Ghulf Genes - the Novel

It gives me pleasure to announce that the novel (it long predates this blog) is finally available to the public in printed form. I’ve had occasion to mention that work in a post I wrote here intended to explain the name of this blog (“The Name of the Rose”). There I recite the troubles I had finding a publisher—and this despite the fact that I’d sold four novels, a short story collection, fourteen novellas or short stories, and an article on science fiction all to conventional, commercial publishers. I finished Ghulf Genes in the summer of 2001 and began to market it right into the 9/11 mess. Ghulf Genes has a positive view of aspects of Islamic culture and a somewhat dark view of the American Empire. Alas. The novel is also long. My time wasn’t right. But the book is good—indeed better than anything else I’ve ever done except, perhaps, the two other novels that, together with Ghulf Genes, form a trilogy. I call that three-some Symphony in Ghulf Major. The other two novels, which I will also publish in the same manner in the coming weeks, are called In Search of Anna Magna and Anna’s Song. Do not be alarmed. The photo shows the front and back of the same book. It’s a single volume of 531 pages.

Now for the particulars. The official publisher of these is or will be Editorial Code and Data, Inc., a company in the reference publishing business that I started in 1989. The producer and currently only distributor is Lulu Enterprises, Inc., a company that might be described, wrongly, as a vanity press. They produce a huge number of books, albums,videos, and CDs (musical and otherwise)—for individuals and corporations—and may represent a new phenomenon in publishing. The author gets nothing up front except (and this I value most of all at my age) the satisfaction of knowing that the work is out there. I haven’t had to pay a dime to get this book to those of you who might be interested. To be sure I’m quite expert in electronic modes of preparing manuscripts for printing. I’ve typeset many, many much more complex books filled with statistics and graphics in my time. I expended labor, not money. But if I wish Ghulf Genes to become available through book stores and Amazon, I’ll have to fork over $75 for what Lulu calls global distribution. And I’ll gladly spend that money.

I will soon display the book and access to it permanently on the front page of this blog. For now, the access point is here. The price is $29.24. As you might expect, I’ll have more postings on this subject for those of you interested in “breaking through,” as it were. The mechanics of this project I’ll feature on LaMarotte, where that subject rightly belongs.

With this I’ve done my bit for Ghulf Genes, the novel, and the rest does not weigh on my mind.