Ectoplasm – Betsy Robinson uses the word in reference to how the way she reaction to people inspired her to pen Cats on a Pole, one of her two latest novels set for release over the next few months. (Find info on my upcoming novels here.)
Ectoplasm makes me think about how others have thrown off my own equilibrium at times. In my 20s and early 30s, hanging out for just and hour with outwardly ‘regular people’ could skid me into weeklong headachy depressions. As a kid, the homes of some of classmates, certain pop stars, and even the weird video quality of TV soap operas could fling me over the edge.
Maybe being raised amid a firestorm of soul decimation ignited a sort of super power for seeing when things are out of balance? Unfortunately, rather than recognize situations as potential cause for “let’s not go there,” I’d force myself into them, expecting to toughen up but emerging more broken.
Thank goodness I’m better now. A lot of work, the passing of years, and the goodness of friends have taken me far.
Betsy Robinson describes herself as a writer of funny fiction about flawed people. Besides winning awards for fiction, the New Yorker is an editor, playwright, former actor — and the owner of a publishing company! Her latest novels launch on July 2nd and September 3rd, both available everywhere for preorder.
Betsy Robinson on how she’s developing her newest venture as a publisher…
“73-year-old writer/editor starts Kano Press to publish ‘books that include humor and a transcendent point of view, stories that evoke openings.’”
That’s the headline I put on the press release I wrote to announce my new publishing company and do for myself the work I’ve done professionally for others for so many years. I wrote the release as part of the package to submit to pre-pub review trade magazines for my novels Cats on a Pole (July 2, 2024 launch) and The Spectators (September 3, 2024 launch).
Despite the fact that I’d spent years working for magazines, had published novels with indie presses (winning prizes from Mid-List Press and Black Lawrence Press), and had professional experience in all aspects of publishing; even though I had a wonderful agent who diligently pitched my books to all the editors I found who were publishing my kind of work, Cats on a Pole and The Spectators had faced a wall of indifference: they weren’t rejected; nobody would read them!
Feeling as if both books—firmly rooted in our current cultural tumult—would miss their window, I decided to start my own press.
The Value of Being Educated
I consider it a benefit that my years of professional experience have given me a foundation in the bleak realities of publishing and selling books without a platform of a million followers, without a celebrity name, and without a mass audience—Cats and Spectators will likely appeal to a small, albeit ever-increasing, part of the reading public who are more interested in owning uncomfortable truths than in slick humor or denial.
I’ll probably never recoup my investment, but I need to do this. And should a miracle occur, maybe I’ll end up publishing other people’s books. Stranger things have happened. After all, I’m meeting more and more people who are committing to self-change and truth in the interest of peace. And writer David James Duncan (Sun House, The Brothers K, The River Why) not only understood what I’m writing but gave me an ecstatic cover blurb for The Spectators!
Knowing When to Say Yes
Fully aware that I might sell only a smattering of copies, I leapt.
And when da-AL and I became Goodreads friends and she invited me to do a guest blog for Happiness Between Tails, I read the description and thought: Perfect!
I’ve lived on New York City’s Upper West Side for more than 50 years—much of that time with dogs. Here I am with my last dog, Maya, next to the Balto* statue in Central Park. Maya, I, and a few made-up dogs make appearances in both books. To explain more would give away plot, but suffice it to say my dogs have been my kids, and these two books feel like a life and writing wrap-up, so they contain everything I love about where and how I’ve lived all these years.
* NOTE: Almost 100 years ago, Balto was part of the sled-dog team relay that braved over 600 miles of treacherous blizzard conditions to deliver medicine to children in Alaska.
Becoming a Company
To begin my publishing company, I filed a legal dba (doing business as) form for Kano Press and decided to go with IngramSpark as printer/distributor—you get far greater distribution (international, libraries, all online and bricks-&-mortar bookstores) than Amazon offers, plus I am an independent company without the Amazon baggage (bookstores hate carrying books published by Amazon). In addition, they have recently inaugurated direct-sales links which you can use to sell from your website and do discounts. I bought ISBNs and barcodes from Bowker, hired a designer I’d worked with for years and a cover artist, and it was kismet.
I already had blurbs for Cats on a Pole from years ago when a former agent asked me to get them to help her sell the book:
A battle of the sexes for the New Age. Funny and insightful, it glows with a violet-magenta aura.
—John Sayles, novelist, screenwriter, director
A wonderful story filled with imagination, humor, and great wisdom. Betsy Robinson is a brilliant writer whose creativity shines in this book. Cats on a Pole is a great read!
—Sandra Ingerman, author of Soul Retrieval and How to Heal Toxic Thoughts
A crazy-funny, edgy, sexy comedy of broken lives and leaky auras that has the makings of a terrific New Age movie.
—Robert Moss, bestselling author of Moscow Rules and Conscious Dreaming
I’ve written plenty of cover copy for other people’s books, so doing it for my own was fairly effortless:
Despite his psychic gifts, healing teacher Joshua Gardner never saw student Harmony Rogers coming. Cats on a Pole is the story of two psychically-gifted people who are isolated—like cats stuck up on a telephone pole. But their belief that they don’t fit in actually makes them more like most people than either of them will acknowledge.
A passionate love affair without physical contact, a battle of wills without speech, a psychic duel between male and female equals who have, for the first time, met their match. Cats on a Pole is an intense, sexy, sometimes funny, metaphysical love story that “outs” the insecurities we all have, exposing our overwhelming commonality.
And for The Spectators, I reached beyond my comfort zone and did a cold query to David James Duncan whose book Sun House had just blown me apart. With uncustomary ease, my query was forwarded to him and he replied that he’d read the book, but make no promises . . . and then he came back with the kind of understanding and response every writer dreams of:
A novel that in the last chapter reaches the only heaven to which I aspire: a life fully awake to this beautiful bleeding Earth
—David James Duncan, author of Sun House and The Brothers K
New York City and dogs play particularly important roles in The Spectators, so I conveyed that in the cover copy:
This is what you get when you mix apathy, shamanism, Buddhism, esoteric Yogic traditions, quantum physics, the power of DNA ancestry, and cluelessness with a small band of older women negotiating chaos in New York City in the era just preceding Trump.
Part love letter to NYC’s Upper West Side, part an ode to friendship between a writer and her creations (reluctant psychic protagonist Lily Hogue and her loner friends, with guest appearances of real and fictional historical events and people, from Bernie Madoff to Paul Simon to terrorists), The Spectators’ cast of characters battles the problems of foreknowing disasters we cannot control and being part of an uncontrollable human herd.
For prepub reviewers who require a six-month lead time, I made the ingredients for various packages: press release, DIY bound galleys, PDF and EPUB galleys, and ARC (advance reading copy) cover sheets with all required information (see Publishers Weekly submission guidelines) plus YouTube book trailers:
And I added a Kano Press page to my Authors Guild website well ahead of even the dba filing so that Google would pick it up at launch.
Caveat about Editing, Administration, and Promotion
As I mentioned, I have made my living by editing and I fancy myself skilled: I know style guides (particularly Chicago Manual of Style which is used for novels) and have the ability to switch into my “editor’s head.” In other words, I’m equally creative and methodical. Because of this and because I wrote my books years ago and have revised them over the course of many years, I can see them as an editor. So I trust my ability to be objective. In my last read-throughs, the fact that I was bored as a writer threw me completely into editor’s head, allowing me to work even better. I’m sure I missed things, but no more than any other editor would have; nobody is perfect.
So I hired only a designer and an artist. If you are not a professional editor, it would be best to hire such a person. Bad editing or no editing and typos plague most self-published books so much that I will no longer read them.
In addition, I worked for many years as a managing editor—meaning I’m a good organizer and administrator. I cannot overstress how important these skills are for starting a company, producing a professional book, and presenting it that way.
A writer acquaintance recently asked me for advice about publicity. I said the basic things about having a platform (contact to people who’d be interested in your book) and planning ahead to create publicity materials. “Such as what?” she asked. “Can you just give me an example?” I gagged. Being uninformed about book publication, she had no idea she was asking for information that required decades of learning and practice. I tried to explain that: I’d spent years doing book promotion (different from publicity—Google it), understanding what’s required for trade publications, building the channels to put the promotion to work, etc. This doesn’t reduce to a phone conversation. If you lack any professional experience, it might behoove you to hire a consultant. (Jane Friedman is one of the best.) Don’t ask a fellow author.
And Now About Money & Amazon
I recently got a royalty notice from Amazon for a self-published anthology of more than 30 years of short stories and plays. Girl Stories & Game Plays sold two paperback copies in December 2023 and I received a grand total of 53 cents! I’d published the book (paperback and e-book) through Amazon’s KDP program. I subsequently republished the e-book through IngramSpark. Since Amazon’s KDP paperbacks are distributed by Ingram already, there was no need to republish a hard copy of the book. But by using IngramSpark for a new e-book, I extended its distribution beyond Amazon to all (international) online and bricks & mortar stores. I’ve made next to no money, but I’m glad to be out of the Amazon silo.
IngramSpark is evolving quickly and they just inaugurated a new Ecommerce department which allows you to procure sharable links which send customers directly to IngramSpark to purchase paperbacks within the US. You set the purchase price. I trust this will enable writers to make a better return since there are no middlemen beyond IngramSpark. You can sell your books for the cost of printing, at a discount, or higher than list price. It’s completely in your control.
Is It Worth It?
No matter what happens—who reviews or doesn’t review the books, who buys or reads them or doesn’t—I can honestly say that this project has been more satisfying than most of the work I’ve done. I love having creative and decision-making control. I love working with two magnificent colleagues who I’ve picked. I love being able to work at my natural rhythm, well ahead of deadlines, staying on a traditional publishing schedule and using all my organizational skills for myself, without being sabotaged by others’ procrastination. So as far as I’m concerned, there are no down sides. And I can’t wait to see my new book babies launch.
How do you experience the energies of others?
Happiness Between Tails by da-AL 
GOOD WEEK END
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