North Beach Girls: The Herrold Twins, Catherine and Charlotte
Yesterday at 12:30 sharp my dose of reality (at least with regard to my hoped-for ‘next’ book) came with a pre-arranged phone call. It was an editor from History Press who had made this ‘appointment’ to discuss my latest book proposal. The long and the short of it is, they aren’t interested.
I knew that this probably had only an outside chance but I had lulled myself into thinking that maybe, just maybe, my five other books published by them or their parent company, Arcadia Publications, would count for something. The harsh reality, of course, is that it’s all about the bottom line. They ‘run the numbers’ – who would buy this book and would it sell the first print run (typically 1,000 books) within the first year of publication?
The proposal under discussion was “North Beach Girls of the Teens and Twenties” which ran as a series in the Chinook Observer ten years or so ago. She said, typically, books such as this one about “ordinary women” might sell 250 books in the first year. Not enough. It might be popular in our demographic microcosm but, in the great scheme of things, probably not so much. If I would agree to buy 500 to 1,000 books up front or find an organization that would invest in that many, perhaps…
BOOK-SIGNING 1:00 TO 3:00 SATURDAY 6/18 OYSTERVILLE STORE
“In that case,” I said, “I’d probably be better off to self-publish.” These days I understand that you can have one or one hundred books printed at the same per-copy price. The discussion was cordial. I understood her “corporate viewpoint” and she was sympathetic (sort of) to my “poor author from a sparsely populated area” concerns.
There was one more interesting point. It’s too soon after my latest book (officially published yesterday) for them to make an “informed decision” concerning a next one. Bottom line – they want to see how well Jailhouse Stories from Early Pacific County does in the first six months or so. That pesky bottom line again.
In the end, I was left with a lot to ponder. Maybe I should look for another publisher of niche history books? Or perhaps I should turn my attention to a sequel to Ghost Stories of the Long Beach Peninsula.” Or just take a long vacation…
Women are more than 50% of the population. You would think that that would count for something. Maybe a publisher that specializes in women’s issues?
The decision seems to be based upon who the book is about — a woman with name recognition like Eleanor Roosevelt of Jackie Onassis? Or a woman who has made a world contribution of some sort? Those are the subjects that sell books. “Ordinary women, no matter how beloved locally or how important to our area they might have been don’t sell… Interesting to note that my “Dear Medora” book has sold far fewer than 1,000 books in the nine years since it was published…
Alas, it’s not about any “issues” — Like all my books, it’s a documentation of the history of this area and it happens to focus on women who grew up here a century ago. Not the stuff of best-sellers, I’m afraid, but I was hopeful that History Press’s efforts to document the history of small towns and lesser-known areas (and, in particular, their series dealing with women) might cause them to look kindly on this book. As I say, “Alas…”