A Letter to Our Readers

Sometime in 2023 the two of us came up with an idea for a dystopian satire set in the near future, a comic and maybe not-so-comic novel whose starting point was, let’s say, “current events.” We called it—spoiler alert!—The Split.

After lots of backing and forthing, we agreed on the general shape of the world we wanted to create, a world in which the USA had at some earlier point split into two countries that corresponded to our current red-blue divide. And, most important, we decided on a protagonist, along with that protagonist’s Dilemma or Quest or Major Dramatic Question or Whatever You Want To Call It.

Then we buckled down and wrote a long prose outline in which we detailed every action, every beat, of the story as well as snippets of dialogue, character details, jokes, landscape features, and whatever else erupted from our overheated brains.

Then we wrote the first 40,000 words of the story, in full, plus a condensed prose outline of the rest of it (except for the final chapter, which we felt compelled to write in full).

Then we showed it to our agent, who read it over the next couple of days, then said words we’d never before heard an agent say: “I love it!”

That was the high point of this phase of our journey.

While it’s never a surprise to get a rejection note from a publishing house, we had not anticipated getting 36 of them. And we certainly weren’t expecting to see—among the usual “sorry, this doesn’t fit with next season’s publishing program” boilerplate—a number of heartfelt paragraphs from editors who were freaked that anyone would imagine them capable of publishing a book that advocated for splitting up the nation—for de-unum-ing the pluribus.

If it weren't for the fact that we didn’t have a publisher, we would have found this funny: a bunch of seasoned, successful, well educated, mainly-NYC-based editors, at major publishing houses, who didn’t appear to understand the genre known as satire. We refrained from calling them and yelling: “Was Jonathan Swift advocating for a world with talking horses?!” Instead, we mourned for five minutes, then turned to Plan B: find a way to serialize The Split. Within nanoseconds, in swooped Wonkette goddess Rebecca Schoenkopf, our favorite dea ex machina, and the rest is history.

As you of course know, we posted a new chapter every Sunday starting in November of 2023 and ending the week of Election Day 2024. Along the way, readers would occasionally ask if there was a way to read The Split on paper instead of, or in addition to, pixels. We starting thinking about how to do that. First thought: Gather the chapters into one big PDF that readers can print at home. Second thought: Nah, that’s stupid. No one wants to burn a ream of paper and a canister of toner on that. But what if…

We fell down the self-publishing rabbit hole.

Months later: Lovely hardcover and trade paperback editions plus, at long last, an e-book edition of The Split are available “wherever books are sold,” distributed worldwide by the mighty Ingram. Which brings us to this button:

Here’s the problem, or one of the problems, with self-publishing: No one knows you’re there. You’re not in bookstores. You don’t have a department of professional publicity people standing behind you (and generally ignoring you, but that’s for another conversation). You don’t get reviews from major publications, or even minor ones. You are, in short, tossing your book into a vacuum.

Of course, it’s not quite so bad if you’ve got some kind of built-in audience such as a “following” on the “socials.” Which we sort of do, thanks to Wonkette and its landlord, Substack. And so we turn to y’alls, dear readers, to help us if you’re so inclined and feel like flexing your social muscles. Pass the word to friends who wake up every morning thinking: “Did he die overnight? Did he choke on a burger? Did he? Please tell me he did.” Distribute freely the URL of our website: exasperated media.com. Employ word-of-mouth! Transmit to all and sundry our QR code:

Know anyone with a podcast or a radio show? We’re excellent guests. Seriously.

Know anyone who owns Netflix? We’re sure you’ve observed that The Split would make a fine miniseries or movie, especially for a streamer or studio or network that enjoys a little controversy. Know an actor with her own production company?

Our inbox is open for bidness.

Hey, if we don’t talk about Lorinda Moon, who will?

In case you missed it the first time:

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Steve Radlauer & Ellis Weiner