Between A Rock And That Other Place

Day before yesterday, I felt that my sequel to Ghost Stories of the Long Beach Peninsula, was about finished so I submitted a proposal to the publisher to get things started.  I felt it would be more-or-less a slam dunk.  The first book has sold well (at least by my standards) and, since writing the second has been in response to “popular demand,” I didn’t think there would be any problems.

Silly me!  I heard almost immediately from one of the acquisitions editors who said they couldn’t publish it as part of the same “Haunted America Series” and I would have to change the title.  Take “ghosts” out.  Use “weird” or “scary” instead.  They had found, she wrote, that “sequels” diminish sales of both the first and the second books.

Say what?  I was totally gobsmacked.  That certainly was not our experience when we were at the other end of the process as owners of the Bookvendor in Long Beach.  In fact, in a similar situation people invariably asked (as they ask me, the author, now). “Will there be a sequel?  When will it be out?”  Or, conversely, if they had read the sequel first, they would come back to get a copy of the original book.

Mrs. Crouch’s Typewriter

My response to the editor was, “Perhaps we need to talk.”  This morning I called and we “negotiated” as the editor called it.  Bottom line — what she said initially PLUS I need to guarantee that I will buy 500 books, myself, for resale.

Those are the conditions that she will pitch to the publisher.  I pitched the same conditions to Nyel, my business manager.  We sharpened our pencils, looked at six years of sales history on the first book and decided that this plan would be way too close to self-publishing which we’ve long ago determined we can’t afford.  Plus, without Nyel to make sales pitches and schlep books hither and thither, there would be one more layer added to my already maxed schedule.

So, there you have it.  Maybe no “sequel” will be forthcoming after all.  We’ll see what the next few days will bring…

One Response to “Between A Rock And That Other Place”

  1. Ralph D. Jeffords says:

    Dear Cuzzin Sydney, you left out the editor who didn’t think it was “Albert’s Fire Engine” in your book Dear Medora. but rather forced you to describe it as “Albert’s 1899-style steam engine vehicle.” I showed that it really was a “Self-propelling Steam Fire Engine!”

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