Self-Publish or Die Trying: How Alex Muka Bet on Himself

Alex Muka’s debut novel channels the chaos of your early 20s—and reminds us that eventually, we all have to grow up.

For the second installment in this author interview series I promised earlier this year (more on deck, stay tuned), I’m excited to bring you a conversation with Substack’s very own

Alex Muka

.

I read his debut novel Hell or Hangover last month and couldn’t put it down. It brought me right back to a particular summer in college when I sold my soul and was raking in money as an intern at Bloomberg in the advertising division and burned that dough just as fast—on overpriced drinks, bad decisions, and long nights in SoHo and the Lower East Side. It was a blur of hookups, hangovers, and “Pop That” on repeat… followed by the crushing realization that I had to get my shit together.

That kind of chaotic, searching energy—especially for young men—is familiar, but rarely captured these days on the page in a way that feels both raw, true, and literary. Reading Hell or Hangover, I was reminded of the first time I read Bright Lights, Big City or Less Than Zero. Like those novels, Muka’s debut is beautifully written, sharply observed, and full of longing. It’s a coming-of-age story, a love story, and a meditation on identity, all rolled into one bender of a novel.

Alex and I have been friendly on Substack, but I blurbed the book because I genuinely loved it. I’m glad we got to chop it up here about the writing process, self-publishing, his take on the industry, and his love of cooking.

His novel is available now on Amazon in ebook and paperback form. I highly recommend checking it out.

Now, onto the Q&A.

In your own words, briefly describe Hell or Hangover for readers out there.

Hell or Hangover takes place in 2015, and it’s about a 25-year-old guy, Lou Kennedy, who is, for lack of a better term, a fuck up (drinking, drugs, womanizing, etc…). One drunken night out in New York City he meets a woman, Marissa, who he thinks might be worth changing his ways for, but his bad habits get the better of him. He blacks out and wakes up in his ex-girlfriend’s bed. The book takes place over a week of him simultaneously spiraling and trying to find this girl. It is a romp with lots of drinking and drugs and debauchery, but at the heart of it, it is a story about a millennial man-child trying to find meaning.

When did the idea for the novel first hit you? Was it a scene? A voice?

Like you said in your amazing blurb, which I can’t thank you enough for, the novel is very voice driven. I had tried writing little stories here and there, but when I wrote the opening lines of this book I knew I had the voice to carry me through an entire novel. So, it started with the voice. Everything I’ve written since (got a couple novels on the shelf I can’t wait to dust off) has always needed a voice. The voice is what makes me excited to keep writing. But after the voice one scene, or one particular thought really, drove the rest of the novel. Are we so addicted to our phones/social media/etc… that if we couldn’t find someone online would that drive us to think they didn’t exist in real life? Was online replacing real life? Not a lot of people remember this because politics have taken over the social media realm, but in the early days, the fun days, social media was pretty much used to hook up. You’d get 62 weeks deep on a girl’s Instagram you thought was hot. You’d be terrified of accidentally liking a pic that deep. A retweet from the opposite sex (or same – whatever floats your boat!) was kind of like a wink and a nod that you were doing something right.

How long did you spend working on the novel, and how did the process evolve over time?

This is a loaded question. I started writing the novel ten years ago. I finished it in probably two years, writing every morning, battling through hangovers myself as a 25-year-old fuck up. I paid someone to give me an edit, which added another year of fixing and changing and rearranging. Then I shelved it. Started writing other novels. For some reason I had this thought that writers were just discovered. I’d meet someone, I’d send them this novel, and it would shoot to the best seller list. This is laughable, we all know. But luckily my wife kept pushing me to start getting it out there, so I finally started doing research. That put me down a rabbit hole of agents and pitching and led to more editing over a few years on and off, writing other novels in between, then I finally started pitching it for real. Got rejected a whole bunch and decided to send my book to a Curtis Brown Creative class, Edit & Pitch Your Novel, got accepted, which added another year of rewrites. I started pitching again after that thinking this was it and…more rejections. It was disheartening but my book definitely got stronger through each one of those periods. And if the book didn’t, I certainly did.

During your attempts at going the traditional route what feedback did you receive, if any?

The feedback from agents was minimal. Mostly form rejections. At first it was an easy cop out to just assume that the years I was pitching the book weren’t ideal for the type of book I’d written. MeToo era, “wokeness”, “white straight male writer”, the usual suspects. In part that was true. I’d sent the book to an agent who said, “editors will not be interested in this book in this cultural climate.” I felt myself sliding into this culture war mind frame, blaming everyone and everything except myself for the reason my book wasn’t getting picked up. It’s pretty easy to say everyone else is wrong and that your book is pure genius. We see it all the time on Substack. The constant bitching and whining. It’s exhausting. And I hated thinking that way. It was just a coping mechanism instead of facing the real question, is my book actually good enough for an agent to put their ass on the line for it?

In the end, you decided to stick with this novel and publish it yourself. Why?

I made the decision after I joined Substack. I’d reached out to

Ross Barkan

about a piece he wrote about male writers (or lack thereof), told him I loved the piece, and that I was currently pitching a novel. I think his exact words were, “give it another 6 months and if it doesn’t pan out, do it yourself.” I’d always thought bad about self-published books but then Ross sent me some self-published books that blew my mind. So instead of looking at it as a failure, I kind of looked at it as an adventure. Self-publishing gives you free reign to do whatever you want with your book. It puts you in the mind frame of a publisher. You’re not just the writer, you’re the designer, the marketer, etc… I see so many people bitching about marketing their books but I don’t really understand it. Make it fun, learn something. And then there’s the whole money thing. Sure, I’m not getting a big fat advance but…I’ll be making almost half of what I sell my book for. If I’m not mistaken, that’s more than a Big 5 published writer makes even if they sell out their advance, right?

Break it down for those who are considering your path: What has self-publishing looked like for you—financially, emotionally, logistically?

At first self-publishing could feel like failure. But I believed in my book so much that it didn’t. I had to get it out one way or another. If you’re iffy on your book, don’t even bother self-publishing because you have to be all the way in. You gotta believe in it fully or it’s just not worth it. I think my book could be a bestseller, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. I’m sure the emotions are no different than getting picked up by an agent or a publishing house. Lows and highs every day. But something I decided to do was put my money where my mouth is. I used Reedsy Marketplace to hire a cover/book designer, Baris Sehri who’s super dope. I also found a copy editor there. The worst part about self-publishing is not having an editor that is working solely on your book but luckily I was able to find (and pay for) two editors—

Adam Pearson

and

Vanessa Ogle

—who ended up helping shape up the novel to its final state. It’s a lot of work and in my case a good amount of cash, but what’s the point of working a 9-5 and making money if I’m not gonna spend it on something I give a fuck about?

What’s your read on the state of the traditional literary world today? Do you think a book like yours would’ve had a better shot in the 80s or 90s?

The easy answer is yes, of course. You could slide my book in-between Bright Lights Big City and American Psycho and it would fit snuggly there. But something I truly believe is that my book in today’s literary world will stand out. There isn’t much like it getting published, which is something I find really intriguing. Is there actually a market for this type of book or is the debaucherous romp dead? I guess we’ll find out. But I do struggle with talking about the “literary world” as I see it because…I don’t actually know shit about it! Just because I’ve racked up a few hundred rejections doesn’t mean I know anything about the publishing landscape or the life of an agent or what sells/doesn’t sell. Everyone has a take on it and I don’t think I’m educated enough to actually have a take. How can I hate an industry that published Victim?

It’s easy to romanticize the past glory days of publishing but the fact that there is a world where a few hundred rejections doesn’t mean your book is dead, that you have an alternate route, that you can self-publish and find readers and have a cult following that’s completely out of the mainstream seems to me like what books are all about. Isn’t it the best feeling when you find some no-name author that blows your mind and you can tell all your friends about them? That’s what self-publishing has the chance to become. I’m excited to be a part of it.

I admire that you don’t seem all that bitter or jaded about the business–you seem to be rolling with the punches and sticking to your vision.

I’m an optimist at heart. That’s not the cool thing to say, I know. For some reason people love a good nihilist. They love someone who shakes their fist at the powers that be, blaming someone else for all their problems. But I just can’t be that. There was a very small time frame where I got down, thought the world was out to get us white straight males, but it lasted about a week and I just laughed about it afterwards. Who am I to complain about someone not staking their entire professional reputation on a book I wrote? It’s so fucking smug. It’s like people don’t even think for half of a second what an agent has to do or what their lives are like. I just thought, if I was an agent, feeding my kids with the money a writer made, I definitely wouldn’t be in the fiction game. I’d be selling fucking cookbooks so I could put food on the table.

But the secret weapon in all of this is that I knew I wrote a good book. I trusted my taste. I know what I like and I knew I liked what I was writing. If you believe you have good taste then nothing should be able to knock you off the path of writing what you think is good. I always saw my book being popular. Agents didn’t see it. It is what it is.

Speaking of Substack, what role has it played in developing your writing and your confidence?

There’s a 0% chance I self-publish without Substack. To be honest, I started my Substack to get some laughs man. I’d been writing for ten fucking years, telling my boys I write every morning at 4 AM, them laughing at me about it, so I finally said fuck it, you want to see I can write? Let’s do it. It’s been really fun publishing stuff and having random people get a laugh from it too. So it was a mix between that and maybe showing my chops to a potential agent. Possibly getting some personal connections with agents. I always felt like if I got in a room with an agent, preferably a bar, and explained the vision I had (or got them drunk enough) I’d have an agent by the end of the night. Turns out agents don’t work like that, but instead of an agent, Substack gave me kind of a platform and confidence to self-publish. I have a small number of Subscribers but they are all interested in my book, which definitely helps me on the low days. But most importantly it brought me to people like

Ross Barkan

and

Amran Gowani

and you. My friends are a bunch of degenerates who haven’t read a full fiction book between them. I have no one to talk to about books. Being able to talk to writers is just something I never thought was possible. It took the veil off what I thought writers were and what they actually are. And it turns out, a lot of writers here are just cool people who have a way with words. Another shocking thing is that published writers are actually very open to helping new writers. I always had the thought that writing was so competitive that no other writer would want to see me succeed. I was ready for that. But it couldn’t have been further from the truth. Just you taking the time to read my book and liking it enough to blurb it proves that. I’m a no-name writer, can do nothing for your career, you have kids, a wife, a life, and your own writing career, yet you still took the time to read my shit. I hope I’m in that same position someday.

It was a great novel. I’m glad I read it. Some of my favorite scenes in the book revolve around your excellent description of Cuban food. Do you cook in real life?

Cooking is my favorite thing to do besides surfing and writing. An autobiographical part of the novel is the way Lou is connected to his roots through cooking. My mom is Dominican and Cuban and my Dad is Irish and Slovakian. For all intents and purposes, I’m a white boy. I grew up in the suburbs. My mom was too busy building a business with my dad to ever teach me Spanish. I used to give her a ton of shit for it but now that I have kids I know it’s hard enough to teach them not to throw their food on the floor let alone teach them an entire other language. So for me, I really felt and knew I was Hispanic during dinner. I grew up eating rabo (oxtail), calves liver, ropa vieja, and any type of way you can make a plantain. My dad’s side of the family brought jack-shit to the dinner table and thank God for that. Who wants to eat Slovakian food when you can have an empanada? My mom and my nana taught me how to cook and my favorite thing to make is Cuban sandwiches. I make the pernil too so the pork is always fresh. Break up the skin for a little appetizer. Top it off with some maduros. I’ve eaten so many maduros I’ve puked but still want more.

Who are your biggest literary influences? I saw a lot of Bret Easton Ellis, Bukowski, and Jay McInerney in the coke and bar scenes. Is that spot on or are there others I’m missing?

Bright Lights, Big City was the first book I read where I knew I wanted to do that. Whatever that was, I wanted to do it. But oddly enough my favorite writers aren’t really city writers, per se. I do love Ellis and Bukowski, Bukowski definitely more when I was younger, but my favorite writer by far is Jim Harrison. All of his novels and novellas are just these amazing portraits of real people. His writing style is kind of meandering, which I thought of as a breath of fresh air after inhaling all of Hemingway when I was younger. But Harrison’s food writing is just so fantastic and I think that might be where I got some influence from him. Another one of my favorite writers is Zora Neale Hurston. The opening to Their Eyes Were Watching God, are you kidding me?

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.” My jaw dropped when I read that for the first time. Then I read Tell My Horse, which really got me into the whole Santeria thing. Maybe it’s the Cuban blood that led me down that path but Tell My Horse opened my eyes. I love her writing so much that I’m trying to take all her books slow. I try and do 1 or 2 a year because I don’t want to rush through them and then have nothing new to read by her.

What’s next for you? Will you try the traditional publishing route again?

Another novel, for sure. Hopefully many more novels. I have two on the shelf that I am going to start editing again once this one is out. I’ve had this idea for a mystery series about a surfer who does odd, high paying jobs (like finding smuggled surfboards filled with drugs that were stolen) to keep up with his surfing addiction (trust me, it is an addiction). I wrote the first book and would like to write a couple more before publishing them. The nice part about not getting an agent right away is that I’ve been constantly thinking of books I’d like to write that could net me an agent. The list is long and I have a lot of writing to do. In an ideal world, Hell or Hangover is so successful that an agent comes begging to take me on. But if I’ve learned anything from the past five years it’s this: if you believe in something, I mean really fucking believe in it, you just gotta do it yourself.