The Day The Sky Fell Down will be staring down the barrel of being published sometime tomorrow evening. Technically, that's still the 1st, right?
There have been a few changes along the way though. Such as: following the not inconsiderable amount of hours spent formatting it for digital devices (and then asking a fistful of friends to test the files), just as I was wrapping the whole process up, it occurred to me that wasn't what I wanted to do.
Not in the slightest. Not even a little bit.
I didn't want my book to be a faceless data file on a device that nobody knows you're reading. I want my book to be on your shelf, in your bag, on your bedside table. I want it to be something you might loan to a friend and miss it when they didn't give it back. I want it to be something that might catch your eye now and again when you walk past it.
I want it to have some value - which is one of the big downfalls in digital delivery. No matter which way you digitally slice it, digital books have a status of 'here today, something else tomorrow' - they languish on your device with their Ray-Bans on, not really doing much at all.
That's not what I do. It's certainly not why I'm here.
So, the files I had spent the evening making? I threw them all in the trash. The Day The Sky Fell Down will not be appearing in any digital format, anywhere. If you would like to read it - and with all my heart, I hope you do - you know where to find it and I think anybody who hangs out here reasonably often will totally understand why I've gone down that road.
This whole thing was never about money and a position on a bestseller list. It was certainly never about reaching as many people as possible either. You want to know what it was about? It's about the love of books and the love of figuring out just how good a writer I can be, no matter how long it takes.
I love books and I love writing. I love book cover design and hanging out in book shops. I used to be able to say the same thing about record shops but they've all gone. There's a lesson to be learned here.
I'm not stuck in the past but I won't be a slave to somebody else's future either. I don't want to be throwaway and silent.
I want to be a fucking lion.
I finished writing a book - that's a big deal. Know what I'm going to do tomorrow? Instead of spending all day checking in at a digital store front to see how it's all going, I'm going to start on the next one.