Fame at last

Posted on by Felipe Zapata

THE WAIT was long, but now I will be famous. Maybe I’ll be rich and invited to host Saturday Night Live.

TolstoyFor the first time ever, my fiction has been published. And I didn’t even ask for it.

There are three ways to publish:

First, you submit to places that publish. Though often encouraged to do that, I’m too lazy. Second, self-publish. This really does not count. Third, an editor spots something you’ve written, and asks to publish it.

They come to you.

The third option is what happened in my case. It’s the best option of all, if ego-stroking is the objective.

Paper books still are published in today’s electronic world. Two sorts of people purchase them. Luddites and folks who want something pretty on the coffee table.

Old-line publishing houses now publish both paper and digital books. Getting one of them to publish your stuff is difficult, especially in the paper versions. Proven authors are favored. Publishing houses are very risk-averse.

I recently opened an account on Medium, and for the fun of it I downloaded a number of my fiction pieces that have rested on links here for years, mostly on Pearls of Zapata.

Within 24 hours, an editor on Fiction Hub asked if they could publish The Dark Girl in the Blue Dress.

I’ve been entertaining and irritating people online since 2005, but it’s all been self-publishing, which doesn’t count.

Now that I am a truly published writer, my odd, sometimes cantankerous, personality makes more sense.

* * * *

(Note: Fiction Hub uses my real name, but you likely knew that anyway. The photo up top is not me. It’s Tolstoy.)

19 thoughts on “Fame at last”

    1. Thanks, Ray, but I think you misunderstand. Fiction Hub is digital, not paper and ink. Or at least I think so.

      Publishing in 2016 comes in both forms. No matter. They came to me, not vice versa, and that’s nice.

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    2. PS: Paper grows old, yellows and rots. I put to you that in the 21st Century and beyond, a string of 10101010 is likely more permanent than paper. Recall the admonition that one must take care with putting stuff online because it never, ever goes away. Will haunt you forever.

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      1. Yes, I did misunderstand, but the congratulations are still as enthusiastic.

        But I will have to disagree with you about electronic records. If the electrical grid ever goes (and my personal belief is that it will) all of those ones and zeros are gone in the wink of an eye.

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  3. Good stuff. You have a talent, my long-legged friend. Maybe this will spur you onto more fictional scribing. I would like that.

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    1. Bob: Thanks. I would like to write more fiction too, but the muse seems to have deserted me for the last few years. I think it has to do with age in part. Maybe totally. I used to wake up mornings with fictional ideas in my head. That has not happened in a long time.

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  5. This doesn’t surprise me. You’re a superb writer. And no worries about 10101010 going away. If the ones and the zeroes get lost in the clouds or fly off the electronic grid, no worries, the Russians will know where they are.

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  6. Felipe,

    I hadn’t previously ventured over to that bookmark on your blog. Now that you have publishers coming to you I’d better get over there and check it out. I’ve always enjoyed all of your other musings so I’m sure “Dark Girl in the Blue Dress” will be pleasing as well. CONGRATS!

    Regards,
    Troy

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    1. Thanks, Troy, for the kind words.

      I have all manner of things connected to links here at the side, but I’ve long noticed that few people pay them a lick of attention. Such is life.

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