An Interview with Jeremy Robert Johnson (Part 2 of 2)

Last week I posted Part 1 of my interview with acclaimed writer Jeremy Robert Johnson. Today we have the second half, in which we discuss independent publishing, the MFA, selling octagons, and, of course, because this is Jeremy Robert Johnson we’re talking to here, more parasites. Check it out and let the wisdom trepan its way into your brain.

Part 2 of 2:

1.       I’m just going to put the title to this question right here: “On Becoming a Publisher and the Perils of Underground Writing (Or, How I Learned to Stop Abiding the Agency/MFA Model and Put Out the Work I, and People Like Me, Want to Read).”

I never really bought into the traditional model because it never really bought into me. It didn’t feel relevant to what I was doing. I was always writing across a broad spectrum, so I was as likely to be submitting to F&SF and Cemetery Dance as I was Zoetrope and Conjunctions. Smart folks I knew told me that I shouldn’t bother hunting for an agent until I had a full novel ready to sell, so I spent years focused on short stories and didn’t pay any mind to anything other than writing what I was compelled to and trying to find a good home for it.

Once Angel Dust Apocalypse broke out and found a readership I started to hear from folks in New York, but I’d cleared out my story bank for that collection and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. Then ADA was nominated for the Needle Awards—where an industry insider highlighted a batch of POD titles they thought were poised for commercial success—and I was contacted by 32 agents in one week. Most of them wanted me to start grinding out monster-centric horror paperbacks, but Mollie Glick, then with JVNLA, gave me a much more open “Let’s see what you can do next, and how I can help develop your career” kind of pitch and I was sold. It’s 12 years later and I still haven’t given her a commercial novel to justify all her efforts—she encouraged me to go indie with the notoriously insane Skullcrack City, and I think we were both pleasantly surprised that it blew up the way it did—but she’s been quietly integral in the path I’ve taken and I’m very thankful for her wisdom. If everything pans out with the next novel, especially given the publishers we have interested, then her investment in me will finally earn out and I’ll be wonderfully happy about that.

So, I took a very non-traditional path toward traditional publishing. I have definitely fumbled my way to wherever I am now. There’s never been any masterplan—I just haven’t quit.  Literally half my life has passed since I decided I cared about being published and sent out my first short story. And there’s a banking career and fatherhood and home ownership and long, terrible periods of procrastination in that stretch, too, so I try not to be too hard on myself about the state of my career at 39. Rather, I think I’ve been really lucky. Kind of Forrest Gump-ed my way into whatever successes I’ve had and managed to find the right weird readers who dig what I do.

Regarding MFA’s I have friends who went that route and a surprising amount of them aren’t even writing anymore. On the flipside of that I know a few guys who did the Iowa MFA program and both told me essentially the same thing: You go for the connections and then once you leave you stop writing pastiches to make the teachers happy and you teach yourself how to write in your own voice again. And both those guys have hugely successful careers now.

2.       What do you think are the biggest challenges of being an underground writer? (i.e. the income to keep the machine running, finding validation from the “mainstream,” getting blurbs, establishing a fan base, etc.?)

Biggest challenge used to be the stigma—that idea that your work has no merit since it didn’t pass through the industry gatekeepers—but these days I feel like there have been enough works which disproved that idea that an indie book isn’t instantly written off. And Amazon, for all of its Evil Empire shenanigans, has really revolutionized the independent writer’s capability for finding readers (so long as you play their very specific games).

Now I think the biggest challenge is finding a way to reach beyond the glut of available media. How do I convince someone with three portable devices and a Smart TV and a computer that they should spend their narrow stretch of leisure time engaging with the very specific art that I made? And how do I even make them aware that these books exist?

But I think that’s a problem that’s hitting both mainstream and underground publishing right now, and everybody is scrambling. It’s just that when you’re in the underground you don’t have those traditional connections or supporting funds or pre-set media methods for getting your work in front of people, so you’re forced to innovate and scrap it out. Only about 20% of my marketing efforts for Skullcrack City yielded anything, and doing that other 80% felt pretty disheartening and exhausting at times, but in the end it was worth it. It’s crazy how much effort you need to put in if you’re not marketing mainstream, high concept work or tie-in products. It’s like manually creating a glacier.

3.       And what do you think are the benefits of underground writing? (i.e. the whole underground community banding together to support one another?)

The community aspect is fun, and it keeps you going through the emotional horse latitudes when you feel like you’re not just invisible, but an invisible pile of horseshit.

Pooling resources can be great too, so long as the folks kicking in have some modicum of talent relating to what aspect of a book they’re working on.

The biggest benefit to working in the underground though, whether that’s self-publishing, or micro or small press publishing, is not having to make baby food. Knowing you can take risks because of the limited fiscal investment and limited expectations is very freeing.

A very wise woman once told me that New York Big 5 publishing sells squares, and the small press sells octagons. I’m very happy that there are adventurous presses doing the good, hard work of releasing those octagons into the world.

4.       For any author, but especially for underground authors, your fans are your biggest support tool. The Grassroots page on your website is really a fantastic call-to-action on how people can help support you. I think most authors take for granted that these acts aren’t just assumed, or that your friends and fans will start doing them automatically! What advice would you have to writers on interacting with fans? And do you think fans should expect from their authors?

I think it’s awesome to meet and interact with readers. I grew up in a small town without any kind of literary scene, so meeting people who read and dig the same kind of weird stuff as me has been a real blessing. And when they’re actually willing to lend support and time to push your art out into the world, that’s kind of amazing.

Best advice I have for writers is to remain earnest and engaged, even as the demands on your time grow, even as you get more and more jaded from all the parasitic circle jerk sociopathy endemic to any and all writing scenes. I corresponded with George Saunders briefly, and just a few weeks before he was about to launch into promotion for the biggest novel of his career, and he was just as cool and kind and generous as you could hope for. Chuck Palahniuk was the same way. How writers at that level of career find any time to give to anyone, I don’t know. And yet they do, they really seem to see the people beyond their status as “fans” or “book buyers” and it’s amazing to me. So I guess my main advice to writers would just be: stay human.

And make those interactions with readers fun, too. Go to town on a signed copy. Ask people about their lives beyond their relationship to you. Not saying you need to midwife your reader’s children and teach them pottery. Just stay human, when you can. Try to have fun.

With readers the only advice I’d give is to say, “Don’t stalk and kill writers. Do take a second to post a quick Amazon review of work you enjoyed.” Both of those pieces of advice are very important.

5.       You talk about having fans create promotional materials such as fliers and T-shirts—which are all fantastic ideas—and your fans have shown up in spades to help support Entropy in Bloom! What have been some of your favorite or most bizarre/creative/wild fan contributions? I’m guessing there have got to be a few tattoos out there.

I know there’s a tattoo of the Angel Dust Apocalypse cover art out there, which is awesome. I’ve received funny flipbooks, and comic adaptations of my stories, and custom stamps. I’ve been given some stunning illustrations inspired by my work. And I adore Tony McMillen’s alternate cover for Skullcrack City.

One reader shipped me a copy of Super Mario 3 on the cheap, which was a blessing. I think that was the day I really felt like this whole writing thing might just work out.

And I'd say things are working out just fine.

--A.V. Bach is a writer and musician living in Chicago, IL. He holds a BA in English from Syracuse University and an MA in Writing from Johns Hopkins University. His fiction has been published in the US and UK in such literary journals as Gone Lawn, Kerouac’s Dog Magazine, and Gargoyle. You can purchase his debut novel, “Eisenstein’s Monster,” here, through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can order it through your local bookstore or library.