Toledo native self-publishes first novel; plans for second
Written by Caitlin McGlade | | news@toledofreepress.comAs an Internet producer for WTOL, a military wife and a mother of two, Toledo resident L.A. Strawbridge worked for eight years to finish her first novel, “Whiskey Myths,” building off of music, art and a conglomeration of people and places she’d seen after moving 15 times across the country in 12 years.
Planting her readers in a “slow death of a place” on the first page, she pulls together song lyrics, music and all five senses to draw a very raw picture of her characters and their intricacies.
“It’s a timeless transformation myth told in a more modern, contemporary way,” Strawbridge said. “The myth is spiritual exploration and I wanted to write it into this modern rock format.”
Strawbridge
Her main character, Van, struggles to find a purpose in the beginning of Whiskey Myths, facing writer’s block and helplessness, finding solace through her favorite band “BloodFire’s” album. When she writes in her journal and realizes “Whole, Hole, Soulless and Solace” sound astonishingly similar, Strawbridge sends her on a search to break out of the dominant religion in her town.
“The main character is in an environment where one religion is dominant and she’s not satisfied with that,” she said. “I think it’s common for a country so Christian based.”
Strawbridge weaves personal song lyrics into her novel to foreshadow events and support the flowing, musical nature of the book. She said that her favorite bands influenced the book more than anyone person or group of people did and that she can identify different chapters as sounding like Pearl Jam and Perfect Circle.
Her next novel is a “political dystopian thriller,” she said, about an increasingly apathetic America that allows its citizens to be intellectually cleansed.
Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in high school, Strawbridge said she wants to write about edgy, modern themes that most publishing companies won’t take on.
“I love the idea of it being a little over my head so that I don’t quite get it but maybe I don’t need to,” she said.
After trying one publisher for “Whiskey Myths,” Strawbridge decided to self-publish through Createspace.com, to save money, join the future e-book movement and push deeper ideas.
Amazon.com bought Createspace.com and published CDs on demand a couple years ago and in 2007, started publishing books on demand, said Amanda Wilson, public relations manager for Createspace.com. Since, the site has published thousands of authors and allows for physical printing of the books or for the author to take the PDF to e-book websites to sell as e-books, she added.
Printing a copy of a color book with 42 to 250 pages is $1.75 plus 12 cents per page. Depending on the price the author sets, Createspace.com takes 20 percent and Amazon.com takes 40 percent, according to the website.
Create-space also does not have editing or judging services, so as long as the author does not send a novel that is pornographic, offensive, leads to illegal activity, plagiarized or infringes on someone else’s privacy, they will publish it, according to the site.
“We don’t have to print thousands of copies of books and store them in warehouse,” Williams said. “It’s a very economical and environmental solution depending on how you want to use it.”
L.A. Strawbridge sells her book for $11.99 on Amazon.com and $3.99 as an e-book on her Web site www.lastrawbridge.com, through an e-book Web site called e-junkie.com, she said.
