• A loaded question, ten years on

Ten years ago today, yours truly added yet another title on her resumé: author. On December 17^th, 2013, Quantum Demonology was published in hardback on Amazon, not by the author.

As someone once said, if it were easy to write a book, everyone would. However, not everyone does, and easy, it isn’t. 

To this day, it remains one of the most hectic periods of my life. I began editing the overblown, oversized manuscript on October 18^th. Chapters were handed in ten at a time and typeset. Last week’s ten chapters were then proofed and handed in.

The book was, if not rewritten from the ground up, then at least thoroughly scrubbed, brushed and manicured from 1200+ pages to just over 600. My copy of the Chicago Manual of Style became indispensable. The biggest headache in the editing process was entirely rewriting all the erotic scenes in the book, which was always the last thing I did before sending my pages. 

Why? Because those scenes were agony to write. Luckily, I was also a perfume writer, which taught me a thing or two. 

The chicken and the egg

Writing is a circular business, at least for THIS writer. I had been a ‘writer’ for years on a now defunct blog called MoltenMetalMama, riffing and jamming on everything from fashion to music and even motherhood. Along came the short story that became Quantum Demonology, which in three short chapters entirely took over many of the most meaningful hours of my life at the time. By Chapter 4, I had decided to just … go big or go home. And write a goddamned novel. Basta.

Yet QD led to … a perfume blog, because the woman – if not the writer – had an aesthetic itch she desperately need to scratch. That became Scent Less Sensibilities, which went on to become The Alembicated Genie, which later hosted a very special perfume project in 2012 called The Devilscent Project. The idea was to create a big enough fuss to get someone interested in getting QD into print.

Thanks to perfume writing, I was getting noticed. That led to an email exchange with a Very Big Editor in US publishing, who cast a glance at QD. The book wasn’t right for them, but it could very well be for someone else, said the Very Big Editor. In any event, he told me: Keep writing.

It went something like this: The book led to the perfume writing, which led to the perfume project, which got me noticed (a little), which led to an offer in July 2013:

Get published.

So I took a chance. And got published.

Ten Years On

Ten years later, I’m not even entirely the same person I was in 2013. These days, when not tap-tapping away writing stories, I teach history, English, and art to middle schoolers at a Copenhagen public school. Apart from writing, it’s mostly the best job I’ve ever had – and sometimes, the worst. 😉

But in those ten years, I’ve been asked on more occasions than I can count:

Where can I buy Quantum Demonology?

The short answer: Nowhere.

Here and there, a hard copy pops up for sale second-hand. One of them, if you can believe it, had an asking price that was almost double ALL the money the author made on the book, royalties included. But with a limited print run, and no copies the writer can send (I have one copy, purloined from a former lover who never even read the damn book!), my options have been limited, not by legalities, but by time.

As of this writing, I own ALL rights to everything connected with Quantum Demonology, including the artwork. I have my own imprimatur, Vanadis Press, which is registered with the Danish Library Association and has been since 2014. I have ten ISBNs I can use. Also, I have a question I would like to ask of anyone who reads this post:

Would you like to see Quantum Demonology in print?

Let the writer know in the comments.