Publishing – Gerry Mooney Illustrating Dickens

My London Video

When I was prepping my last blog post about my London adventures, I was a little leery of posting (or announcing) a 20-minute video because I thought most folks would just click away from it! Although it was included in my previous post, it was at the very bottom and I soft-pedaled it in my email. After some time to think about it, though, I decided that it was worth sharing and watching in all its glory.

There were two folks shooting video of my presentation, and although the one that live-streamed on FB had some technical problems for the first two minutes, I was able to cut the two versions together so well that it’s like I was using a two-camera setup.

My full presentation at Dickens Day 2025 thanks to Jeremy Parrott and Warren Weiss

I had asked Jeremy Parrott to help with the live stream. He had some trouble switching the cameras, understandable since I literally threw my phone at him as I rushed to the stage!

Afterwards Warren Weiss, another attendee, came up and said he had shot my whole presentation, and once he emailed me his take, cutting them together was amazingly smooth.

Designing an e-book with Amazon

Moving forward, I’m working with Amazon to design an e-book of BLEAK HOUSE, which is a tricky process since it’s key that the illustrations appear adjacent to the proper text. The book is 68 chapters, so early on I suggested that they send small sections at a time.

Working in sections, we’ve gone through, first, chapters 1-20, and then chapters 21 through 39. Their designer is simply copy-pasting the text from my original pdf of the text version, so the actual proofreading is minimal, but lots of errors creep in at line breaks and paragraph breaks, especially in long sections of dialogue. I am essentially reading paragraph break to paragraph break, onerous enough but it goes quickly.

I opted for a package of services in addition to the e-book, though I’m still waiting to hear a clear list of what that involves. I do know that they’ll be producing a short promotional video, but where that will appear is still a question; and the e-book will get listed on other platforms, but exactly where is unclear.

I’m not too worried about it, as getting the book laid out properly is the main task we’re working on. The folks as KDP have been great to work with so I have hopes for it all.

Moving forward

I’ve decided that the e-book package is the last “big” money I’ll be spending on this project. Once the weather gets nicer I plan on approaching more bookstores in the area about doing linoleum-printing demonstrations, which as it turns out is pretty popular!

I’ve found that the main issue with talking to bookstores is that they need to know that my book is available for them to order through their standard channels. I think I’ve solved that problem, and I will find out once I start getting out and asking at individual stores.

Thanks for reading, folks!

Distribution beyond Amazon

Things always appear easier before you actually do them. It appeared that using the “Expanded Distribution” option for a book published on Amazon would make BLEAK HOUSE more widely available, and it did, sort of.

I’ve been operating under the belief that I could do book signings in Barnes & Noble stores. There are two in Tulsa, and of course there are other, smaller bookstores in most of the bigger small towns in the region. As it turns out, I could indeed have book signings in these B&N stores, as long as I was in the correct distribution channels that would allow these stores to order my book. If they can’t get the book on their shelves, there’s no reason for them to host the event. No matter how nicely you ask, there’s no way around this logic.

Which leads to the obvious question: WHAT are “correct distribution channels”?

My first book signing – Video!

I did my first book signing on Saturday May 3, and Katie Varner the owner at The Same Page bookstore, was nice enough (and tech-y enough!) to live stream it on Facebook. So I have a 33-minute video that, well, I found pretty hard to watch, so it took me awhile to trim it down to about eight minutes. It’s posted after the continuation below.

Now I’ve set my sights on expanding to bigger venues, and top of the list is Barnes & Noble, which has two stores in Tulsa. I visited both stores yesterday and the folks there couldn’t be nicer, but I found some small complications with the process as I imagined it.

Inspector Bucket Superstar

You may have ended up here in response to my latest email announcement, all nice and formatted with images and new info. I’ve been wanting to make this improvement for some time and I’m happy with the results. Above all, it contains an “opt-out” option at the bottom which is just polite, but I never had the means to do it in a standard, email-friendly format.

It means a lot to have the support I’ve gotten from many friends and even strangers in this journey. The book is out in the wild, I’ve gotten my first press coverage in our hometown Claremore Progress, and I’ve lined up my first book signing.

Okay, It’s ON!

Well folks, I first want to thank you for stopping by to read my posts here. It’s been a labor of love even when it’s a struggle because this book and this project are something I believe in. I don’t think I would have stuck to all this if it weren’t!

So I would like to announce the following:
BLEAK HOUSE, by Charles Dickens and illustrated with 40 new linoleum prints by Gerry Mooney, is now available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTG8DLCJ . Paperback, 650 pages, $30. I’m not planning an e-book edition.

PROOF!

I know I’ve been talking about getting a publisher, applying for a grant, finding an agent…well none of this is going to happen. For one thing, after approaching numerous agents and publishers, it finally sunk in that “illustrated novel” is no longer a thing, and hasn’t been for decades.

No one I approached, even those that liked the work, had any idea of how this particular project fits into any current publishing niche. I have no doubt the project has potential, I’ve known it for years, but convincing anyone who has the means to publish it to see it like I do is enough for even Sisyphus to give up and go back to his rock just to take a breather.

The Hard Work of Selling

The five years I spent creating the artwork for Dickens’ BLEAK HOUSE was not only a labor of love, but it was a process where, as I went along, I pretty much knew what I was doing, and if I didn’t, I knew the ways to figure it out.

Selling this project is another horse of a different color! I knew at the outset that an illustrated classic novel had no natural niche in the current publishing market, but I considered that fact against the marketability of Charles Dickens, and happy to say, Charles and I won.

So Step One was a smashing success. Step Two, a little trickier. I have some friends (or friends of friends) who are published writers, and I did ask one for “advice”, but the fact is, you’ll get the same advice in one form or another from everyone: Pick up a copy of The Writer’s Market and do the research. There are no shortcuts and no preformatted path to success, but this book has a wealth of information. You just have to be determined to dig for it.

Buying stamps

Since my original intent was to write about creating artwork, it suddenly seems odd to me now that the art creation is done that I still need to write about the whole process that led me here and that I am still pursuing, even though the way is not clear.

But it’s the task I set for myself, to document the whole process, warts and all. So I will tell you about buying stamps.

…And that was the easy part!

As you may know if you have visited my blog before, I’ve now completed a five-year project: illustrating Charles Dickens’ epic novel, BLEAK HOUSE. It was a task of love and devotion, heartbreak, missed connections, long nights, big dreams…and I think that may have been the easy part.

Finding a publisher (which mainly means finding an agent) is no easy task under the best circumstances. Agents have specialized areas of interest and it’s easy but arduous to look them up in the extremely helpful Writers Market. As far as I understand, agents break down into two main areas: literary agents, who assist in matching authors and publishers, and illustrator’s agents, who, due to the present genres in publishing, specialize mainly in children’s books, children’s book illustrators, graphic novels, matching up writers and artists, and putting them together with publishers.