Part 1: A History and Overview of the Project
Well, it's over. Three years, 400 posts, 110 stories and 1500 votes later, it's over. Isn't it wierd?
Well, it may not be for you. But it is for me.
Why? Well... The end of the website portion of Mentally Incontinent means that this is no longer "going to be" a book. It means that the true hour of judgement has arrived. All the steps that lead up to people buying a book have been followed, and now it's time to see if the fanciful notion that I could write a book that is worth buying is worth it's salt.
I'm withholding my opinion on the matter, since I possess two major faults: 1) I'm notoriously hard on myself and 2) I possess horrible judgement.
Those that have been members of this site for a while (and in some cases, a LONG while) have been waiting for this day with fingers crossed and boots laced up. They've stuck with the site through hard times and great times, they've commented on and edited all the stories, and they're looking forward to FINALLY clutching the paper-based end result between their hands, lofting it toward the sky with a bright smile, and letting it fall on a pile of burning wood.
But for the uninitiated (or the curious), it might be kinda cool to step through the process as it has gone so far and kinda retrace my steps, so to speak.
Now, if this is your first visit here, you're bound to be a slight bit more than confused as to what the heck just happened. You show up to a website, probably via a link from a friend or on someone's blog, and you see a recap of a project that has just ended, along with this big box full of links to stories that the webmaster dude has decided to call "Chapters". Furthermore, there's all these other links in the searchable archives saying that the stories from those posts have been deleted
because they're no longer relevant.
So, uh... What gives?!?
Well, the Mentally Incontinent project was created with the intention of becoming the world's first ever book where the readers chose the chapters. The plan was to post a block of stories (between three and six at a time), put them up for a vote, and the winning story would become the next chapter in the book. After 12 of those, a book would be compiled and published. In addition, there are two chapters by guest authors that were voted on from 24 seperate submissions over two contests, as well as several stories that will appear in the book that I decided needed to be told, but won't appear on this site (so you'll have to buy the book to read them - clever me!!!).
To briefly explain how this book came into existance:
One day, I told a story at a party about a porno tape my parents found when I was a teenager that I never even got to watch. A few days later, a friend of mine asked me to email the story to another friend of his, and thus, my first ever story was officially written. Over time, I periodically got requests for the story, so I just stuck it on an old domain name I had registered at the time.
I liked the reactions to the story, so I wrote several others, and eventually arrived at the decision to write a book. But I wanted to do something different than the normal, standard, accepted "collect some stories and put them in a book" kinda crap. So, I came up with the idea of letting those who it mattered most to - the readers - to vote on the stuff they wanted to see in the book.
Flash-forward three years and 1500 votes later, and you now have that book. Well, not quite yet - it's still being edited, and will soon be published (if you're interested in more detailed updates on the book creation process, including sneak-peeks at the book in various stages of existance, check out
my journally blog thing. It's boring, but hey, there's stuff there while you wait for the next book project to launch, which should be shortly after November 1).
This book will be published through my publishing / design company, This Is NOT Art! Productions and will be available both through this site's store and your average, ordinary everyday retailers, such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Borders (as well as your local book store). There will be a much more detailed look at my choice to self publish in the second installment of this little missive, so tune in later for that.
Now, just because the web end of this project is over doesn't mean that the project itself is over... Not by a long shot. In all actuality, the CORE piece of the project has just begun. This entire project has been about exploration and interaction. I wanted to explore the depths of turning "bad" memories into things people could relate to and laugh at. I wanted to interact with people and involve as many as I could in the building and creation of this book. And now, it's time to shift those two goals to the retail end of this project.
Now it's time to explore the possibility of a book that "Has absolutely no prayer of commercial viability" (as one purchasing agent at a publisher I queried put it) actually making it in the marketplace. It's time to explore my theories on advertising and marketing and actually put them to the test. It's time to interact with people in a much more private and, if you'll excuse the implications, intimate setting. And just like it was with this website in the beginning, I know absolutely nothing about what I'm about to do - but hey, that's how we learn stuff, isn't it? It may not be the
smartest way to learn, but by far, the
quickest way to tell if a stove is hot or not is to touch it. It might hurt a great deal more than if you'd just listened to someone else, but this way, you know for sure.
That's how I found out that my writing has an audience amongst a group of people who enjoy the free and open style I write in here on the net. I discovered that it suits itself to discussion in an open forum and tends to function well in areas where commenting and feedback are natural responses. Was it scary? YES. Absolutely and without a doubt. But I did it anyway, and even though there's been bumps along the roads I've travelled, I'm so much happier now that I've done it. I don't have to wonder... It may have hurt, but now I know for sure.
But I'm now interested to see how it functions on a very one-on-one level. To me, reading a book is directly analogous to having a long and involved conversation with someone. Even though a book may SEEM like a one-way communication medium, it's not. It's actually a dialogue taking place between two people - the writer and the reader. As the reader reads, they are constantly assigning values and making mental comments to the things they take in. It's a very close and personal relationship that extends throughout the length of the book. And I'm 100% uncertain how that interaction is going to take place. But by golly, I'm going to find out. And I'm pretty darn sure it's going to hurt in some way or another. But at least I'll know for sure.
So that's where we are. That's the next phase of the project - the actual book. Will people buy it, or is my writing solely suited to the online medium? If people DO think it's worth spending money on, will they enjoy it now that it's printed on dead trees? And what will they think of it? And MOST importantly, will they tell their friends about it?
Well, just as it was with the website part of the project, time will tell. But I'm certainly hoping that people enjoy the printed version of the book (and the exclusive stories it contains).
So, how is the book getting out, and why I am I choosing such avenues? Well, you'll just have to read Part 2 to find out.
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