Shannon Phillips

Well, my ex-agent was quite snotty about getting fired. In truth, part of the reason I wasn’t very excited about working with him is that he has a reputation for being kind of a jerk. In pretty much all the advice for authors out there, it’s repeated over and over that having the wrong agent is worse than having no agent at all. So I feel really happy about ending that relationship. Getting detailed feedback from his reader-assistants was great, but ultimately he wanted to take the manuscript in a direction I didn’t want to go, and the incredibly long turnaround times made it pretty obvious that I wasn’t going to be a priority for him.

What I’m second-guessing now is whether I’m right to jump immediately to e-publishing. After all, while most big traditional publishers don’t accept unagented submissions, there are a handful that do—big names like Baen and Tor/Forge. It’s just that the odds of getting plucked out of the slush pile are so long, and the wait times involved are, again, huge (Baen quotes a turnaround time of 12 to 18 months). And meanwhile acquisition budgets at these places are contracting; editors are being laid off; entire imprints slashed.

By contrast, e-publishing is exciting right now. That market is growing at a phenomenal rate. So while it feels sort of wrong to leave mainstream avenues unexplored, every time I weigh the calculation in my head I still end up deciding in favor of e-publishing.

But the decision-making doesn’t end there, because there’s now such a thing as e-publishers—like Lyrical Press or Double Dragon—that are fairly well-established and can offer a certain amount of institutional support for the authors they take on. The thing is, I can’t decide whether it’s actually worth it for an author to go with an e-publisher. If you self-publish an e-book, you have to do the formatting yourself, and contract with an artist for a cover image, but you get 70 percent of the profits from every sale. E-publishers will take care of the formatting for you, and they have in-house artists to do the covers. They’ll also provide some editing, maybe even comparable to what’s going on at the traditional publishing houses these days. But they take 30 percent of the profits, leaving the author with only 40 percent royalties. This is still excellent compared to the 15 percent that a traditionally-published author might expect, but that print author is getting services (like the physical printing, and getting the book placed in stores) that are very difficult for an individual to provide themselves. Formatting an e-book and getting it on Amazon and the other e-marketplaces is just not that hard.

What e-publishers don’t do a lot of is marketing. And frankly traditional publishers don’t do a lot of marketing, either, not for their midlist books. Authors have been expected to do their own promotion for quite some time now. In the e-book world, “promotion” doesn’t mean advertising, it means networking: getting the bloggers to review your book, getting readers to post reviews to Amazon, that kind of thing. So going with an e-publisher doesn’t necessarily provide much of a sales boost.

On the other hand, if an e-book sells well, some of these publishing houses are prepared to do a small print run. That’s kind of nice.

So, I don’t know. I’m still mulling it over.

I just sent an e-mail to “my agent” suggesting that we dissolve our nascent partnership.

I haven’t heard a peep in response to the revisions I sent him, but the disquiet I felt about them has only grown. The small changes were fine and helpful. The big ones, though I tried my best to implement them, I think did harm to the overall story. I regret making them.

Meanwhile, as bookstores and publishers continue to bleed red ink, the odds of success in traditional publishing get longer and longer—and e-publishing is looking better and better. The market for e-books is exploding. Sure, there’s your Amanda Hocking (who couldn’t get published through traditional means, and has become a multi-millionaire selling e-books for a buck or two a pop)…but more importantly, there’s a growing “mid-list” of e-published authors who are earning a steady living with their work. E-books published through Amazon offer writers 70 percent of the profits, which is huge compared to traditional royalties, while giving them the chance to retain near-perfect control of their work.

I first started querying agents for this manuscript in early 2010. Here it is coming up on the end of 2011, with no real progress—and that’s basically just how the industry works. As I wrote in my e-mail: “I’ll always be grateful for your willingness to work with me; I’ve simply become extremely discouraged by the very slow progress. And since I know you have many other projects pressing for your time, I’m hoping we can part ways with a friendly wave on both sides.” (The contract I signed specifies that it “may be terminated at any time by mutual consent, or by either party upon thirty days’ written notice to the other.”)

I really think I’m going to do the e-book thing. It won’t be anywhere near as prestigious, or as satisfying, as seeing my name on the title of a real book in a real bookstore. But how many more years do I want to invest in the “traditional publishing” route, when traditional publishing is in such terrible straits? And e-books are selling like hotcakes? I dunno, but I’d rather take a chance on something fast-paced and exciting than have my novel hang around in publishing limbo for the forseeable future.

We’re getting a lot of eggplant in our veggie box right now, so I’ve been making a lot of dinners out of this recipe: “Charred Lamb and Eggplant With Date-Yogurt Chutney,” from the New York Times. It’s phenomenal. We eat it wrapped in flatbread and it is so, so good.

So here’s a picture of the room where I work:

I actually get the room attached to it, too, where the fishies and the guinea pig live:

The guinea pig’s name is Mei-Mei. She likes to eat parsley.

This is the art room (that’s Robin painting):

It isn’t just for art, but all kinds of sensory play. There’s a trough holding cornmeal and various things that are fun to dredge through it, and there’s usually play-dough or something else tactile set out on the tables. Here’s another picture of the same room:

This is the block room:

And the upper playground:

I was standing in the playground when I took this photo of the park below:

So, it’s really a nice physical space they’ve got, with a lot of different activities for the kids to explore.

So I just finished my second preschool work day! At Peter Pan, all of the parents rotate through all of the stations (art room, library, block room, snack station, and outdoors—actually there are two outdoor stations, but they work together). You spend a month (four workdays) at one station before switching to the next. I’m starting out in the library, which is a pretty low-key area. It’s not just books, though. The physical library room also holds the guinea pig cage, the fishtank, a dollhouse, some stuffed animals, a light table, and some other toys and games. The kids tend to be drawn to this stuff early in the day, so on the two days that I’ve worked, I’ve had about five or six kids in my room for the first hour or so. They mostly play together; my job is to referee disputes, engage any kids who seem to be in the “odd man out” role (while respecting those who want to play alone), and, of course, read books on demand. It’s not really hard; the library is adjacent to the art room, so there’s another parent right there to help out. And the kids are pretty self-directed: honestly I just sort of do what they tell me, and then pick up afterwards once they’ve abandoned me.

I can’t really generalize much from two work days, but so far nobody’s been interested in books until after the first rush clears out. When the majority of the kids migrate outside, I’ve been left with one or two that are in the mood for some one-on-one attention, and then we can read the books. I like these quieter interactions, because it gives me a chance to get to know the kids a little better. For instance, on my first day I had a little girl named Pearl Eden hang out and play marbles with me for a bit, and now me and Pearl Eden are buddies. Today she told me “You’re the best teacher ever in the whole wide world!” So—despite the fact that I’m pretty sure she says that to all the moms—I have to admit that was awfully sweet to hear.

The kids do “free play” from 9 to 11, moving through the various stations as they see fit. Then we herd all the kids together for group story time. Not all the kids can sit still for group story time, so it’s my job to take any particularly restless ones back to the library so they don’t disrupt the main group. The first day nobody needed to break off; today I did have one child wander back to the library, and we read a book together, which was nice. After group story time we all go down to the park, and then my station is at the swings. Again, it’s not really a hard job. I push the kids on the swings. It’s not rocket science.

After park time the kids play outside (in the school’s own, fenced playground area) while the indoor-station parents go back in to clean up. I vacuum my area and do some extra picking up, and then all the parents have a little conference with Gail (the administrator) about how the day went, and then we all go home.

My impression so far is that the co-op pretty much has everything broken down to a level of granularity that keeps things whirring along smoothly during the day. I have a little laminated card to carry with me during my work day that breaks down all my responsibilities into very small, simple steps. Like: “9:45 issue potty reminders,” “10:55 move the kids into the block room for group story time,” or “12:15 collect discarded coffee mugs and make sure they get washed.” (Don’t you like the phrasing on that? “Make sure they get washed?” Like, if I stand around at the sink with the discarded coffee mugs, perhaps the coffee-mug-washing-fairy might descend and I can supervise her while she does the work? They’re not saying I have to wash the coffee mugs, they’re just saying that at the end of the day the coffee mugs need to get washed. Which is fair enough really.) The only part of the day I feel stressed-out, actually, are those times when there’s no kids in the library and I worry that I’m not doing something I ought to be. I know at those times I’m supposed to look around and see if any of the other parents are swamped and need help, but so far everyone’s had everything under control, and then I just kind of stand around feeling like dead weight.

Robin seems aware of me, on my teaching days, but he definitely doesn’t spend all of his time in the library. He comes in and out more frequently than some of the other kids, but he really likes to play outside. During group story time he does come and sit on my lap—so did Pearl Eden, today, so they had to share. Pearl Eden was very sweet and patted Robin gently while Gail read the story. He ignored her utterly. He doesn’t seem to have any particular friends yet, but the other kids say “hi” and “bye” to him, and he participates happily in group games.

So that’s what my work day’s like!

So, as it turns out, one of my kids is having a lot of trouble adjusting to Robin’s new school. And it’s not Robin.

Davy comes with us every morning, in the stroller, as we walk Robin to school. There’s some steps in front of the school so I generally carry Davy while I’m taking Robin in. Once inside Davy looks around wide-eyed, at all the kids, all the toys—the art supplies, the books—all the fun that everybody is already busily having. He watches Robin race off to join in whatever activity catches his eye.

Davy’s at that stage where he’s perfectly capable of making his opinions known on just about any subject, despite the fact that his vocabulary is limited to “hi,” “bye,” “mama,” “dada,” and an all-purpose “DA!” that translates to “I want that!” I hear “DA!” a lot when we’re leaving the school. He’ll be pointing back over my shoulder as we’re walking away, saying “DA! DA!” You don’t understand, mom! I want THAT!

Then when I put him back in the stroller, he starts to howl, arching his back and twisting and fighting. In his mind it is utterly unfair that Robin gets to stay in this glorious children’s wonderland, and he does not. To ease the sting, I’ve starting taking him down to the park after we drop Robin off, giving him a little time on the swings and in the sand. It helps, but it does seem like Davy’s getting madder about this situation each day it’s repeated. He has a pretty keen sense of justice, at least so far as it applies to injustices personally suffered.

Next year he’ll be old enough to go to school two mornings a week. And it won’t come a day too soon for Davy.

After the first week of preschool…everyone in our family is sick. Except for Sam, he’s apparently got a more robust immune system. Probably from riding public transit.

*hack* *cough*

Meanwhile Robin doesn’t yet understand the concept of “weekend,” and is a bit anxious about when he’ll get to go back to school. Today he actually tried to assemble his lunch and get his backpack together. Hopefully we’ll be over our colds by Tuesday…

After we got home from school, Robin sacked out on the sofa. I picked him up and carried him into his room, but when I put him down on the bed he stirred a bit. “Shh, shh,” I said. “It’s okay. You can take a nap.”

“No!” he said, his eyes still closed and his voice thick with sleep. “I not take a nap. I…sit in the blankets.”

“Okay,” I said. “That sounds good too. You do that.”

Then he rolled over and went back to sleep, perfectly satisfied in having gotten his own way. He’s not taking a nap. He’s just—sitting there in the blankets. For a little while.

He was excited about going back today, as you can see!

Robin had a good day but was a little overwhelmed, especially towards the end. When I came to pick him up he kind of stared past me for a minute before he even recognized me. As soon as we got home he crawled into bed for a nap. It’s a high-energy place! Gail, the school administrator, suggested that I come pick him up a little bit early for the first week or so.

Davy really, really wanted to stay and play too. Next year he can start going for a couple of days a week.

More to report after I’ve had my first work day, on Thursday…