.

I’m also excited to announce that Amazon is now allowing self-published authors to produce hardcover editions of their books, and I’ll be releasing hardcover editions of Do Not Resuscitate and The Maiden Voyage of the Destiny Unknown in the coming months.

It’s been seven years since I first published Do Not Resuscitate, the story of an aging misanthropist who is contemplating having his brain downloaded to a microchip. I’m taking this opportunity to redesign the cover for the hardback edition. I always love feedback, so tell me what you think.

I’m also totally overhauling the cover for The Maiden Voyage of the Destiny Unknown, which originally came on out on February 20, 2016. I was never very happy with the original cover of The Destiny Unknown, so my new cover is pared down to just text.

Finally, in publishing news, I’ve finished the first solid draft of my cruise ship mystery. I will be sending it over to my agent this month for her review. This is the moment of truth. She can (1) say she doesn’t care for it, which means she won’t represent it, (2) say it needs a few fixes before she can represent it, or (3) love it and sign it right away.

One always hopes for option 3, but option 2 is more likely.

Wish me luck!

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Best Of 2021: Books, Movies, TV

The end of the year is upon us, and we are once again in a winter of crisis as the Omicron variant sweeps across the nation. Several fully vaxxed, fully boosted friends of mine have already tested positive for COVID-19, which is scary. They are isolating and resting, and so far symptoms have been mild. But it looks like we’re in for another long stretch of staying home whenever possible.

Since we’ll be spending more time indoors, I want to give you a few recommendations for books, movies, and television that have taken my mind off the pandemic this past year. I probably read and watched more content in 2021 than in any other year of my life. I don’t tend to read a lot of new releases, so my Best Books of 2021 list is made up of books which were published any year but which I read in 2021.

My Best Movies of 2021 list was restricted to movies released this year, since there were so many good new films on streaming services. I picked from across several streaming platforms (Hulu, HBO Max, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime), so you should be able to watch every single one of my picks from the comfort of your own couch.

Finally, television. I watched more television than is good for one person. And there were so many great new shows and new seasons in 2021 that I couldn’t fit all my favorites on one list. So for my Best TV of 2021 list, I reduced the font size and squeezed in one extra. I chose shows with seasons that aired in 2021, and I chose a mix of reality TV, drama, comedy, sketch comedy, and docuseries.

Let me know what I missed and leave your favorite books, movies, and TV shows in the comments!

Happy New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving?

The origins of Thanksgiving do not merit celebration. In fact, much of what you learned in grade school about the first Thanksgiving is sugar-coated. Members of the Wampanoag tribe were on most occasions treated cruelly. Some were sold into slavery. Many were killed by European diseases. So a day of mourning might be more appropriate.

Credit: Bettman / Getty

However, the spirit of the holiday—of giving thanks—is worth holding onto. The act of being grateful has tragically dropped out of the American zeitgeist and has been replaced by rampant entitlement and narcissism. Americans today have come to expect a level of ease and availability that is not only excessive but also wasteful and environmentally unsustainable.

Credit: Faga/REX/Shutterstock

So today, be grateful your planet is still providing for you in abundance, because She won’t be for much longer. I’m not even going to suggest we try to avoid catastrophic climate disaster because any expert will tell you it is too late for that. We can mitigate the damage at best.

My Thanksgiving message to you is to check your entitlement at the door next time you go out into the world. You CAN let that other car go first, you CAN share the sidewalk, you CAN stop at a red light, you CAN be courteous with your grocery cart/stroller and not use it as a battering ram. And you CAN handle the disappointment of not getting everything you want.

Mother Earth asks, “Didn’t I teach you any manners?”

She tried. But it didn’t stick.

Credit: NASA’s Earth Observatory

Bird by Bird: Taking it one day at a time

I’m reading a memoir-ish guide to writing called Bird by Bird by the author Anne Lamott. It was published in 1994, but its advice is timeless. The phrase “Bird by Bird” comes from Lamott’s father, who was also a writer and the inspiration for a lot of Lamott’s storytelling. It refers to a time when Lamott was a child and her brother put off a school assignment about different types of birds. It was the evening before the report was due, and her brother was overwhelmed by all that he still had to do. His father sat down with him and reminded him to take the report bird by bird. Start with one bird, write up the description, and then move on to the next bird.

The takeaway of the story was that many things in life can seem overwhelming, impossible. But if you take them one step at a time, in small chunks, eventually you can accomplish big things. This of course applies to writing a novel. And it happens to be the advice I need right now as I am stalled at the 2/3rds mark in my new cruise ship novel. For some reason, I’m having trouble finding the inspiration to write. I’m at the terrible phase in the writing process during which I hate my work and want to metaphorically crumple up the pages and toss them into the trash bin. It’s a form of writer’s block, and boy, does it suck.

Thanks to Anne Lamott, I’ve adopted a daily regimen to help me through this time of self-loathing and dis-inspiration. She suggested writing 300 words a day until inspiration strikes and I’m able to get into the flow of writing again. Three hundred words is basically one page, double-spaced. And it’s enough to get your protagonist from Point A to Point B, but no further.

It doesn’t feel particularly satisfying to force out just 300 words a day. It’s enough words to be difficult but too few words to feel very productive. It’s a bit like pulling teeth or scrubbing the grout in the shower stall. But I’ve been doing this for the last two weeks, and I’ve managed to push out 10,000 words, which is about 1/8th of the whole book. That’s impressive. The book will probably be about 80,000 words total. And now I’m 56,000 words in! So thank you, Anne Lamott.

In other news, there is still now news about my novel on submission, King of Brave. It could be months before I hear anything, good or bad. So…ugh.

GET EXCLUSIVE CONTENT ON MY PATREON PAGE. Even see the query letter that landed me an agent!

Submissions Round 2

Today my YA novel goes back on submission for round two. My agent and I spent eight months together on revisions so that I could address some of the notes I was getting from editors who passed on the project. So four drafts later, we’re putting it back out there. This is the last chance the book has to get published in the traditional way. We have a very short list of editors who will still consider the project, so I’m pretty anxious.

One editor agreed to revisit the manuscript if I fixed some of the issues he/she had with it. He/she’s the first person who’s going to get a look at the revised draft. And we suspect he/she’ll get back to us in a couple weeks. If he/she passes, we send the manuscript to our remaining list of editors. Then the wait could be months.

I’m a nervous wreck knowing that I could get an answer one way or the other within a week. I agreed with my therapist that I would only check my emails three times a day. Torture. She wanted it to be once a day, but I negotiated it up to three.

Please cross your fingers for me this week.

Portrait of a female teenager showing gesture with crossed fingers isolated on a white background and looking up

The Spectrum of Self-Published SciFi

I review 4 samples of self-published science fiction that truly span the spectrum.

The Spectrum of Self-Published SciFi

What Self-Publishing Taught Me

When I released my first self-published novel through Amazon’s CreateSpace (now defunct) and Kindle Direct in 2015, I was over the moon. I’d written a novel I was proud of, I’d edited it to satisfaction, I’d designed the book layout and cover. I was in control of every aspect of the publishing process, and that was exactly how I wanted it. I didn’t even consider querying agents because I really didn’t believe there was any way I would ever be published the traditional way without an “in”, and I wanted so badly for Do Not Resuscitate to be out there in the world.

That also meant I had to do my own marketing and my own publicity. I entered several independent publishing contests and actually won a few. I got reviews. And I managed to sell some books. All at a cost of about $5000 to me. Every sale helped me recoup some of those costs, and to this day—six years after publication—I still sell between one and ten copies of the novel a month. I’ve actually legitimately sold just under 1000 copies of my books (this number includes my other self-published works as well). Amazing. Plus, I’ve distributed another 9,500 Kindle copies to readers for free (as promotions). So people have actually read things I’ve written!

So when I snagged an agent for my most recent book, Kind of Brave, in August 2020, I started beating myself up, thinking I should have actually tried to publish Do Not Resuscitate through traditional means. If I could score an agent now, maybe I could have found an agent for DNR in 2015. I had self-publishing regrets.

But a year later, King of Brave is still languishing in publishing limbo—no editors have signed on to the book yet. Meanwhile, Do Not Resuscitate is having a revival as a newly released audiobook. So which is better—to have a shot at traditional publishing with zero guarantees or to have a book self-published, destined to have a tiny audience and never to make any money?

Well, they’re both fine really. What I learned from self-publishing, I use to this day with every new project I start. I learned to trust my voice; some people will respond to it (some won’t). I learned to be patient; people will eventually read what I’ve written (at least a few people). And I’ve learned that money and fame are not the endgame; it’s about getting a message out there and hearing from the readers who respond well to that message.

I’ve also learned that the traditional route is grueling and painful. King of Brave may end up getting self-published if it never sells, and that’s okay.

I can’t say I have no regrets. But I can say that I’ve learned to trust myself and to savor the tiny victories, because in the publishing world, it’s only ever likely to be a series of tiny victories. Not many authors will have the same success as J.K. Rowling. Even fewer will be satisfied by that success. So find contentment in the small ways your writing touches others, and trust your voice.

July Q&A: What’s Taking So Long?

This post is a preview of the post on my PATREON PAGE.

Good morning, friends! I know I’ve been MIA this month, and I’m sorry to have gone such a long time without posting. Things have been busy here in Los Angeles, and I haven’t found much time to write this month. However, I have a few updates re: the novel I’ve been trying to get published. First off, my agent and I decided to change the title from What If I Did? to King of Brave. I’m really happy with this change, because I think it is much more hopeful and positive. I am on my last round of edits, and in September, my agent wants to resend the updated draft to editors at publishing houses for consideration.It has been exactly one year since I signed with my agent. In the world of publishing, that’s not very long at all. But naturally, friends have been asking:

Q: What’s taking so long?

It takes forever to be published. First off, even if you get an agent, you may never end up attracting an editor at a publishing house. A lot of my writer friends have been on submission like me for a year or more. That doesn’t mean they won’t get published. But realistically, most of us won’t get a book deal after such a long time on submission.

Then there’s the fact that editors are acquiring material for 2023 right now. So even if an editor gives me a book deal tomorrow, you won’t see my book on sale for another two years at minimum.

It takes a long time. Publishing houses have to build a compelling “list” or catalog of titles that can be marketed strategically to rake in sales. At the end of the day, publishing is a cut-throat business intent on making big bucks. So there are a lot of invisible factors that go into deciding whether or not to offer an author a book deal…

READ THE REST OF THIS POST ON MY PATREON PAGE. Even see the query letter that landed me an agent!