Publishing A Book During A Pandemic

Herny Knox's Noble Train  will be out May 12, 2020. It is my fifteenth book. I have published in almost every situation imaginable. I have published during wars (First Iraq War) during horrible downturns in the economy (2008 recession/depression/) I struggled for years to get my first novel published and was handed the proverbial 250 rejection letters before finally a small publisher took a chance. Since then I have had good advances, lived the literary dream, movie deals, bad deals, lawsuits, triumphs, crushing defeats, and comebacks.. I have had to start over many times in the last thirty years since graduating college and deciding to become a full time writer. But I have never, ever published a book during a once in a century Pandemic.

It is like publishing into a void. Its not that the normal promotion hustle until you drop of modern publishing is hard enough...this...this is like publishing a book in a ghost town. It's not that I have stopped working, I work at home of course, it's just everybody else has and so I might as well be yelling into the night. All the pop-sickle stands are closed. Everyone has gone home. My publisher has gone on a three week furlough. The libraries where I give one hundred paid speeches a year are all closed. The trades are all working from home (PW Booklist, Kirkus) and I have yet to see a review. Only my agent has stayed at her post and so we are like the last of the Mahicans, two warriors not sure what battle to fight.

What makes this different is that the great Ferris wheel of publishing which is vast has for the moment just stopped and everyone is just waiting. Think of a party where you are the last guest and you are walking among the empty champagne bottles and picked over food. My editor let me know the books were in the warehouse last week and I should be getting my advanced copies. This is a good thing. At least the book will come out. But the question is then what? Barnes and Nobles is for the most part closed. The independent bookstores are closed. Amazon is still chugging along but busy with getting the nation toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

So I have to say publishing a book during a Pandemic is different. Maybe this is how authors felt when the Nazis marched into France. A sort of...now what? But it's your job. And so in a way I am back to where I started with my first book when no one knew or cared who I was. So I have a book that has just been published. I have a book and I better get to work selling it any way I can. I have always thought the authors job is also to sell so I have begun doing lots of Zoom presentations. I have always done lots of social media but it was always in support of larger efforts. Now it is back to square one. A brick at a time. More Social media. More zooming. Zoom might just be the ventilator of publishing for authors until the mighty Ferris wheel starts again. Just keep it all going...at least until a vaccine or a therapy. 

Time to Transition into a Full Online Economy

So everyone is at home. So people cant go  to the office. Should they really be going to the office anyway? My wife is in meetings all day long with multiple people. The meetings are long and productive. She never leaves the home. I obviously have always worked at home. That's what writers do. But this paradyme of people driving into big cities to go to their offices is so twentieth century. We have been toying with a virtual business world for a long time. Now with the coronovirus it is time to go into a full online economy that is impervious to work stoppage.

Publishers have shut down. My publisher has shut down. Why? Everyone in publishing works on computers creating books. This can be done anywhere. In fact my last editor did all his work from home. So why did publishing shut down? The people who write the checks and run the company couldn't come into the office so it was all just shut down. Ridiculous. Everyone should be working from home. The office concept is slowly dying anyway and cornovirus might be the final death knell of driving to a central location to do what you can do at home.

But more than all that we now buy things online We get our groceries delivered. We work remotely all the time. We can have meetings remotely. Write checks remotely. Get hired and fired remotely. There is no reason to be in any central location where we are in danger of becoming infected. The cornovirus is an organism that cannot infect wires and silicon chips. We are twenty first century people so lets act that way and leave this virus behind with an economy that never stops. 

Bats Don't Party

Oh I wont get it. Good to be on the beach. What up with all those old people hiding in their homes? Hope I die before I get old. Pass the suntan lotion. Yeah baby. Beers. Pina Colodas. Good to be in the sun of Florida. Here let me rub that on you. Shotgun the beer. Good to be out of the parents basement! Coronowhat? Not like I'm going to get it. I'll just wipe out my parents and grandparents and that old man who hangs out in the park. But you know what, it's good to be king!

Oh wow. 40 percent. Forty percent of the people in hospitals are age 20 to 54. Huh. What up with that? All that youth doesn't stand a chance against a virus from a bat in China. Bats don't party. Bats like darkness in caves where strange viruses mutate. Still why should I not enjoy spring break? You know people act likes its Pearl Harbor or some shit. I heard after Pearl Harbor things got so bad the government quit telling people the news. Hey it's not like we are in a war or anything.

Still whats with the bars closing and the restaurants? Where are all the people? I mean we are on the beach but everyone else is like MIA. Yeah well. You know what. Its sunny. The ocean is blue. Life is good...Right? Yo...shoot me a beer. 

The Great Toilet Paper Run During the Pandemic of 2020

There isn't any! The man is running down the aisle with that look. You know the Covid19 look of panic. The virus could be in the next aisle or in the next checkout line. It is nine AM but he and I have just found out we are too late. The Great Toilet Paper Run of the 2020 pandemic is on. What is it about toilet paper that people feel they must have. The food aisles are full, meat is in abundance, water is flowing. Cleaning products are still to be found. But toilet paper is a great vast space on the shelves next to the paper towels.

It is a primal need. One must have toilet paper. Apparently the colonists settled for corncobs when nothing else was available. The famous Sears Roebuck catalogs of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was to to be found in many outhouses all over America. Just tear a page out and you were set. Before that maybe people didn't use anything. During times of plague maybe it just wasn't a concern. But now we have people who are buying mass quantities. Some are suspected of entering the toilet paper black market with their purchases and getting top dollar for people to have the privilege of being able to still have their necessities.

But I have been given my charge. Do not come back without toilet paper. The man who declared we were too late is frantically going up and down the aisle and is now staring at the last rolls of paper towels. That is a rough alternative but necessity is the mother of invention. I turn around and see a large brown box in the aisle. Some stocking employee had left it there and inside I see an eight roll pack. I grab it and run for the checkout, passing the man who had just settled on the last roll of paper towels. I found the last one, I shout. He stares at me and shakes his head...SHIT!

Exactly.



William Hazelgrove

Giving Speeches During the 2020 Pandemic

No handshaking. Easier than it sounds. Keep your hands clasped behind your back. Sometimes people still come on and there is the hand. Sorry. I cant. Oh. The hand retracts. Spray down the podium. The microphone. You never know. Keep your distance as you work the crowd. Go and wash your hands several times before you go on. Then you are behind your podium. Your barrier. From here on it is a cakewalk as the audience is in the dark and you are up by the screen.

Some questions. And then the lights come up. Some people want to talk. Keep your hands clasped behind your back. You take a few steps back and most people respect the distance. But then comes the woman who has to tell you about her family history. And she does not know the meaning of personal space. She comes on. Did I tell you about my family? No. You take a few steps back and she takes a few forward. So they came over in 1665... Uh huh. She comes closer. You take another step back.

Now you are backed into the wall and still she comes on. So I researched and what I found....Now she has you. You have no where to go as your back hits the wall. You are within the three feet the CDC says to avoid. She is coming in for the kill. You pivot and take refuge behind the book table. It has become your moat. Well thank you for coming you say, grabbing your hand sanitizer. It doesn't matter. If she has the virus you probably have it by now.