Long Tale Press

Jason Black

I have come to a career in publishing by what seems to me a very roundabout route. But perhaps no shorter route could have worked.

I've always been an avid reader, and like many sci-fi and fantasy buffs I tried my hand at writing fiction during my high-school years. To say that my attempts were unsuccessful would be generous. My problem at the time was that I would have ideas for cool sounding stories, which in my head seemed grand and epic but which when put on paper always finished by the end of page 3. I'd be left scratching my head and wondering "where did my story go?" Eventually I got discouraged and formed an opinion that there was some special knack that real writers had for telling a story that lasts for hundreds of pages, and that I didn't have it.

I spent my first several college years studying engineering and computer science, waffling about what to actually major in. Eventually I realized that while engineering and computer science are interesting, I didn't really like the math all that much. However, I had no problem writing the term papers, so I settled into a degree program in technical writing. Brevity is to be praised in technical writing, which suited me just fine.

My professional life since college has centered around Microsoft. During college I did internships there in 1992, '93, and '94, before finally getting a full-time gig in 1995 after I graduated. I was fortunate to land a job doing what it said on my degree. During my time there I wrote technical documentation for several different products including Microsoft Exchange and Windows Mobile, worked as a manager, held a very brief stint as a programmer, and filed four patent applications along the way for technical innovations related to online help.

I returned to the world of fiction in 2005, thanks to Nathan and National Novel Writing Month. For whatever reasons--age, experience, or perhaps finally having a story that was really worth telling--this time it worked and I wrote a story that didn't end on page 3. It ended on page 304, and I was hooked. There is nothing like actually writing a book to prove to yourself that you can, well, write a book. I participated in NaNoWriMo again in 2006 and 2007, each time completing new novels, and fully intend to continue doing so every year to come.

But ever since 2005 I've been learning more and more about the publishing industry (what else are you going to do after writing a few novels except think about getting them published?) and have become very dissatisfied with what I've learned: It's not about quality. Or at least, it's not enough about quality. Quality still matters a bit, but the publishing industry is primarily based on the perception of a handful of book agents and publishing house editors as to whether a given book can sell, not so much whether it's good.

Case in point: Dan Brown. He certainly hit the ball out of the park with The DaVinci Code. It's a rollicking good adventure, but it wasn't his first book. His previous book before it was Angels and Demons, which quite frankly stinks. The story may be decent, but I wouldn't know because the writing is so execrable that I can't ever get past the first 50 pages. It's a book which probably shouldn't have gotten published in the first place, let alone get a second printing and end up on the best seller list. But it's on the best seller list now because after the wild success of The DaVinci Code, the publisher knew they could print up and sell millions of anything else with Dan Brown's name on it regardless of quality.

That frustrates the heck out of me because I know that the resources that went into printing and promoting Angels and Demons could have bankrolled probably a dozen really wonderful books by new authors who are dying for a break. So I decided to do something about it. In early 2008 I left my job at Microsoft and started Long Tale Press, to create a better way for authors to get published. A truly merit-based system, where readers get to say what's worthy of publishing. Will it work? I sure hope so. I've got a lot riding on it. But I have faith because I know that for every criminal waste of trees like Angels and Demons, there are at least a dozen great books out there by talented writers who just need a break. Those who find their way here, where they can put their work in front of real readers, will get their break because the Long Tale Press community will give it to them.

So that's the roundabout route that got me here. Taking the journey with me are my wife and two kids, who keep me smiling and make my house in Redmond, Washington truly a home.