Fandemic Dead happened in February! Here are the pages people typed with my typewriter at my Creator’s Alley table (sanitizer provided).
[EDITED]
Fandemic Dead Atlanta 2022
Add anything to this page!
oi hi 890 hiiii hi
how are you
hi
everything will be okay… sucks one day someone will walk across your grave sebastian stan Hello According to all known laws of aviation there is no way I’ve got a I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts. joey is really freaking cool. Alex is alright. Howdy. I want food Please and thank you oh and I want sleep
Leave your mom’s phone number please. Your mom is a very nice lady. $f your mom if your moms number was an amount of money how much money would you have? hhhhh sorry I had a moment… The moment was a stroke
lovelife@ @minor.michela @major.jte
love laugh live hike We met Chandler Riggs and he was sooo sweet – Lydia & paige.) vanessa brooklyn kill her mommy kill her / gay cowboys hello hello I like apples gay cowboys gay cowboys
john bernthal is quite attractive. um no. die then. *then. I will not. You stink You are stinky.
–
Fandemic Dead Atlanta 3/2022
contribute what you will
hi my name is paige 🙂
hey you owen pugs are cute james rodil have a good sorry I meant good negan lives
everything will be okay… sucks llooneyday someonewill walk across your gravehi eb sebastian staan Hello wo l my he i h According to ll known laws ofaviatin thee isno way i ve got a i ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts. joey is really freking cool.Alex is alright. Howdy.I want food Please and thank you oh and i want leep
Leave yorm msmom8s phone number please. Your mom is a very nice lady. $f your mom
if your hmom8s number was an amount of money how much money ouwould you have? hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhh sorry i had a moment…. T em moment was a stroke
l velife@ @minor.michela @major.jte
love laugh live hi ke We met Chandler Riggs and he was sooo sweet – Lydia & paige .) vanessa b rooklynn kill her mommy kill her gay cowboyshelo hello i like apples gay cowbys gay cowb jon bernthal is quite attractive.um no. die th h. *then. i will not. ou stink ouy you are stinky.
–
Fandemic Dead Atlanta 3/2022
contribute what you will
hi m y name is paige .:) hey u owen pug are cute james rodil have a good sorry i meant go goodn negan lives Count your Blessings
hhi how is yyou er day
h tbdomyou do when you wake up and
Hi I,,,m from michigamnglad to meet you……
sheila
th d thedavid hilliad
dd add lunarmizaru on runescape
hh tt tt pp :: // ::shell::cyclone: shellgamingdominio n
(I flew this sentiment past my social media with no uproar, and I’m including it here where it can be referenced for my type transcripts.)
Why the verbatim transcripts?
When taking down other people’s direct words, I acknowledge that though I can usually discern what a person means to say (as a sometime professional editor and copy editor), there are times when someone’s linguistic culture may be different from mine in ways I am totally unaware. At Standing Rock for instance, I can’t spell check native wording. Black language has its own innovations, and I also allow for artistic license. I don’t wish to unwittingly erase other cultures or intentional deviations from standard english.
I recall learning that there have been social traumas around verbatim transcribed quotes in journalism. Some people get the benefit of editor’s polish, while others may be depicted as less eloquent by including the pauses, ticks, and sounds that everybody makes while speaking aloud. This may be extended to include average typewriter proficiency error. This is not my intention. I have done paid transcription work, and I do know how to make spoken language into intelligible text. For other purposes, my methods may be different.
The original, unedited text is in the image, but text in an image isn’t searchable. While I do post group pages on my site in their own time, as part of the service I render by taking first person accounts, I have made searchable text – both possibly as intended, and as-is. Again, because I may be wrong about a name, or a word. Maybe someone wonders if they can find that page where they put their ‘thizz face’ line, but if I edited to their ‘this face’ then their historically recorded specificity has been erased by the clueless. That can extend to names, concepts, anything.
Fidelity may seem more important for some statements in some settings, but again from the historian’s viewpoint, I choose not to weigh the value of recorded statements. A six-year-old saying Hi on the typewriter may be as important as the political manifesto. Oftentimes history is left searching for the ordinary.
By recording what may seem like mistakes or errors in transcription, I am not trying to magnify them. I am instead humbly acknowledging the limits of my own cultural awareness, while embracing the authenticity of the original writer, without judgment and perhaps with some joy of appreciation. Mistakes can be charming, in a world of official accounts polished by the elite. I do create an edited version for easier reading, but I am uneasy about creating only one version altered by my biases, known or unknown, even if having mistakes re-recorded makes some feel self-conscious. I offer an apology to any who may feel disrespected, but I insist on honoring language diversity to the best of my ability.
Do I bother making unedited transcripts of my own typing? No, because I know my own mistakes and intentions, but for others, I do not. My typewriter poetry is a different collaborative practice in which I have some authorship. I claim no sole authorship over collectively typewritten pages, though I may have contributed.
I do not claim to be a real historian, or a journalist in this capacity. This isn’t the same as writing an article, which I have done professionally. I just have a great typewriter that can offer a moment of entertainment and release with a touch of posterity, at times that may be casual or serious. I don’t lay individual claim to this practice; if others want to record first-person accounts on the site of any event with a typewriter, I’ll be pleased to know of it but they don’t require my approval. I generally do not profit from collective typed pages, but the CC0 Creative Commons rights agreement allows anyone to do so. I enjoy seeing people learn a new skill, accept imperfections, have an experience with thought and word, and feel that they have a voice and a place in a record.
when a daughter thinks of her dad for Summer & Jordan, Father’s Day
never done before figuring out a style telling the things that are important a lot of knowledge and style in the person that is so deeply appreciated the caring person they know through and through it’s a cool blue twilight at this typewriter on the street when a daughter thinks of her dad
[Eva L. Elasigue / ELE CC-BY 4.0 Creative Commons]
I was in San Diego when typewriter poet Jeremy Brownlowe and I sat our typewriters next to each other on the sidewalk to type in tandem, and I was the one to handle this request from passersby.
and I know that reality reiterates its entirety eternally with me in it and all the love and pain that some part of me never forgets even as it moves ever onward and must see beauty and must feel everything or just wander lost still as itself regardless as myself reminded again and again forgetting as it suits the tired self is this body just a story? what is the brain, how is the enfolding done and the refolding where is the skin of the all what’s beneath it I know the always in the never I know forever
by Eva L. Elasigue / ele CC-BY 4.0 Creative Commons
Cast yourself upon the ground, the forgiving ground, on the softest place I’ll be there with you It is not bad to be lowly atop the sinking, tickling moss eye to eye with tiny bluebells rubbing shoulders with mushrooms There is softness We are not unforgiven This body is good The sun kisses and kisses and kisses The moisture from the light rain turns to steam Picking out a gentle prickle that plucks a chuckle Laying out full length Like me, the moss loves love it is allowed and encouraged The eagle flying under the day moon is also here above the rich breath of trees It’s not yet the season for the dragonfly dance, but there are new buds We can eat them and be fed by this day
by ele / Eva L. Elasigue CC-BY 4.0 Creative Commons
Including all the information from the previous first post, this new version includes the following entertainment event volunteering up through part of 2020:
5-8/15 – Volunteer: Sasquan (WorldCon 73 Spokane WA), full staff volunteer, Guinan’s Place cabaret stage & bar 8/15 – Volunteer: FaerieWorlds Portland OR, admissions & parking 10/16 – Volunteer: Okanogan Family Faire, Fall Barter, firetending 3/17 – Volunteer: MythicWorlds Seattle WA, registration desk & merchandise table 4/17 – Volunteer: Norwescon Seattle WA; programming, fulltime 5/17 – Volunteer: Creative Commons Global Summit Toronto Ontario Canada; information desk, full time 8/17 – Volunteer/Author Panelist: Nine Worlds GeekCon London UK; registration, Wrestling & Fightcraft panel 8/19 – Volunteer: TitanCon/EuroCon 2019 Belfast Northern Ireland; bookselling table, program operations, signing table picture taking & line management for George R.R. Martin 6-8/20 – Volunteer: Global Bond Society Soiree Pittsburgh PA; press releases
FULL DOCUMENT:
2014
1/14 – Theater: “Inventors of the Invisible World” monologue script, performed in Friday Harbor Fringe Festival 2014 6/14 – Primal Spiral Studio 1, Guard Street Friday Harbor 9/19/14 – Published: Bones of Starlight begins serialization online, bonesofstarlight.com
2015
4/20/15 – Primal Spiral Studio 2, AudioCinema SE Portland 5/21/15 – founded Primal Spiral LLC 5-8/15 – Volunteer: Sasquan (WorldCon 73 Spokane WA), full staff volunteer, Guinan’s Place cabaret stage & bar 7/15 – Published: Audiobook 1 CD, Bones of Starlight: Fire On All Sides (Fire Within) sec. 1 & 2 8/15 – Volunteer: FaerieWorlds Portland OR, admissions & parking 8/20/15 – Suite of the Endless, Sasquan (WorldCon 73) penthouse room party at the Davenport Grand Hotel 9/15 – Table: Rose City Comic Con, Portland OR, Artist’s Alley 10/4/15 – First Novel Complete – Bones of Starlight: Fire On All Sides (Fire Within) 10/15 – Table: Okanogan Family Faire / Fall Barter Faire, Tonasket WA, poetry/typing/art/audiobooks 11/15 – Table: Wordstock (revival), Portland OR 11/15 – Published: PDF Ebook Release, Bones of Starlight 1: Fire On All Sides (Fire Within) 12/4/15 – primalspiral.wordpress.com created 12/23/15 – Published: First 30 books arrive – Bones of Starlight: Fire On All Sides, Bare Bones Printing (Blurb), white cover hand lettered spine
2016
1/12/16 – Published: Peanut Brittle Cheesecake (food humor) McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New Food Reviews 2/4/16 – Interview: The Susan & Frank Program, “We’re joined by Titus from the BrokeAss Guide to Life to discuss social anxiety, art, Ninja Turtles, YouTube, and more!” 2/5/16 – Published: Bones of Starlight: Fire On All Sides (Fire Within), blue hardcover 2/14/16 – Table: RadCon, Pasco WA, table shared with Hadley Rille press 2/25/16 – Primal Spiral Studio 2 closing, AudioCinema Portland 5/16 – Primal Spiral Studio 3, Surina Business Park 510, Friday Harbor 5/16 – Popup: Scribing, Poetry & Love Letters, Okanogan Family Spring Faire 6/21/16 – Published: Paperback, Bones of Starlight: Fire On All Sides (Fire Within) 8/16 – Author Panelist (1st): MidAmericon II, Kansas City (Panels: 7) 7/14/16 – Interview: Dive Into Worldbuilding, dive-into-worldbuilding.blogspot.com 8/7/16 – Review: * by Black Gate, Bones of Starlight: Fire On All Sides (Fire Within), blackgate.com 8/8/16 – Table: GeekGirlCon, Seattle WA 8/10/16 – Reading: Galways Arms Irish Bar Chicago IL, Time & Place featuring Eva L. Elasigue & Richard Chwedyk, hosted by Primal Spiral 8/16/16 – Book 2 begins serializing online, Bones of Starlight: The Enfolding Abyss (Abyss Surrounding), bonesofstarlight.com 8/29/16 – Reading: Van Loon Gallery Santa Fe NM, In The Real World hosted by Primal Spiral, plus typed manuscript showing 9/16 – Reading: FaerieWorlds Festival OR, Tales with Vaquita Mermaid at Oberon’s Traveling Tavern, hosted by Primal Spiral 10/16 – Volunteer: Okanogan Family Faire, Fall Barter, firetending 10/16 – Reading & Show: Photon Factory Seattle WA, The Challenge feat. readings by Eva L. Elasigue & Caroline Yoachim, music by Animals of Grace, activism by Women of Color Speak Out, plus panel featuring all leads; hosted by Primal Spiral 11/11/16 – Typewriter: Share Your Words @ Standing Rock, facilitated collective firsthand pages (published online 11/13), Standing Rock Reservation SD 11/16/16 – Published: Paperback 2nd Edition, Bones of Starlight: Fire On All Sides (Fire Within) 11/16 – Room Party Event: OryCon 38, Second Printing Party (whiskey etc.) 11/25/16 – Included: Worldbuilders of Science Fiction & Fantasy, photography series by Richard Man
2017
1/14/17 – Room Party Event: Arisia convention Boston, The Magical Typewriter facilitated collective pages winter/17 – Swag Drop – Don’t Panic: selected convention materials, flyers, freebies, group info packet for the Friday Harbor Ace Hardware secondhand magazine rack 1/28/17 – Typewriter & Seminar: Liminal Alchemy event at Praxis Gallery Seattle, Fiction as a Transformative Medium & collective contribution pages 2/8/17 – Workshops, Typewriter & Reading: Liminal Alchemy @ Praxis Gallery Seattle WA, multi-room event; Visualization Writing, Fiction as Parallel to Lucid Dreaming; typewriter Collective/Personal pages w/ tarot cards; collective typed page reading 3/17 – Volunteer: MythicWorlds Seattle WA, registration desk & merchandise table 3/15/17 – Stage: 1001 Panamanian Nights collaboration, The Shaharazad Project story, song circle, and bonfire cacao ceremony 4/17 – Volunteer: Norwescon Seattle WA; programming, fulltime 4/26/17 – Reading: San Juan Island Library Friday Harbor WA, Bones of Starlight reading & talk 5/17 – Volunteer: Creative Commons Global Summit Toronto Ontario Canada; information desk, full time 5/10/17 – Swag Drop – That’s No Moon: science fiction fantasy funsies & freebies packet, Friday Harbor WA Ace Hardware secondhand magazine rack 6/17 – facebook page reposting for Share Your Words at Standing Rock 7/17 – Typewriter servicing, Hermes 3000 7/17 – Workshops & Reading: Cascadia Festival, Mythica Village; Live Muse Writing; Mind Maps & Synaesthetic Processing; Rainbow Honey Tea Party variety show reading 8/17 – Volunteer/Author Panelist: Nine Worlds GeekCon London UK; registration, Wrestling & Fightcraft panel 8/17 – Author Panelist & Table: WorldCon 75 Helsinki Finland, including reading with Jo Walton; 1-day table 9/9/17 – Workshops: Cascade Writers Critiques & Pitches, Tacoma WA; Visual Mapping Techniques & Synaesthetic Processing; What’s Your ‘Good Enough’ and How to Reach It 9/30/17 – Story Event: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? at Living Computers Museum Seattle WA, distributed new short story The Realization of Self Identity, or: Beevenge 10/15/18 – Table: Ace Comic Con Midwest, Chicago IL 10/17 – Stage Reading: Pirate Poetry & Siren’s Tales, Sh’Bangfest 10, Alger WA 10/14/17 – Published: The Realization of Self Identity, or: Beevenge, short story resyndicated over Medium by the Breathe Publication, an AI magazine 11/15/17 – Reading: Alternative Library Bellingham WA, Teatime Culture Salon w/ painters Adam One & Louisa Firethorne, videographer Daniel Harm; hosted by Primal Spiral 11/15/17 – Published: The Process, poem broadzine, collaboration with Subaqueous (Isaac Cotec) album Shatter Spell (w/ The Octarine Eyes collective) & artist Taylor Seamount 12/19/17 – Swag Drop: Search Your Feelings, science fiction fantasy goodies giveaways info, Ace Hardware Friday Harbor secondhand magazine rack
2018
2/18 – Participant & Reading: Foolscap open space convention Seattle WA, plus book reading 2/18 – Typewriter: Love Letters @ Behind The Veil 2, Port Townsend WA 2/18 – Workshops: Tribal Gathering Panama, weeklong solo workshop series incl. Remembering The Forgotten Through Your Original Storytelling 5/4/18 – Swag Drop: Why Is Gamora? science fiction fantasy etc. goodies/swag/music/stories at Ace Hardware Friday Harbor secondhand magazine rack 5/24/18 – Published: Kindle Release, Bones of Starlight: Fire Within, Book titles changed 5/26/18 – Room Party Event: MisCon 2018, Kindle release celebration toast 7/18 – Lounge Event: G*psy Vibes Tea Lounge, book reading & staffed 9/10/18 – Typewriter: repair of a bad fall, article on evalisaelasigue.wordpress.com 9/13/18 – Manuscript completed: Bones of Starlight: Abyss Surrounding 10/12/18 – Featured Reading: Gumbo Fiction Salon Chicago IL, awarded the Golden Gator 11/10/18 – Swag Drop: Made of People, science fiction fantasy etc. info freebies swag, Ace Hardware Friday Harbor WA secondhand magazine rack packet 11/11/18 – Published: Bones of Starlight 2: Abyss Surrounding in bookstores 12/18 – Table: Island Authors @ Farmer’s Market, Friday Harbor WA, shared collective
2019
1/1/2019 – Primal Spiral Studio 4, Surina Business Park 507 Friday Harbor WA 1/10/19 – Table: Ace Comic Con Glendale AZ 1/19/19 – Published: Audiobook beta chapter 4, evaelasigue.bandcamp.com 1/20/19 – Swag Drop: By The Power, Ace Hardware Friday Harbor secondhand magazine rack mystery packet 1/31/19 – Table: Resonate event supporting women in music w/ Naughty Princess, Smasheltooth, BeatKitty, Kasey Lee @ Starline Social Club, Oakland CA 3/19 – Rainforest Writer’s Retreat, WA 3/3/19 – Video: Trailer for Bones of Starlight by Medrano Productions 3/18/19 – Behind the Scenes: LAIKA Studios w/ Coby Lorang 4/1/19 – Featured Reading: Cafe Racer Seattle WA, Two-Hour Transport 4/17/19 – Invited Reading: Great American Diner, Alan Sobel’s Open Mic 4/20/19 – Author Panelist: Norwescon 42, w/ reading 5/1/19 – Speaker: Creative Commons Global Summit, Lisbon Portugal; Lightning Talks session, CC Profiles in Arts & Entertainment Frontiers; my experience making science fiction fantasy novels with Creative Commons 5/5/19 – Typewriter & Reading: Last Word Books 17th Birthday Party, Into The Future (ideas into science fiction 8/19 – Volunteer: TitanCon/EuroCon 2019 Belfast Northern Ireland; bookselling table, program operations, signing table picture taking & line management for George R.R. Martin 12/19 – Reading & Table: Fernie Brae Portland OR, signing & 3 in-store micro-readings 12/19 – Typewriter: Chapel of Sacred Mirrors NY Full Moon Gathering, word-by-word Collabstream lines
2020
1/20 – Typewriter: Celebrus Lupercalia Seattle WA, Love Letters 2/11/20 – Auction: book donation to Make It Rain Australia Wildfires benefit at Wild Buffalo Bellingham WA 3/30/20 – Reading: Virtual Rainbow Honey Tea Party 6-8/20 – Volunteer: Virtual Global Bond Society Soiree Pittsburgh PA; press releases 8/20 – Typewriter: Share Your Words @ Commitment March, Lincoln Memorial Washington D.C., collective pages 10/20 – Author Panelist: Virtual World Fantasy Convention 2020, w/ reading
[I conducted an email interview with David Wong, aka. Jason Pargin – series author of John Dies At The End, Zoey Ashe, and other novels. This is a writer whose stories I encountered first in the movie John Dies At The End (from the movie rental where I worked), and then encountered the living room legend of how this serialized blog excerpt story became a phenomenon. These questions, excerpted, focused on his experience going from online serialization to print, and how his career evolved.]
–
“So a publisher picked you up eventually, and then they edited. What was that like, did you and your readers mind the changes much?”
Editing has always been painless for me, but I have no idea if that experience is typical.
Like I’ve actually never had an editor demand changes, it’s always more of a collaborative thing where they explain issues and you kind of work together to figure out the best way to fix them. But I also had some leverage during that process, too. By the time I was working with an editor for the 2009 St. Martin’s release of JDatE, the online version had already gone viral several years before (some 75,000 readers saw it for free online starting around 2000) and I’d self-published and sold a substantial number of print-on-demand copies (something like 6,000). So the one time they did suggest a big change (cutting a certain chapter) I argued that existing fans would see this as an incomplete edition, and would rebel. And those existing fans were the ones we were depending on to build hype for the hardcover release and leave reviews etc. But it wasn’t some huge argument, they suggested it, I explained why I didn’t want to do the change, that was the end of it.
Every other suggestion from the editor was less substantial but always made the book better (pointing out plot or continuity errors, incorrect phrasing, confusing action descriptions, quoting copyrighted song lyrics – stuff you can’t really argue with).
“How many groans were there when they took the serialized story offline? Did you feel like that changed your way of relating to your audience?”
Well, there’s some additional context there. Completely aside from the book, I was a mildly famous blogger starting in the late 90s (not that I made any money from it, but I had a lot of readers and was pretty well known-among other online creators). So I gave my work away for free for years and what you find is that the most passionate fans do feel some sense of entitlement, even when they’re getting all of the content for free (for example, there were constant complaints about the banner ads, even though they barely covered my costs and in no way paid me for my time/work).
I don’t even mean that in a negative way. It’s just the way it is, fans will always demand more, so any change (say, if I switched the publication schedule to be less frequent, or took a few weeks off, or ran something they disagreed with) there would be loud complaints and messages implying that I owed them now, that I needed to make up for my mistake, even though again they’d paid nothing and about a third of them were using ad blockers. They just assumed that because I was so widely read, I was surely getting rich off it thanks to them, and that I thus owed them.
So the angry messages that came from me pulling the free version of the novel offline were there, but those kind of messages are always there – if not about that, then people complaining that the site was slow, or that they were getting error messages on the forum, etc. Often I’d have to pull old articles because something would be broken with the formatting (due to an update to web browsers or Flash version or whatever) and as soon as it came down, a bunch of angry people would claim it was their favorite article and why didn’t I pour hours into fixing it instead.
It doesn’t take many years of that before you kind of grow numb to the complaints. Not that you don’t care or stop listening to feedback, but that you realize that’s just kind of the background noise of your life and you don’t let it cause you stress if you know the change was one you had to make. Complaints are just the noise an audience makes sometimes.
“What has novel publishing been like since, are you still with the same publisher?”
Same publisher, same editor. What happened was the hardcover of JDatE sold pretty well (I earned back my advance in seven days) and then they signed me to do a sequel, which came out right when the movie did in 2012, so the hype/press around the movie put the second book on the NYT bestseller list. After that, the publisher signed me to a multi-book deal for a legitimately huge amount of money. I’m on a schedule where I publish a novel every two years and it takes me every bit of that time to write one, that’s just the speed at which ideas occur to me. Still, I had a full-time job separate from novel writing until early 2020 at Cracked, and had intended to always do that. Things just didn’t work out that way so I’m writing novels full time but that’s not by choice. I assume I’ll get another day job at some point.
“Is serializing something you only did that once, would you again? Why did you serialize in the first place? You were working in insurance, right.”
Here’s where I’m worried my advice might not be relevant in 2022 or, more importantly, to someone trying to start a paid writing career. In the late 90s to early 2000s, I was working two office jobs (doing data entry for an insurance company and filing/billing for a law office, jobs I was just getting through a temp agency) and was blogging on the side with some hopes that I could get popular enough to turn it into a side job via banner ad revenue (that never happened). The first “John Dies at the End” post wasn’t called that, it was just another blog post, one I did for Halloween in I think 2000, a standalone haunted house story in which “David” and his friend investigate a haunting and get chased around by meat.
Back then, the blog was just any kind of humor essay I felt like writing, sometimes reviews or fake news stories, other times comedic narratives starring David and John. So this Halloween post wasn’t out of character, occasionally I’d just have a funny story starring these two guys, and the format of the site was that each story would start off with some kind of normal setup and then wind up somewhere extremely stupid.
That next Halloween, leading up to the holiday people started asking when the “sequel” to the previous year’s scary post would be up, and that was the first time I realized I was going to have to write another one. So those stories became an annual Halloween tradition until I wound up with something novel-length. Then in 2005 or so I put them all together with their own navigation and section of the site, and heavily edited the whole thing, going back and retconning changes and adding foreshadowing to events I wrote later, so that it all appeared to be on purpose. It was written over the course of five years and those posts were basically my fiction writing school; I’d barely done it before that. I think I’d written a total of two short stories in my entire life prior to 1999. But I’d written plenty of silly fiction as part of the blog.
But I can’t make this clear enough: I never aspired to be a full time novelist, and actually never thought I’d like doing that as a job. I have never shopped for an agent or publisher, I literally don’t know what that process looks like. I’ve never researched the industry to find out what’s hot or what genres are selling, I’ve never kept up with trends or looked into the best ways to get a foot in the door, it all just happened to me mostly on accident (more on that later).
“I was super happy for you to hear that you were subsequently hired to write for Cracked, and it looks like your career continues smoothly.”
Yeah I got the Cracked job in 2007 but that was due to a whole bunch of good luck and circumstance (there were more famous writers up for the job, but I was friends with the guy who had it before me and his reference went a long way). It was absolutely a dream job that any friend of mine would kill to have (working from home writing blog posts full time, with benefits). But when I got hired, I assumed it wouldn’t last more than 1-2 years, dotcom startups had a bad reputation for flaming out and I was taking a huge risk by taking the Cracked job and quitting my much more secure insurance job. My rationale was that if nothing else, it would build my resume and allow me to get other writing jobs in the future.
Instead, it was a huge success for the first several years. Then around 2014 the industry started to change and in 2017 the site was sold to a new company, who fired pretty much the entire staff (aside from me) less than a year later. But we were always understaffed, I think I averaged 100 hours a week for five straight years, putting in at least some hours on every single weekend, holiday and sick day.
I held on until 2020 but it was a steady process of budget cuts and layoffs and constantly feeling like every day would be my last. I left in early 2020 because they basically eliminated my position and I just didn’t feel like pivoting to a new one, because at that point the years of stress had taken a massive toll on my health (I still need medication to digest food normally). I only recently stopped having stress dreams that I’d overslept and missed some important meeting or deadline.
“Do you now find it easy to write a book in secret and release it the traditional way, now that you have industry support?”
The industry support is great, but that extends to them working with bookstores to make sure the book gets stocked, and doing some of the promotion. The rest of the promotion is up to me, and it’s literally a full time job (this is true of any author). In order to maintain a network of connected readers I can announce books to, I maintain three Facebook pages, a Twitter, an Instagram, a Mailchimp newsletter, a Substack blog/newsletter, a Goodreads page, a website and a YouTube account:
I maintain all of those myself, for the most part. I also do publicity year-round, in 2021 I guested on about 32 hours of podcasts; that’s all unpaid, it’s purely for book publicity:
The video trailers I release for my books are arranged entirely on my end, for the last Zoey book I hired a production company here in town, writing the script myself, approving every aspect of the production down to the props, and paying for every bit of it out-of-pocket:
For each book, I’ll spend about $20,000-$25,000 of my own money on promotion, plus several thousand hours of my own labor in updating socials or doing guest posts. So the industry support is amazing, I know every author would kill for it, but I can’t emphasize enough that my life is 80% publicity/promotion and 20% book writing.
“Is serializing something you only did that once, would you again?”
Well the issue is that I don’t actually write my novels in order, I do an outline and frequently skip ahead to write some part I feel more like working on that day. The process of circling back to change the beginning (to add foreshadowing or to set up payoffs) continues right up to the end of the editing process. So the only way I’d release something in serial form today is if I wrote and edited the entire thing, and then released it a chunk at a time. And at the moment I don’t know that there’d be any advantage to that. But if I was starting my career new, I might consider it (but even then would probably release it primarily as an audiobook or podcast, with the text version as like a bonus for those who prefer it).
This was a beautiful open mic night on 2/21/22 in the recently-expanded Portland, OR art collective space known as The Haven. Along with my reading on the mic, I hosted my Hermes 3000 for people to add things to a page.
Edited transcript:
@ The Haven PDX art collective Open Mic night 2/22
Collaborative page: Contribute anything! facilitated by Eva L. Elasigue
my chaos is my offering… a sacrifice for transmutation^ the universe says hello. I’m so confused! glass apples beating fastgood tidings to all baby garfunkles, hobgobbles, love urself poopbucket and all I am conscious and stuck in this typewriter, help pull yourself up and we can help
–
Verbatim transcript:
@ The Haven PDX art collective Open Mic night 2/22
Collaborative page: Contribute anything! facilitated by Eva L. Elasigue
my chaos is my offering… a sacrifice for transmutation^ the universe says hello. I,m so confused! gl ss a ples beating fastgood idings to all baby garfunkles,hobgobbles, love urself poopbucket andall I am conscious and stuck in this typewriter, help pull yourself up and we can help
Here’s the second page from that great Type, Tea & Chocolate late hours room party. Someone bestowed me with genuine vintage WorldCon letterhead at this point, and we put it to historical use. For reference, we’re at WorldCon 79 here, so this paper is older than me.
Edited transcription:
… from the Dealer’s Room freebie table at DisCon III ! 2021 [ the paper – ed. This was still in Room 333 ]
messages from outer and inner space: if — and only if — if we should see a better future — may this find you well, O Reason, Reader. echleiwen dech ech haerzen dech ech hunn dech gaer
May you have good fun with good friends, good health and a great year
a few parting words (?) ampi n he irelintswi ming throughtheflo ting dr msembes on the wind
Despite or because we know it’s not possible wonders anyway John Hertz 18 Dec 21 2:20am
– Verbatim transcription:
… from the Dealer’s Room freebie table at DisCon III ! 2021 [ the paper – ed. This was still in Room 333 ]
messages from outer and inner space: if — and only if — if we should see a better future — may this find you well, O Reason, Reader. echleiwen dech ech haerzen dech ech hunn dech gaer
May you hve good fun with good friendws, good health and a great yoear
a few parting words (?) ampi n he irelintswi ming throughtheflo ting dr msembes on the wind
Despite or because we know it’s not possible wonders anyway John Hertz 18 Dec 21 2:20am
This page was created on my Hermes 3000 at the Type, Tea & Chocolate late hours room 333 party at DisCon II, WorldCon December 2021, held in Washington D.C. at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.
Edited transcript:
DisCon III 2021 ! add what you like to this sheet of paper request assistance if inexperienced with a typewriter
anything. hello world Tom Hanks likes TYPEWRITERS rolling the page, what is time…. YYUR YYUB ICUR YY4ME can I even remember how to keep from jamming the keys Life doesn’t end at 30. My 9 yr old loves, LOVES typewriters…. really Hi. We typewriters love him, too. But we’re not allowed to say so. I wrote my college application essays using one of these. Seven separate sets Argh scales rose from the water, wetly overlapping in an intricate pattern This is a test. This is a test of the emergency broadcast system one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them Yoghurt is such a strange fooooood. just look at it… does this work / where is the space bar? Nevermind. Kitten hello oh no oh no I got spoiled by an electric – thought the ribbon was drying and yet. AND YET. this is just so much more satisfying…. [shield the world is outcast(?)] Lemon ginger chocolate is a surreal experience.
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Verbatim transcript:
DisCon III 2021 !
add what you like to this sheet of paper request assistance if inexperienced with a typewriter.
anything hello world Tom Hanks likres TYPEWRITERS ro lig the pag, what is time…. YYUR YYUB ICUR YY4ME can I evenrmebe how tokeepfrojammig t ekeys Life doe n’t end at 30. My 9 yr old loves, LOVES typewriters…. really Hi. We typewriters love him, too. But we;re not allowed to say so. I wrote my college application essays usingone of these. Seven separate sets Arghscales rose from thewater, wetly overlapping in an intricate pattern This is a test. This is a test of the emergency broadcast system o ne ring to rule hem all, one ring to find them oghut is such a strange fooooood. ju t look t it… oesthiswork/whe eistespacebar? Nevemind. K itten hello hoh no oh no i gotspoioled by an electric — though the ribbon was drying and yet. AND YET. this is just so much more satisfying…. Lemon ginger chocolate is a surreal experience.
Author Eva Lisa Elasigue 