An update on Fifth Wheel: A Novel with Music. I have been somewhat through the wringer in the efforts to publish this book, which is my first novel. (I’m at work on a new series now, too, which I’ll talk about separately.) Here’s the executive summary on the book and my difficulties publishing it. Fifth Wheel began as an idea a number of years ago in which I wanted to present a full-length novel about a young group of musicians who put a band together in college. Time frame for this part of the book: 1974.
The story details the boys’ interrelationships as roommates, friends, romantic rivals, and fellow musicians. Part II of the novel describes their different trajectories with regard to fame, work, and love. And then in Part III they all come back together, weathered, worse for the wear and tear, but still tied by the music they once made. The main character of Fifth Wheel is Tad, a kid from Dallas, Texas, who thinks of himself as a sort-of musician. A quasi-musician. Because although he loves music, and loves his Gibson Melody Maker guitar, he’s sorely lacking in self-confidence.
Tad’s situation is directly contrasted with that of Brad Schauer, the band’s natural leader, who is endowed with an immense talent for music, and for picking up women. Brad has everything Tad would have liked to be born with. Tad respects him, tries to learn from him, emulates him. And envies him.
As I said above, a number of factors work against publishing this story in the traditional way, and even in some non-traditional ways. The first is that the music the boys make is itself included in the story. In fact, I wrote the story around songs I had previously written. I envisioned publishing the story as a so-called enhanced ebook, which can include audio and video files in the flow of text. I went to the trouble to record all the songs in a professional recording studio. I did all guitars and vocals myself, and used some of the best studio musicians in town to do the tunes justice. The result was a legit professional record.
But two problems then arose. One, traditional publishers, and the agents who represent writers to the publishers, are afraid of investing any time or money in anything that lies outside the traditional publishing paradigm. Any suggestion of an enhanced ebook meets with a quick “This is not for us.” I could never generate interest in a project that lay outside the publishing industry’s comfortable ways of thinking and operating.
And then, two, at a certain point, Amazon, as everyone knows, the world’s largest online bookseller, decided to begin charging for digital shelf space. So much that it would cost me roughly $15 for every copy sold. Which is far outside what people are willing to spend on a novel in e-book format.
So, what then? So I have decided to take a two-pronged approach. First, I’ll record the book as an audiobook. The book will include the songs interwoven into the story, as narrated by me. I think my original idea for the book is a sound one, and presenting it as an audiobook should serve the story, and the listener, well.
Look for the audiobook of Fifth Wheel: A Novel with Music, sometime in 2024.
Gary
