How was your experience in looking for a publisher? What words of advice would you offer those novice authors who are in search of one?
I’m not good at giving advice but I would say to anyone struggling to find a publisher— get your books out in the public domain anyway possible, and then, probably more importantly, get out and promote and sell your books because no one else is going to do it for you. And, of course, keep writing new material.
My publisher (who has been around for forty years) has a interesting take on what it takes to get published now-a-days. He says, “Don’t believe in that old Writers Digest mantra that if you can only become good enough then the big NY publishers will publish your work. In today’s corporate publishing environment if you create a following and establish a proven sales record then the big publishers will find you.”
The closest author, I can think of, that would be considered a long-lasting overnight success is John Grisham. Yet, his first book was rejected by everyone and his second book was published by a small Mississippi press. He went out and sold his books out of the trunk of his car and one got into the right hands and, of course, the rest is history. Another example is Tom Clancy. He received something like 43 rejection letters until a tiny Naval Press gave him a shot.
As writers we are all at different levels and have different aspirations and ideas of what success is, but whether you are interested in finding a small press, a more pretegious “small” publisher, or the “big-time” NY publisher, the bottom-line is you have to be directly involved in promoting and selling not only your work but yourself.
What type of book promotion seems to work the best for you?
My books are fiction but I have numismatic elements to them so I have a bit of a niche market. We do a lot of targeted marketing through mailers and placing ads in trade magazines. I also have booths at coin shows and I spend a lot of time trying to come up with non-traditional ways to sell my books. An example of the non-traditional market that has worked for me is that a relative of mine owns an auto-repair center and they sell a couple hundred copies of my books ever year.
What is your favorite book of all time? Why?
Wow! I guess the easy way out this question would be to say that is almost impossible to pick just one and to say that it is a body of all the authors and their works that comprise my favorite. But I know that is no fun, so I will say (at least at this very moment) that my favorite book of all time is . . . Justininan by H.N. Turtletaub.
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