Making Progress

As I work through the publishing process, I began to realize that it's my book that has to sell. "If they print it, readers will buy it" just doesn't happen. The scary news out there these days is that the major publishing houses, known as the big six, derive 90% of their revenues from only 10% of their authors. They depend on agents to find them the winners. That means that 90% of us, even if we land a book deal with one of the big six, won't make a dime of profit on royalties by the time we pay our literary agents and other expenses. Agents know this and that is why they spend their time trying to find the 10% that will make money. Everyone wants a homerun but the numbers just aren't there for that to happen. Just to break even is good. The publishing business is great and the big boys are making it with all the new talent they find plus the old standby authors that now have enough money to hire a staff to crank out one book after another. Every book they publish is good or they wouldn't publish it if they thought there was no market for it. So, if you are a new fiction author like myself, you have to market your own book. Books that don't sell-die. Langdon Street Press outlined the marketing strategy and I have to execute on as much of it as I can. They will only do so much. No publisher can guarantee that any book they publish will sell. All books, no matter who the author, have to be marketed.

"Bridge over the Valley" according to the editor has a wide appeal to all fiction readers, but it also has an important niche market. There has to be an aggressive effort in that market prior to release. The market for this book is huge when you consider the cities on the route of the Mountain Daylight. In the cities from Seattle to Chicago including Spokane, Missoula, Bozeman, Billings, Bismarck, Fargo & Minneapolis-St. Paul you can find thousands of potential readers with a fascination for trains and train stories. They would know something about the railroad and could connect with it. I'm collecting valuable information about each bookseller in the route communities making certain they receive publicity prior to the release date. Regionally focused books usually sell well in their respective markets. Sellers could eventually find it in the lists of new titles, in catalogs, online-if a customer asked for it, but with the thousands of titles out there, how would a store find my particular tree in the forest? Advanced notification is important. Some booksellers want to be included on the advanced reading program. Others want the sellsheet with all the pertinent information sent when the book is ready for order through their normal distribution systems. I'm finished in North Dakota and Southern Montana. I'm working west through Washington State. I can't believe the number of small independent bookstores that are standouts in their community. The store owners love ordering, reading, and promoting novels they like. Readers are a very discriminating crowd. I hope they like "Bridge over the Valley." The stores are interested and want information on how to order my book. I want them to stock and sell it.

Finally, the big news for today is that I received the final layout files from the production team. I copied the file onto a CD and promptly went over to Staples and had them print a hard copy ($36 please). It was 415 pages which turned out to be quite a stack. I'll take my time reading it for the ten-thousandth time-out loud-because that is the only way I catch errors. Found one error on the first chapter where they missed a period at the end of a sentence. The layout looks great. I really like it. I've proof-read two chapters already. It may be ready for the printer before November. When it is done, the book will be beautiful.