Here we go.  The Skinny Island Post announces the publication of “River of Dolphins,” an historical novel depicting the microcosmic conflict in Spanish Florida in 1565 between two of Europe’s powerhouses, Catholic Spain and Protestant France, that resulted in the founding of St. Augustine, the oldest continuously occupied city in America.  Available in paperback and Kindle formats on Amazon.com, and Amazon.com/author/sharrison3.  This novel is the result of many years of research and writing and, having spent a long time in this game, we think it rises to a certain quality.

That’s important because of how we have come to be accepting of, and involved in, independent publishing.  Look, you can publish a catfood recipe, complete with bodice-ripping cover, in about fifteen minutes on Amazon, and chances are, it’s going to generate more readers than any literary fiction, to say nothing of the millions, and I do not exaggerate, of Romance Novels out there, or self-help books–  How to Dance on the Head of a Pin with Others Who Consider Themselves Angels Without Getting Knocked Off, While Avoiding Gluten and Taking a Stand on Anything– or, anything including compound sentences, like, (or as,) this one.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote an entire novel of one sentence, but that’s another story. Ha!

We played the traditional publishing game, but that was a long time ago.  In those days, there were still quite a few quality imprints that hadn’t been bought up and absorbed by  mega-publishers, houses like Little Brown, Scribner’s, Harcourt, Crown, etc.  They were publishers who respected writers and editors, and gave editors a long leash in acquiring and working with new writers.  We were lucky enough to have fallen into the last days of that period, in the transition, actually, where accountants took over the control editors had traditionally held.  This is not sour grapes; this is fact.  Small, respected houses were absorbed, and the bottom line became paramount.  Prior to that, marginal, or mid-list, writers as we were called, who produced good work, but work that might not generate great sales, were encouraged, being balanced by the mega-sales of thrillers and romances.  But that all changed.  You had to sell, or you were dropped.  I get it.  This is a business, and the model changes over time.  My first two novels came back to back, a year apart, and then I submitted a third.  My editor told me they were disappointed; it didn’t have the “quirky” characters they had come to know in the first two books.  I said, no, I’m headed in a different direction.  See, what they want to do, and again, this is based on a business model I understand, is develop an author along certain lines.  With few exceptions, if you leap around from genre to genre, or time to time, it freaks them out.  I withdrew the book.

Now, here’s the real rub.  As any of you know who have submitted any writing for publication, long or short, anywhere, you are asked to include a publication history.  That’s cool.  In the beginning, there isn’t any, and you slowly build that up.  That’s the game.  It all works to your advantage if you build up publication credits; you get noticed; it means something.  But there’s a tipping point, a critical mass, especially in book publication, and it has less and less to do with the quality of the writing, and more to do with sales.  But let me be very clear right here.  I do believe exceptional writing rises to the surface, and is often rewarded by sales, but not always.  And people need to be told what’s good and what’s not, and that’s where traditional publishing still rules.  There’s a lot of excellent fiction (my genre) put out by traditional publishers, and a lot of crap.  Same holds for independent publishing, only the crap far exceeds the good, because of the missing filter of agents and editors.  Something to consider.  After a long hiatus of working for a living, painting, traveling, and working around The Little Hacienda, I got back into writing, and submitted both “Bringing Back Canasta,” and “River of Dolphins,” to traditional publishers and literary agents.  I of course listed my publishing credits in my cover letter.  I would have been better advised not to, but I couldn’t honestly do that.  In more than thirty submissions, I didn’t get a single read.  90% didn’t even respond.  One agent dropped the bomb: because I hadn’t sold when I had my shot, they weren’t touching me.

OK, when I was in hiatus, having pretty much given up on writing long fiction, I jokingly told friends I was fine, and used a baseball analogy.  I said I had made it to the majors at one time, and batted about .220 before being sent back down.  Cute.  But the thing is, when you acquire this disease, it may go into remission, but it’s never cured.  Which brings me to Indie publishing.  Writing is a two-part disease.  Writers write to write, first of all.  Sitting down at the keyboard day after day, getting lost in situations and characters who take on a life of their own is, simply put, extraordinarily beautiful and fulfilling.  You can’t wait to run into your studio or writing room the next morning to pick up the thread again and see what happens, because in the best fiction, the writer doesn’t know what going to happen either.  If you don’t have that, then you are not really a practitioner.  But writers also want and need to be read.  It’s really a pointless, stupid, egotistical exercise on some level otherwise.  It’s a circle that has to be completed, you see.  Indie publishing is still relatively new.  It has taken me a long time to accept, but I think it is a good thing.  The problems with quality control are obvious, but freedom of speech, creativity, and access to millions of voices more than make up for that.  Readership is, to a very great extent, dependent on word of mouth sharing, rather than ad campaigns or heavily marketed book tours, and I think that’s the way it should be.  I’m still all for sticking it to The Man, where we can, and that should always be the case with any art form.  And we have decided to go against the traditional publishing dogma of one book a year.  We’ll publish when we damn well please, and hope more than one book out at a time will generate discussion and enthusiasm.  They’re on the shelf; you decide.

So, buy this book.  The paperback costs less than a lunch out, and the Kindle version is ridiculous.  It’s good stuff.  Thank you.