General U.S. Grants

As I continue my quest for an agent or publisher, I find that suggestions and ideas from various places just bubble up and spur me to further exploration. I’m happy to run down any lead that doesn’t cost me money.

That’s the most interesting thing about this process, discovering connections that lay undiscovered in plain sight. A good friend and fellow cartoonist that I’ve known since college turned out to be an avid Dickens fan and collector. I never knew this about him until I started this project, and now he’s one of my most avid supporters.

I’ve told you about the buddy who volunteered to take my BLEAK HOUSE portfolio and show it around at the MOCCA fest in New York. No matter that none of the publishers there was quite the thing for me, it’s the network that is developing around my work that keeps the whole thing interesting.

Anyway, big picture, I have to consider that self-publishing may be one route for BLEAK HOUSE. I’ve dealt with Amazon’s self-publishing arm (called Kindle Direct now) that went sort-of okay, and my self-published SISTER MARY DRACULA still sits there.

Of course, BLEAK HOUSE is a different critter. However the book happens, I do expect to do some kind of book signings and appearances to talk about the project, maybe sell a few linoprints of some of the illustrations, and I even think about doing dramatic readings from the novel, a la Dickens’ public readings. This can all happen regardless how the book makes it to print, in my imagination anyway!

Which leads to my dreadful pun in the title. I had an interesting chat with a friend of a friend yesterday who lives not far from me, and who has a small book publishing venture. She was full of good suggestions. We talked about such specifics as, do I want a hard cover or paperback, and then mentioned the subject of how much this would cost, and I sort of quailed at the mention of money. Think of Amazon what you want, you can publish there literally for free. However Amazon is a dead-end last resort as far as I’m concerned.

In the course of this chat, she suggested applying for a grant.

And applying for a grant is just as much fun as it sounds! There’s an extremely thorough and detailed website at grants.gov that in each paragraph has a link that says, before you go any further, read the page at this link for more information! And the next page has a mid-paragraph link that says, read the page at this link!

Actually that’s why I’m writing this post, I had to step away from all that for a breather. Now, I’ve only just started this process so I know there’s a lot to learn and I’m not shy about digging in. I’ve discovered, for example, that there are a ton of YouTube videos on understanding and navigating the government grants program. And in fairness, the website is not so much confusing as it is packed with information for all comers. No doubt my next post will be about how I have completely mastered the grant application process and what was I worried about last time anyway?

I also have not even begun looking into non-governmental grants, or even how to begin. That comes next. I’m sure it will also be an adventure.

Thanks for continuing to follow my adventures here. You can drop me a line at dickens@mooneyart.com