Holy Horror, as some are painfully aware, is priced at $45.Even those of us in publishing have lessons we must learn, and one of them is that writing a trade book involves more than just a “friendly narrator” style and non-technical language.It also involves a subject the public finds engaging (or at least what a literary agent thinks the public will find engaging).Holy Horror throws two apparently disparate topics together: horror films and the Bible.The fans of each don’t hang out in the same bars—the fans of the latter, in some circles, don’t go anywhere near bars!My thinking was that this juxtaposition was odd enough to qualify as trade, but I also knew that you have to work your way up to that kind of readership.That’s why I’m on Goodreads, Twitter, and Facebook (followers and friends welcome!). It’s not like I’ve got tons of spare time, but platforms must be built.
Book publishers face a dilemma: they have to sell books, but as I’ve noted before, they must do so profitably.There are people like yours truly who’ll occasionally pay essentially a dollar a page (or at least a two-page spread) for a book that’s essential to their work.As the capitalists grin, it’s “what the market will bear.” I never thought of myself as a market. To me, knowledge is priceless.The effort that it takes to write a book is truly unimaginable to those who haven’t done it.Obstacles exist almost from the inception.Getting the resources you need, unless your employment comes with a free library pass, involves sacrifice.I still look at other books I must read priced at about $45 and groan—how can I justify the expense?It’s a strange club to which to belong.
My mother asked about Weathering the Psalms: “Is it the kind of book you get money for?”In theory, yes.I’ve yet to see any kind of profit from it since the tax forms you need to file for royalties cost more than the actual checks contain.At least it’s not vanity publishing.And you truly learn what it means to rob Peter to pay Paul.It has nothing to do with gentiles.Publishing is the price you pay for following your curiosity.My books are very different from each other, a fact that comes with an invisible price tag that has little to do with money exchanging hands.Well, maybe it does.And maybe it does have something to do with gentiles.Or maybe it’s an appeal to a higher power.In a capitalist nation we all know what that is; herein lies holy horror.