A conversation via email with Cliff Thompson! Conducted in the after-dinner hour, before our kids made us shut down the lights at nine o’clock in observation of Earth Day.
Let’s start with a little bit about “Signifying Nothing” - what led you to write it?
I started writing the novel in late 2003. It was only sometime in 2004, when I’d written 100 pages or so, that I realized that the center of the action — Lester, a 19-year-old, mute and retarded male — had been inspired, unlikely as it sounds, by my grandmother. My grandmother, whom I grew up with and loved dearly, was like Lester in that the family had to operate around her because of what she couldn’t do. She was very old and couldn’t hear, so she couldn’t be left alone for very long. So the novel concerns what a family goes through in caring for/making adjustments for a “special” member.
And what led to the decision to self-publish?
The long and short of it is, I had written what I considered a good novel and couldn’t do a thing with it the traditional way. I contacted 50 literary agents and nearly 30 publishers, some of whom told me that Signifying Nothing was “obviously a quality manuscript” (to quote one agent) but that they couldn’t see trying to sell it in today’s market. As for the criticism I got, half of it contradicted the other half. One editor told me, for example, that the novel was too plot-driven, while an agent wrote that the book’s plot didn’t come into focus soon enough. It seemed to me that I had three choices: forget about the book; go on submitting it until I was too old to walk; or put it out there myself. I chose “c.”
So, now that you’ve got the book in your hands, what’s happening on the marketing side?
The first thing I did when the book went “live” was to try to contact everyone I’d ever met. I emailed everyone in my address book and sent postcards to people without email (or whose email addresses I didn’t have). I joined Facebook and am still in the process of adding friends to it, the better to spread the word about the novel. With the journals I sometimes write for — Threepenny Review, Cineaste — I make sure to mention the book in the author’s note.
And I started a blog. Tellcliff.com is devoted to getting and giving commentary on three things I love — films, books, and jazz; but it also functions, or is intended to, as an ad for my book. It has links to the book on amazon.com.
I am pursuing readings and seeking out literary blogs, and I’ve already sent a blurb to the Class Notes section of my college’s alumni magazine.
What are your thoughts on e-books? Are you going to release your book that way?
There’s something I have yet to explore, but I will.
What’s next for you, now that “Signifying Nothing” is out in the marketplace?
Trying to work on new stuff: writing essays, polishing up a second novel.
What’s your advice to those looking at self-publishing as an option? Both practical and philosophical/therapeutic….
Practical: Take your time in preparing the thing you want to publish. Once it’s out there, it’s out there. Seeing even the page proofs of my book, their look of permanence, almost sent a chill up my spine. So, take some time away from your book. Come back to it with fresh eyes. If something doesn’t work, change it. Once that’s done, get an outside proofreader — he or she is BOUND to catch things you don’t. Read it again yourself. Make sure it’s the best book you can make it.
Philosophical/therapeutic: Believe in what you’re doing, because not everyone you tell about your self-published book will shower you with congratulations. You WILL sometimes get the pity-laced smile that makes you want to say, “Maybe you misheard me. I don’t have bone cancer, I’m publishing my BOOK.” But if you believe in what you’ve written, then you must also believe it’s worth putting out there, however you can do it.
Any final observations before we have to turn the lights out for Earth Day?
In the end, a book’s commercial success or failure isn’t really up to you. Try your hardest to get it out there, but then . . . focus on the next thing you’re going to write. That’s what it’s really about.