When iPad hit the streets, a new kind of laptop, toy, e-mail reader, glorified iPod Touch, and video viewer was born. It also created several new authors, who'd been looking for a home in traditional print media for years. Many of these writers are talented and innovative but couldn't force their way through the formidable barriers put up by New York publishers in this era of low economic expectations.
One writer, Steven Jay Griffel of Queens, N.Y., has hit digital gold twice — published by iPad and Kindle. Although he's wanted to be a novelist his entire life, he's hit that brick wall many a writer knows all too well. Well acquainted with rejection letters and negative phone calls from agents, he took a practical job as an editor for children's books. Meanwhile he sent out his own manuscripts on free hours. Still, he wasn't getting anywhere as a an author.
"I worked for 35 years before my first novel was published," Griffel said. "During those years, I saw colleagues — even friends — get published, and I was certainly jealous. But because I married young and became a father in my twenties, I was largely removed from those social scenes that might have piqued and exacerbated my jealousy. I did my work, I raised my kids, and I wrote. I finished my first novel about 20 years ago. It was something of a coming-of-age tale."
No one wanted that. They wanted sex, and fast living, and if memory serves, Harold Robbins. Remember him? Not great literature, but it sold. It was enough to leave any serous writer thinking he or she had missed the boat. Why not give up?
"I never gave up hope, except for Lent. (An easy sacrifice for a Jewish novelist.) But I never gave the belief that my writing was strong."
Armed with this self-confidence, he came across an ad from Schiller and Wells, Ltd, an arm of Stay Thirsty Media, looking for writers. Instead of turning away as some traditional writers might, Griffel was intrigued.
"First thing I did was Google the company to check its credibility. Bingo! First link I saw was an article in Publishers Weekly: Stay Thirsty Lures Veteran Writers. The article described how Stay Thirsty Media was able to sign three award-winning novelists, who, despite their critical successes and dedicated readership, could n
o longer get a contract from traditional publishers. I submitted Forty Years Later and it was accepted."
Article comments