While many novels are started and soon abandoned, one of deviantART's senior writers, `alienhead (a.k.a. Todd Keisling), has finished his latest labor of love, A Life Transparent, and is self-publishing it through Lulu (for a great cause--his wedding!). In this interview, `alienhead tells us about his new book and the process of self-publishing.





Who is Todd Keisling?

I'm just another guy who loves to write. I guess you're looking for more than that, though, so I'll spill out the basics: I'm 23. I've been writing for as long as I can remember, though I dabbled in a number of things including film and graphic design before I realized writing was my one, true thing. I wrote my first novel when I was 17 and a senior in high school. A year later, as a freshman in college, that same novel won second place in a writing contest. That was enough affirmation for me, so I stuck with it. I graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BA in English. Moved to Pennsylvania to attend Rosemont College and pursue an MFA, but somewhere along the way I realized that an MFA wouldn't do anything for me except put me deeper in debt. So I've been living in Southeastern Pennsylvania ever since, living simply and writing in my spare time. I live here with my fiancée, Erica, and just this past summer we became engaged. Life, overall, is good.



_{This is Todd. Say, "Hi, Todd."}


Give us a pitch of A Life Transparent.

A Life Transparent is the story of Donovan Candle, a late-30s average Joe who lives a rather boring life. He spends his days working for a telemarketing firm while trying to finish a novel by night. He has a wife, Donna, and a cat, Mr. Precious Paws. One day Donovan wakes and discovers his body is afflicted with varying degrees of transparency and visions of a monochromatic world. No one--not even his wife--notices his flickering self and, as the days go by, Donovan's world begins to fall apart. One day, during a telemarketing call, Donovan confesses to a stranger, "If something interesting doesn't happen to me soon, I'm just going to disappear for good." That evening when he arrives home, he finds Donna is missing, his house is ransacked, and Mr. Precious Paws has been forced through their office shredder. Just as he's about the call the police, the phone rings, and when he answers, the man from the telemarketing call earlier that day speaks. He asks, "Is this interesting enough for you, Mr. Candle?" From there, the story gets a little weird . . .


How did you get the idea for your book?

The idea came from a number of other ideas all colliding together in one big Eureka! moment. Okay, that sounded corny, but it's true. I was at work, taking a piss, when the thought occurred to me that I could disappear at that very moment and no one would notice. From there, things fell into place--the transparency, the monochromatic world, the boredom, the crappy job, etc. Things I've wanted to use for other stories suddenly found a home with this one. What's funny is, I didn't think this story would go beyond 2,000 words. I initially intended to write it as an entry for `youthculture's *fotoFRIDAY, and it was that week's photo that inspired the ending of the novel. After I pitched the idea to `youthculture, she said, "This could be epic." I didn't want to believe it. I'd just finished a massive 108k word novel a month beforehand, and the last thing I wanted to do was start another one, and so for a while I was in complete denial. But the more I wrote, the longer it became, and the rest is history.


Who are your favorite authors?

There are so many. Presently, I'd have to say Haruki Murakami and Clive Barker. Neil Gaiman, Chuck Palahniuk, Chip Kidd, Dean Koontz, the older work of Stephen King, Albert Camus, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Joe R. Lansdale, H.P. Lovecraft, Bret Easton Ellis, Geoffrey Chaucer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, William Gibson . . . and the list goes on and on and on . . .


Do you feel the writings of these authors have influenced your own work, specifically A Life Transparent?

Definitely. Out of them all, I can single out three who were the most influential: Haruki Murakami, Dean Koontz and Clive Barker. I'm sure that will put off the more traditional elitists, but I really don't care. Murakami's ability to turn the surreal into something believable and even mundane really stuck with me, and I drew from that while trying to describe the world around Donovan Candle as he began to grow detached from it.

I've been a fan of Dean Koontz for a long time. He has this ability to make you care for his characters so much that when something happens, be it a plot twist or even something less important, it plucks at your strings. He also managed to intertwine that relationship between the reader and the character with an unrelenting level of suspense and fear. The situation regarding Donovan's missing wife, as well as the exploration into their marital life, really came about from reading Koontz's work and is, in a way, my nod to him.

Finally, Clive Barker is relatively new to me. It was Erica who introduced me to his work, and I've been hooked ever since. Why this guy isn't bigger than Stephen King, I'll never know. Barker doesn't hold back when it comes to the gruesome stuff and, even though he's moved away from horror in later years, his earlier works (like The Books of Blood) stand as grim testaments to his ability to bring nightmares to life. The world of the Monochrome in ALT, and the things that live there, as well as the mysterious Aleister Dullington, were all inspired by aspects of Barker's many horror-oriented works.



_{A flyer for A Life Transparent.}


Why did you decide to self-publish?

I decided to self-publish for one reason, and in a way it's a very selfish reason. A while back, Erica lost her job, and it took her a while to find something else. In that time, we were forced to eat our wedding savings and, as you can imagine, that set back our plans. About halfway through writing this book, I decided to self-publish as a way to raise money for our wedding. On one hand I was hesitant to do so, since I'm rather partial to the story and I wanted to give it a proper shot in the real publishing rat-race, but the prospect of earning some extra cash to help make mine and Erica's dream happen seemed more important to me. I've got other novels to pitch to agents. And so I went with Lulu. My goal with this book is to raise $1,000. That's a big number, but I'm hoping that, with a little luck, we can reach that goal.


What was the process of self-publishing like?

Self-publishing through Lulu was, by far, very easy. There were some quirks and snags I encountered along the way, and I'll come to those in a moment. This is the second time I've self-published--the first being a collection titled Written In Red, which was printed by a small print shop in West Chester, PA. There's so much you have to consider when it comes to doing it on your own. Book size, fonts, cover area, bleed areas, gutters--in some ways it really makes you appreciate the process of publishing. A lot of work can go into the layout of a book. Lulu made it simple, to a point. They provide templates for book covers and interiors for users in an attempt to make it as painless as possible. In fact, there's a lot of info available for the novice. Unfortunately, when it comes to single-piece wrap-around covers and other things, Lulu's sources of help begins to thin out, simply because there aren't many folks in their community who utilize those tools. Ultimately, the more advanced options allow for better customization. For example, you can use Lulu's book cover wizard to design your cover entirely within their browser, which is awesome; however, you can't customize the spine beyond the extent of title, author name, text size and color. With a wrap-around cover, you have full control of what that cover looks like--but good luck finding info about it on the site. Having to go into this blind delayed the book's release by a few weeks simply because I had to keep adjusting the proof. But, this is all nit-picky stuff. Lulu is great for the beginner, and its printing costs are very fair. Despite the snags met along the way (which are bound to happen), I highly recommend it.


The cover art is amazing! Who is the artist?

The lovely Erica (who resides on dA as *DementdPrncess ) designed the cover, as well as the promotional material. She also created the logo for my online entity, "alienhead productions," which is, incidentally, the "publisher" of the book. Graphic design is her thing. She's available for freelance work. Currently she's doing preliminary website work for photographer Aimee Alvarez ( =oolostentity ), among many, many other projects of her own doing.



_{The cover art.}


The promotion for your book has been very grassroots. Could you tell us about it?

I decided, early on, that I wanted to promote this book using two crucial online outlets and by word of mouth. The two online outlets are, of course, deviantART and myspace. The latter is something I swore I'd never do, but I had to face one, undeniable fact: the network of people there is vast. If I could somehow get a following on myspace and allow word of mouth to carry on down the web, so to speak, I could stand to sell a lot of books. I lacked the funding to put together an actual press pack for the book--you know, flyers and bookmarks and stuff like that--so instead I made all that stuff available for download online. The flyer is available in both full color and grayscale versions, for whatever your printing preference. There are stamps for dA, and there's also a flash banner for the myspace folks. I've even made the first two chapters available here and on myspace, when my lulu storefront launches, those two chapters will also be available for download there. Ultimately, it's up to the reader to push this book along. It's my hope that people will read it, they'll love it, and they'll tell their friends. Those who are inclined to go a step further and hang a flyer or use the banner/stamps would only strengthen that reach.


You also had a number of friends on dA read the manuscript beforehand, correct? Was that helpful?

Yes, a few folks looked over the manuscript. Namely, `youthculture, =GunShyMartyr and ~janetpm. A few other folks served as my "cheerleaders," so to speak, including *emothemurdok, =ShatteredNail, and =caveatLECTOR. They, more or less, knew the story before anyone else, and they continued to hound me when I was being lazy and unproductive. Overall, it did serve to create some kind of buzz, though I was also rather secretive for the most part, because I didn't know what it was going to be there for a while. Posting various snippets in my journal also helped create a small buzz among my watchers; now that it's finished, I hope that buzz can grow from a few whispers to a few shouts, and so on.


Do you have other writing projects underway?

Yes. I delayed editing my novel imagiNATION in order to finish ALT, and now that's finished, I can finally focus on editing. I do, however, have a few stories in various stages of planning, some of which are rewrites of older stories to which I'm quite partial. As for projects farther down the line, I intend to finally finish my novel-to-be Migration of the Butterfly, and eventually re-write/expand my children's novel, The Window Painter. Now, when will I get around to doing all of this? Who knows. I'd like to say soon, but that's such a cop-out answer, especially when I have a job and other real-life concerns to manage. But yes, I do have other projects underway--the most immediate of which is the second draft of imagiNATION.





What advice regarding publishing do you have for writers? Do you recommend self-publishing?

Edit, edit, edit the crap out of whatever it is you think is gold. Because it's not. Not by a long-shot. Edit some more, then have someone else look at it and edit for you. You can look at something a million times and not catch a simple typo. Grow thick skin when it comes to critique. Critique, if done correctly, can benefit not only your story, but you as a writer as well. Get as much trustworthy feedback as you can. Once you've done that, research your market. If it's a short story you're trying to have published, take a look at some prospective magazines and get a feel for their content. Be sure to follow their guidelines and be respectful of their waiting periods. As for a novel, well, good luck. We're all in this boat together. There's a long, hard road everyone must travel to get that precious novel published. I've yet to do it, but I, like so many others, am trying. This is where that editing and critique becomes very, very valuable. Once you've got that manuscript ready to go out into the world, find a few agents who represent similar work, and query them. They'll tell you to piss off, so go back and edit some more, then try again. Rinse. Repeat. One day, when the conditions are right (or, if you went to New York to some convention and hob-knobbed with some agents and, over a few drinks, managed to successfully pitch your novel) and you're lucky, you'll secure representation. From there, it's a matter of doing more editing and following your agent's advice while they have power lunches with the All Mighty Powers That Be in the publishing world. Again, if you're lucky, the time is right, and the Powers that Be think your novel will sell a bajillion copies, you'll be on the road to being published "legitimately."

As for self-publishing: There are some here on this site who would rally against it. The folks in the de facto publishing industry frown upon it. Why? Because anyone can do it. There's no filter to catch the crap. And yeah, A Life Transparent could very well be another piece of crap (but I hope it isn't). I sit on the fence when it comes to self-publishing simply because I can see both sides. Are you looking to make millions of dollars, garner fame and success by self-publishing? If so, then no, it's not for you. It's possible to make your break by doing it, but it's also very rare. However, if you're looking to get your name out there, and if you, like me, have a wedding to pay for, then sure, I say go for it. Self-publishing should be approached with realistic expectations. Yeah, me raising $1,000 in book sales is a bit dreamy, but it's possible. I'm not looking to be famous. If I pick up a few dedicated readers because of it, then great--that's a few more people I can say will read my stuff if/when an agent asks if my work is marketable. So if you want to put together a chapbook or a short story collection, by all means, do so. Just don't expect to become Stephen King, because you won't.


How can readers buy A Life Transparent?

Readers can buy A Life Transparent either by going to [link] and purchasing the book directly, or by visiting my page at [link] and following the appropriate link to PayPal to order a signed copy. At Lulu, the paperback is $13 plus shipping, or $4.34 for the eBook. Signed copies are available via a $25 donation through PayPal which will cover shipping as well. The link to make said donation will be available on my dA page as well as my myspace page at myspace.com/toddkeisling, or you can go directly here.


`alienhead has teasers for ALT here on dA:
Part One
Part Two