Fiat Libri

My book has just appeared in Amazon.com’s database. It’s entitled Life Doesn’t Always, and I'm using the nom de plume John Garvey. The book appeared a few weeks ago in Barnes & Noble’s and Powells.com’s databases, but it still isn’t available for ordering from either one. It is available through Amazon. I wonder what the difference is. The same distributor—Ingram—services all three sellers.

I created a webpage that gives more information about the book. It includes a couple of small posters, the front and back covers and an excerpt.

I should mention that the book is written in script format because it started out as feature-length screenplays. I wrote the first screenplay, The Allegheny Starlight, as a sort of catharsis to get some of the issues related to my coming out of the closet out of my system. But I created a couple of characters that I liked so much that I wrote a second screenplay, The Death Valley Zephyr, to continue with those characters and add more. When I finished that screenplay I thought Gee, this is fun! and started the third screenplay, The Sunset Local, and so on until I finished the seventh screenplay, Chameleon Night. I was about to start my eighth screenplay when it occurred to me (finally, duh) that what I was actually doing was writing a drama series, and so I broke up the seven screenplays into thirteen episode scripts (including a two-hour pilot) and gave it the title Life Doesn’t Always.

I suppose at the time, it was the only way I could have gotten it done. If I had set out initially to write fourteen hours of screen drama, it would have been too intimidating and I would’ve given up. But breaking it up into smaller segments made it more manageable. Now that the gay cable-TV networks are starting up or will soon start, there’s actually a chance that my drama series will find a home. And I'm hoping to draw word-of-mouth attention to it by putting the scripts into book form and making the book available through booksellers like Amazon.com.

I do have to apologize for the price of the book, though. I definitely did not price the book at $34.99 because I thought it was just so extra-special that it needed an extra-special price. The cost of printing a 735-page book in the print-on-demand network that the distributor, Ingram, uses is what made the price so high. I would have been happy to set the price at $6.99, but it wasn’t up to me.

Now if only I could get Oprah to recommend my book...