Wow - thanks very much for the compliment, so glad you enjoyed. (S4 was a wild ride!) If it helps, I haven't reread the Odyssey in full in ages, either. I just went back over the ending when the Black Sails finale rolled around. I keep meaning to reread it. Someday!
I haven't gone through it entirely, but Spark Notes seems to have a solid breakdown of The Odyssey - a shorter overview, plus character breakdowns, themes, and then chapter summaries. It's fairly concise.
I wish I had an audiobook version I could recommend. (Just previewing them on Audible, the Dan Stevens version seems the most clean to listen to, and it has good pacing. Though there is one read by Ian McKellen!)
Whilst I haven't read it myself, there is a new translation that's just out by Emily Wilson, which seems to be a more modern take that's resonating with people and has great reviews. The Amazon link has an excerpt and some reviews.
There's always some classics: Homer's Odyssey (I recommend the translation by Emily Wilson), 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Voyage of the Dawn Treader (in Chronicles of Narnia), Billy Budd by Herman Melville, etc.
Some more contemporary books, some of which are a bit unconventional, in no particular order:
Deeplight is more subnautical than seafaring, but lots of interesting worldbuilding here;
The Liveship Traders series
argh. I've lurked /r/writing for a long time and the advice you're getting here is goddamned terribad. Probably going to have to find another throwaway account for obvious reasons but I can actually materially help here, so fuck it. Let's do this shit. I'm jumping on this goddamned grenade.
> For clarification and context, I'm publishing a Plautine three-act play. It's a 1.75-2 hour play and runs about 60 pages of meat plus whatever title/ephemera pages I throw in. I don't know if that changes anything versus, say, YA or fantasy.
It doesn't. Don't worry about it.
> Have any of you guys ever approached someone about doing a forward? Is there an etiquette to this? I've always imagined that guest forwards were written by a friend who was a sounding board or proofreader in the process, or maybe someone notable who's a huge fan and straight up asks to do it. Have any of you guys ever had someone specific in mind for this but they have no idea you've written a book yet? I wouldn't be offended if he said "no" or if he felt like he didn't have anything to say but I'd still like to ask.
There's no form letter or Word template to fill out. Just ask them, politely, in an email, and attach the full script in the request, don't follow up with it. Normally this is handled by an agent sending ARCs to a predetermined list of influencers, but that doesn't apply to self-pub. That's fine. Understand that most people queried won't be eager for it and won't respond, but that's par for the course and the cost of doing business. If that's cool, you're cool. Approach multiple people for the foreward, but ONLY one at a time. Have a list, but only approach one at a time.
> Blurbs - For that matter, what about quotes from notable or lay readers?
Lay readers? Nah. PhDs and active historians in the field, yas kween. It'll be tough to get, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try to get their imprimatur, and the more, the better.
> I was kind of half-thinking-but-not-seriously seeing if some of the PhDs I know would mind being quoted, especially if I'm name-checking their books in the attribution.
I mean no offense, but you name-checking people that are higher than you in your field in a self-published book is not at all incentive for them. If you get rejected by the people you approach, keep that in mind, and don't get upset about it. If you get it, great! You should definitely try, just expect the worst and hope for the best.
> I was most likely going to go with TNR, but the more important matter is the size. There are tons of historiographical footnotes, and if I keep the current font sizes that I have now (12 pt. and subscript) I'm wondering if the footnotes will be borderline unreadable. If I increase the font size, the book will be thicker (yay?) but may end up looking like an Old People Edition of Reader's Digest. Any of y'all SPs print footnotes in a 6"x 9"? Did it look okay?
Probably the most important thing: if you truly have that many footnotes, switch to a 2-up presentation style, with the play script on the left page and the footnotes on the right. It's a standard, which I'm sure you already know. If you listen to nothing else from me, listen to me on this. It will save you a lot of headache.
> Dedications - Anyone ever run into any thorny issues with who you include or don't include? I was thinking about bypassing this feature altogether because I would instinctively just include everyone I ever cared about in order to avoid awkwardness.
Dedicate it to your wife and kids, or your favorite history professor, or ignore it. Seriously, this is nothing to overthink. No fistfights that I know of (as someone who's had at least 10 books dedicated to me, natch) have ever come about by omission.
> Preface - I was not going to include one. Ironically, this is because I feel like I have too much to say. Like all people talking about their passion projects, I could babble on endlessly about characterization, staging notes, inspirations, applications to the current political climate, the cyclical nature of history, and blah blah. I feel like the work can stand for itself and doesn't need me to explain it.
Here's where I admit I'm not sure whether to include or not. If the work is strong and the narrative is self-evident, you don't need a preface unless you're speaking to a specific historical moment and need to provide context. If you're not, you don't. If you just want to jerk off about the research that went into the play, it's dealer's choice--that's an opportunity to just riff on the stuff you like when there's something you're passionate about...and that can be great! Emily Wilson's preface to her translation of The Odyssey is at least as good as the book itself, and almost as long. So it's up to you and the cost of production.
> I do not at all expect to make one thin dime off of a single sale of my book. The genre and subject matter is too niche.
Correct! You won't. Which is okay, because this is a passion project. Again, that's okay. Do what you feel gurl.
> What do you guys think is the right balance of "I'm not really trying to make money here so why waste effort" vs. "Well, I should still get some kind of word out because why not"? What lightweight marketing tactics have found some success for your genre?
First, get brick and mortar bookstores off your priority list. Feel free to approach them, but to be perfectly blunt, that's not where your audience is. I'm sure you'll say you go looking in physical bookstores all the time for random, unknown plays to consume, but I don't have to tell you you're an army of one.
If you're publishing on Amazon, there's a trick you can use called cross-noding within the book store. Whenever you upload your work to Kindle's self-pub platform, you're asked what browse nodes (categories) you want your book to appear in. The trick is to cover the spread, both on the upload and with a Remedy ticket follow-up. You have a max of 3 nodes you can ask to be put in. Go for these:
Books/Literature & Fiction/Dramas & Plays/Ancient & Classical Books/Literature & Fiction/Dramas & Plays/General Books/Literature & Fiction/Dramas & Plays/Regional & Cultural/European/General
(you might find others that fit better, but the gist is to make sure you're showing up everywhere your potential audience is)
After that, get an Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) account. Bid on a VERY narrow set of keywords, including "new plays", "historical plays", "roman plays", etc. Use Sponsored Products and Headline Search for this, ignore Product Display ads. Keep your spend low. The return will also be low, but that's fine, it's qualified traffic. Don't get frustrated if the traffic is zero, you're trying to capitalize on qualified traffic, if they're not there they're not there. Don't cast a wide net on this, it's a good way to lose money.
Anyway, that's my story, god bless.