Today I published a new story, on my own. Some terrific friends have helped me get the word out, but I wrote it, I did the Kindle conversion, I did the cover (with a lot of help from my bossy wife), I wrestled with Amazon over it (more on that in a bit), and I took out the advertising for it on Facebook and Goodreads. There’s a lot of conversation these days about what authors should be expected to do for their work. Should they have to book their own promotional tours? Should they have to solicit blurbs for their books? Should they set up their own blog interviews and podcast appearances? To all these questions, I’ve decided there are really only two answers: 1) You do now; and 2) If you don’t like it, then stay home and get the fuck out of my way.

I wrote another post this morning to go with the launch of this new story, “The Advocate.” You can read it, but I’m not even going to link to it. Because that was the nice, promotional blog posting in which I hoped people went and bought my story for 99 cents, please pretty please. This is the one where I tell you what went into that story and guilt you into buying it twice.

The oldest Word file I can find for “The Advocate” is July 17, 2010. That’s a year-and-a-half’s work for a 24-page, 6900-word story. I can guarantee you I was thinking about it long before then, piecing it together in my mind, because when I first thought of “The Advocate” was when I heard the piece on This American Life about the families of transgender kids who were meeting up once a year for weekend support conferences. The piece was heartbreaking, but all I could think of was, “Wow, that’s a lot of hard parenting.” And: “Some of those moms must be just wrung out.” And that’s when I knew I wanted to write about this subject.

So in those 18 months, I’ve rewritten the story many, many times. The rewriting-every-damn-word kind, not the tinker-and-resave kind that I’d love to tell myself is rewriting. I’ve showed it to my trusted readers and considered their ideas, and I’ve had sudden breakthroughs while driving through Hartford, CT at 2:30AM. As of today, I am happy with “The Advocate.” Don’t ask me in six months. But this is how it’s done, at least for me, and it’s almost never a quick process, even though the end result is the length of a single comic book. Sometimes I get lucky; except for some interior narrative in the middle part, which came years later, my story “Kate the Destroyer” came out almost exactly as-is in one shot. The rest of the time, it’s a months-or-years proposition. And of course I’ve worked on lots of other things in those 18 months, including a stupidly long first draft of a novel. And I’m a stay-at-home dad, have been since 1999, with two amazing kids who are full of all kinds of fun challenges. And I work full-time-ish from home in a non-creative field while my wife busts her ass working till 2AM in a high-pressure environment. And I teach two fiction classes a week at a local workshop, and in my spare time I do stuff like lay down floors in my mother-in-law’s new place or build stone fireplaces. See, I have plenty to do aside from writing stories. So I must really love it, right? Bet your ass.

All of which is, yes, to guilt you into buying “The Advocate.” (Available here.) But it’s also to let you know how completely fucking batshit it would be to take 18 months’ worth of work, send it in the mail (or email), wait three or six or nine months, and hope that by the end of that time, SOMEONE wanted to publish my work. For free. But that’s the system in which I work, or in which I am supposed to work. What’s that old definition of insanity again?

And here’s the thing: I have NO problem with people reading my work for free, if they’re really reading it. But how many people are actually reading the North Bend Quarterly Review? Or the Sublime Donkey, or any of the other regionally-or-cutesily-named literary magazines that are out there? You can argue that the people reading those magazines are real readers, that they’re seeking out the unusual or underpublished amid all the high-gloss literary dross. But after I was done punching you in the neck for using the word “dross,” I would point out that most of the people reading those publications are other writers just checking out the competition. Trust me on this one.

This is hard to hear, maybe. I seem to be piling up on people (literary magazine editors) who are devoting their lives to publishing work they believe in. I am not. I’m merely saying I resent the fact that this is THE system you work in if you’re a short story writer. And when you publish in those magazines, as I have six times, you hope someone will read your stuff, but what you really hope for is that you’ll catch the eye of an agent or editor. This is kind of gross, if you think about it. Your job #1, as a writer, is to be read. To write for readers. Instead, we spend a lot of time and effort (and, not so long ago, postage) on trying to get our stuff seen by people who might help get our stuff seen by people who…. You get the idea. You have to follow that chain a long way just to get to some actual readers.

I did submit “The Advocate.” I submitted it to the Narrative Magazine Fall Story Contest, to the Missouri Review Editor’s Prize, and to the New Yorker. These are maybe the three most high-profile places still publishing short stories in America. Did I aim too high? Maybe, but what idiot doesn’t? I didn’t place in the Missouri Review contest (keeping my streak with them alive at 7 rejections!), and Narrative named me a finalist. I still haven’t heard back from the New Yorker. Fingers crossed?

Narrative, as you may know, is not publishing their finalists from the Fall 2011 Story Contest. If you look back, you can see that sometimes they’ve published all the finalists, sometimes just a few. I was pissed that they weren’t publishing any this time around (they’re a digital publication; is the cost of fake ink too high?), but it’s their magazine. My one consolation, besides the “finalist” badge I get to slap on my story, was that one of the editors, before the contest results were announced, was kind enough to email me and tell me he or she had never been moved to write to a submitting author before, but that they were now. And then they said some very nice things about “The Advocate.” In hindsight, I wonder if this person had seen how all the results were going to shake out and just wanted to get their two cents in before the formal announcements. And I’m truly grateful that they did. Mystery Editor, you made my December.

Now: After all this, I was free to shop “The Advocate” anywhere I wanted. And I don’t doubt that I could’ve placed it with another literary magazine. I just didn’t want to say goodbye to the story for another six or nine months while I waited for someone to pick it up. And so I’ve published it on my own. And here’s the fun twist to that: Even in self-publication, you are beholden to the systems of others. I can publish a story in Kindle format on Amazon, setting it up in five minutes. I cannot call it a Kindle Single. That is a brand name, and Amazon controls it very tightly. In fact, you must submit your work for consideration as a Kindle Single. And I did. Some weeks ago. In my submission, I made sure to point out that the work had not been published anywhere else (a requirement), that my last book had some nice endorsements, and that I was an award-winning author. All true. Finally, late Sunday night, I got an email telling me “The Advocate” had not been “accepted for inclusion in the Kindle Singles store.” If you look at the Kindle Singles store, you can probably figure out why: It’s a lot of established authors having a go at shorter pieces. And bully for them. Amazon’s clearly trying to cultivate a certain kind of aesthetic here, and I can see why they wouldn’t want to put promotional muscle behind a less-established author. On the other hand, it makes Amazon’s Kindle Singles section seem like (yet again) one big magazine, and that to me feels very old-fashioned and kind of…backwards. But that’s okay. I’m glad this “Dean Koontz” person has a shot at getting some readers.

So what now? At this minute, “The Advocate” is #18 on Kindle’s paid Short Fiction list — just four below the new collection from a personal hero, Dan Chaon, a man whose writing I discovered nearly a decade ago while reading a literary magazine. Will I submit to the act of submitting again? I don’t know. Let’s amend that: I will for the novel, but I don’t know if I’ll try and place a story in the hands of strangers again. I’ve recently, thanks both to my younger son and to the encroachment of middle age, become a little re-obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons. Not so much with the playing of it (although I will), but with my old fascination with it. I spent HOURS sitting in a chair in my living room as a kid, reading the Advanced D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (first edition, thanks). This thing is filled with arcana and tables and strategies, and I read every word of it dozens of times. But now I’m just as interested in the story of this game. It was invented by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, two miniature war-gamers (meaning they played on tabletops with miniatures, not that they were…) who were unsatisfied with the established rules of their medieval wargames. So they ended up writing an entirely new set of rules to include not only all the fantastical elements we associate with D&D, but also the mechanics of how it would work — the aforementioned combat tables, the polyhedral dice for determining a player’s successes and failures, an entire new system of inner logic. In their course, they created an entirely new world. And their weird little game, as you know, started as a photocopied booklet and went on to change millions of kids, one of whom was me.

I don’t know that “The Advocate” is going to change anyone’s life, or that it will change publishing. I’m not the only one doing this. But I have to believe that it will, and that I’m the only one doing it right. Because that’s the kind of megalomania required. No one ever got anywhere interesting following the sane, careful person. Now go buy my story and rate it on Amazon and tell a friend to read it.

Remember a while back when I agonized over self-publishing? When I mentioned I’d be experimenting with it sometime this year? Well…

The way the title is aligned with the very top of the shoe? No accident, my friend.

Sometime came a little earlier than I’d expected, and I couldn’t be happier. This is “The Advocate.” It is a brand new story I’m quite proud of. It also was named a finalist in Narrative Magazine’s Fall 2011 Fiction Contest. Here’s the thing about that: this year, Narrative decided not to publish its contest finalists. I am okay with this. I’m glad Narrative named “The Advocate” a finalist. I’m also glad for the chance to publish this story on my own.

“The Advocate” is about Mimi Acker, devoted mother of an unusual eleven-year-old named Alix. Mimi already lives her life on the offensive; Alix’s special situation has enabled her to become fiercely protective. But is there such a thing as being too protective?

That’s the pitch, now here’s the deal: This brand-new story is available to you, my special friend, for just 99 cents*. AND if you’re an Amazon Prime member, it’s FREE. Also, I removed DRM from it, meaning you can share it. And I do want you to share it. If you like “The Advocate,” please tell someone about it. Send it to them, send them to it, whatever it takes. Because here’s why I’m doing this: I like and respect a good many literary magazines, but I’d like to see what happens when a short story writer tries to reach the most possible readers. Will you help?

* ”The Advocate” is exclusive to Amazon and the Kindle format, but you can read it on any device with a Kindle app.