WAITING FOR NEWS CAN BE TORTUOUS - LENGTHY WAITING IS WORSE
Ok - I understand that unpublished first time authors should reasonably expect a notable pile of rejection slips with little to no helpful information in providing some clue as to what might be done to be tapped into the publishing your first book fraternity.
After the 9th rejection, that took about 3 or 4 months to get, it was obvious I was not about to take the memoir literary circles by storm. I accepted the fact that it would take about three weeks to get the anticipated "bad" news. But the tenth submission added a new and decidely cruel unexpected element into the emotionally trying submission mix.
The tenth rejection took two and a half months to get an answer - and to boot - one which indicated once again that the publisher wasn't clear how to market this memoir.
Please don't relate to me how I have been lucky to receive any news in such a short period of time even if negative. I can only rely on my own hard won experience. Two and one half months to wait is excrutiating at least to me.
So now what?
The answer is obvious either throw the manuscript into the Hudson River or persevere.
But clearly there have to be some changes made. But change what and why? After huddling with my agent we were initially stymied. We had previously tinkered with the submissions following up on whatever obscure clues the often opaqaue and contradictory editor's notes appeared to convey.
So I just let myself drift in and out of waves of depression, consternation and anger stuggling to remain focused on the seemingly impossible objective of securing a contract. On a more positive note I consulted my personal unconscious to illuminate a new path with untried ideas as to how best to proceed.
AN ILLUMINATION
Previous attempts to revise the submission packet to enhance the probability of success boiled down to two main areas: marketing and relevance. The content - my life defining experiences treating heroin addicts in a pioneering therapeutic community in New York City in the Sixties [Odyssey House} as a budding psychotherapist seemed passable. Many comment said that the content was compelling.
I thought we had aced the marketing problem having provided 85 filled pages of internet connections leading to probable sales. But this tenth rejection - as does each rejection - causes all submitted material to be reevaluated for potential effectiveness or ineffectiveness.
My current thinking is that I have offered too much. It might well be that so much is too much - overwhelming. Since this makes sense I will chop it down.
The next issue - establishing relevance - appears to be the key to acceptance or rejection. What do I mean?
ESTABLISHING RELEVANCE
My memoir is about my experiences at Odyssey House nearly forty years ago. I would have thought that an interesting, well written, page turner memoir that is both dramatic and informative would be enough to establish relevance in the present. However, given the fact that this is a memoir not only of my own inner experience but also about the inside of a rehabilitation clinic treating heroin addicts 40 years ago, perhaps the publishers are uncertain how treament then is relevant to treatment now.
BINGO!
This seems right on. But I thought we had accomplished this task with both a statement from my agent and an author's note. However perhaps not. In this context an idea sprang to mind of guiding the reader - whether potential publisher or eventual buyer - to at least begin to read Chapter I with some enticing idea of what was coming. Bingo: this memoir needs a foreword.
DARING TO BE FIRMLY FLEXIBLE
My failed attempts to publish have confirmed at least one seemingly sensible piece of advice: if something works continue the process. If something does not work, cease and desist and do something different.
I was initially instructed not to use a foreward - "they don't go with memoirs." Well that may generally be true but I am certain there are exceptions to this rule. And everything points to the fact that in this particular memoir - a foreword is critically needed.
MY NEW FOREWORD
Having determined that a foreword was an intelligent choice that hopefully will contribute to eventual success I effortlessly composed the following:
FOREWORD
This book is the story of my experience at Odyssey House – a pioneering therapeutic
community treating heroin addicts – describing and evaluating the process wherein I
underwent a profound inner change as the result of the program’s effect on me, both
personally and professionally.
In the late Sixties, the setting for this memoir, there were approximately twenty
therapeutic communities throughout the world treating drug addicts. Some forty years
later, in 2007, there are an estimated two thousand therapeutic communities worldwide.
Odyssey House, where I was an assistant director beginning in 1967, is one of the
centers lasting through these years. Like most community-based organizations, Odyssey
went through some early growing pains. So did I, which is the story I write about in this
book, based on my lifetime diaries, at that time centered on my attempt to learn how to
differentiate between rightful authority and the use and abuse of power in leadership.
Although the events in this memoir took place forty years ago, much of the way the
rehab was run at its formation continues today – results of both success and failure with
the addicts and a lot of tension in between.
It is clear today that Odyssey House even in the Sixties served as a crystallizing
experience for an early generation of pioneers in the field exhibiting good and bad
judgments about the complex work at hand. Presently global countries are now
examining the same overlapping dimensions of philosophy, psychology, science, and
spiritual matters that exhibited themselves in treatment at Odyssey House, hoping always
for a greater margin of success.
The core concepts learned at Odyssey House still hold valid today in the growing
therapeutic community movement, addressing the continuing perplexity of the seemingly
never – ending drug abuse problem.
OBSERVATION
It is altogether better to take some action that at least appears to be of potential benefit than to sit around in a stew and just go through the motions of sending in the same old unrevised number 11. I do hope the next submissions will be responded with much less time than did number ten.
However, in some curious way, perhaps I needed the time to arrive at the place I am presently at. Eventually time will tell.
I would be most interested to know if reading the foreword stimulates sufficient interest to start chapter I.
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Comments: 48
Have you ever thought of publishing this yourself?
You have what -- 85 pages of marketing stuff in your package? That sounds like you're micromanaging and know nothing about marketing and would be enough to scare them off. Please find a good marketing person and consult about how to do this.
Keep in mind that nobody keeps a book this long unless they're seriously considering it.
FOREWORD
In the late Sixties, the setting for this memoir, there were approximately twenty therapeutic communities throughout the world treating drug addicts. Some forty years later, in 2007, there are an estimated two thousand therapeutic communities worldwide.
Odyssey House, where I was a budding psychotherapist, beginning in 1967, is one of the pioneering centers lasting through these years. Like most community- based organizations, Odyssey went through some early growing pains. So did I, which is the story I write about in this book, based on my lifetime diaries, at that time centered on my attempt to learn how to differentiate between rightful authority and the use and abuse of power in leadership.
In my adolescence in the fifties, as a de facto member of the counter culture, I suffered a twin crisis of trust – one with external authority, another accepting myself as my own final authority. Before working at Odyssey House, I discovered it was far easier to demolish authority, whether located externally or internally, than to affirm authority.
Unable to resolve these twin crises of trust, I, like many of my contemporaries, experienced what might be referred to as a 'spiritual vacuum'. This uncomfortable psychic state took the form of a gnawing emptiness in the core of my being: a palpable 'hole in my soul.'
Odyssey House specialized in filling these 'holes in the soul' of volunteer heroin addicts, understood to be lost wanderers – like I was – adrift on their own personal Odyssey hoping to find a location that would provide a sense of meaningful connectedness.
Odyssey House was and is both a tangible place and a confluence of innovative ideas about healing drug addicts, which were formalized and expressed through the Odyssey Concept. The Odyssey concept is based on the principle that one's final authority is the self but if that self is either hidden or missing, it must be rediscovered (reborn) or constructed (born). To accomplish this objective, the new inductee must choose to systematically work on his self, in a program organized and focused to provide the optimum conditions for maximizing the probability of success – the essence of which is learning how to trust others as a bridge to trusting oneself.
In this light, the Odyssey House of this memoir is both an example of a concrete institution ideally providing a structure for accomplishing this goal, but in actuality, badly stumbled along the way. Because of both its notable successes and abject failures the original Odyssey House is a microcosm of the best and the worst of the sixties.
I entered Odyssey consciously aware that I was lacking a professional identity increasingly amazed to discover that I was lacking a personal identity as well. In
short order my role shifted from that of an observing participant to a participant observer.
What started out as the fulfillment of an idyllic life long dream evolved into an extraordinarily confusing 'mind blowing' nightmare – that repeated the best and the worst of my childhood and adolescent days.
Although the events in this memoir took place forty years ago, much of the way the rehab was run at its formation continues today – results of both success and failure with the addicts and a lot of tension in between.
It is clear today that Odyssey House even in the Sixties served as a crystallizing experience for an early generation of pioneers in the field of drug abuse exhibiting good and bad judgments about the complex work at hand. Presently global countries are now examining the same overlapping dimensions of philosophy, psychology, science, spirituality, and political matters that presented themselves in treatment at Odyssey.
The core concepts learned at Odyssey House, still hold valid today in the growing therapeutic community movement, addressing the continuing perplexity of the seemingly never-ending drug abuse problem.
The foreword is interesting, but the subject just seems not my cup of tea. I might be interested in a book about the people, but that doesn't seem to be the theme here. Just my opinion, of course, but you asked! I go for lighter stuff!!
Also, I am not sure how this fits in with your believe of the meaning of synchronicity, but the lack thereof in your attempts to sell makes me want to tell you your timing is off. If you feel your new plan is a definite improvement, go ahead with it, but otherwise I might wait a bit. I just think something will happen down the road a bit. Not what you wanted to hear, but it's what came to mind when I got the notice of this article's being posted.
I am inclined not to agree with you that my timing is off. Addiction and recovery and memoirs are in the air. Note the continued popularity of the discredited memoir of James Frey : A Million Little Pieces. I am more inclined to believe that I have to cut down the marketing and spell out in detail why my experience 40 years ago is still relevant today. I hope the revised foreword helps to advance the second task.
I may have missed something in my read ... I did not go back and check though as first impressions are what count in such a forward.
You are on the right track. Good luck, never get too discouraged.
Why do you need 85 pages to market your book? Would you send out that many pages in a job resume?
Good luck!
Edward has nailed my intention. My book is my version of One Flew Over the Cookoos' Nest. However, along with craziness there was also a remarkable degree of sanity. Now isn't that compelling?
Many of the comments refer to we "just don't know how to market this" leaving me
quite confused as to how to get them to feel it is marketable. I read many reviews of newly published memoirs that often recapture a life defining experience from their past with no need to establish relevance in the present other than indicate the lessons learned and the outcome of their experiences. Apparently since there are overlapping stories: my own personal and professional identity quest; the addicts reactions to treatment, and the executive director's mixed good use and abuse of her authority - the publishers appear to want me to establish clear relevance of treatment of addicts then and treatment of addicts now in therapeutic communities. Or am I missing something?
I clearly have to reduce what I present as my marketing plan which is easy to do. However, my 85 page marketing plan indicates there iexists in fact a potentially large market for my book. I have been practicing in the field of addiction for over 40 years and am quite certain that my assessment is accurate.
When you consider that the average 'well' selling book is only 500 copies it is frankly mind blowing that my story seems unmarketable. I have 500 associates, friends, school buddies, family members, at least two people I know from Gather that have already indicated they would buy the book.
Self publishing is an option but I would prefer at the moment to go the traditional route. I am also aware of a great number of accounts of such authors like Joseph Heller amassing 32 or so rejections before Catch 22 was finally sold.
Frankly I am glad that I depend upon my wages as a Psychoanalyst to make sure I can pay the mortgage rather than to cast my lot with today's publishing world.
I need Maxwell Perkins. I am certain he would understand what I am about and would be of maximum benefit. So if he is still "alive" in some alternative spiritual realm I would appreciate some clear sign from him - even if was to tell me I shouldn't be wasting my time and energy and specifically why not.
Addiction and recovery is in the air. I am certain the time is ripe.
Assuming I am not totally over estimating the potential market for my book as it presently is - it is indeed quite confusing as to whether or not to stay the course and wait for someone who "loves it enough" to offer me a contract - or to attempt to do what I am doing with such acts as add a foreword and cut down on the marketing.
I do think one additional change might be of some value which is to send in the last chapter along with Chapter I and Chapter IV. If there is any doubt about the quality of the material it will be dispelled in reading the last chapter.
I have no other choice but to press on and be true to myself. But it is also clear that choices and sometimes changes (even radical) may be necessary to realize ones goal in this lifetime. It just isn't easy to know what changes to make, for whom, and when to do it particularly when their is so little useful information returned from those who must be pleased enough.
Even looking at the 12 or so responses to my request for feedback on original and the revised forewords there are at least good thought out and detailed suggestions but taken together they tend to cancel each other out.
I am determined to perservere but this part of the journey is daunting.
I have never published a book, but I would tend to slightly disagree with Al Turner. I am sure that the ultimate decision will be based on the contents of the book, but like reviewing resumes for a job opening there has to be something compelling that jumps out right away. Too much information can be a turnoff. By to the resume analogy, I hate resumes that list "all the technologies I've ever used" and just string together software and technologies used. I'd rather see something like "Tripled sales of product X with my Y"
Translated to your world, and the sale of books, it may boil down to the short info you can provide on the cover and back. Brainstorming is a tool I would use to capture all the ideas about what makes this book relevant, interesting and useful. You did pioneering work. You experienced personal and professional growth. You've observed after 40 years much remains the same.
This happens to be a subject I know a little bit about, and one of the things that comes to mind is the differences in treatment options. Today medications like Suboxone and its relatives offer new hope along with some of the same problems of old standards like Methadone. It might be useful to explain that the learnings you have had and are sharing rise above the science of substance abuse and get into the space of universal truths about human nature.
I realize your book is about your life, but it might be more compelling to people if they could connect your life to their life or work. For me, I was attracted by several things:
1) I am in interested in the treatment of drug addiction
2) I am interested in self-growth opportunities
3) I am interested in reading stories that stimulate thought
I saw the suggestion to go fictional with the book above. That may be an option, but another is to reposition it as a self-help/personal growth book. I am not a marketing expert and this might be BAD advice, but I don't ever go to a bookstore or online sight looking for memoires, but I often look for self-improvement, business, and health books. I know I am just one data point.
This is a tough book to market, but I would read it if it were to catch my eye and I was presented with enough information to realize it touched on at least three things I am interested in.
1) I am in interested in the treatment of drug addiction
2) I am interested in self-growth opportunities
3) I am interested in reading stories that stimulate thought
The essence of my memoir is focused on these three issues.
http://everyonewhosanyone.com/index.html. Here he shares with us the correspondence between he and the rejectors and compiled a great directory for all of us.... I think Gerald has a compilation of 10, 000 rejections but he remained tenacious, perseverent and was finally accepted by an agent who was finally able to place his book.... Check it out, it is a great read and it does boast of the reality of an unknown trying to break in. . . Gerald does a masterful job of relating to us the whole sordid tale. . . I think we all can learn something here.
Now this I might read! Yet, I haven't felt any of that in what you've described so far. Has your editor/agent made any suggestions about the marketing?
Thank you Alexander for your continuing support and helpful suggesrtions. You said: "People are interested in ideal and real, people are interested in drug addiction and the attempt to overcome it. So the problem, as I see it, is telling your story in a way that emphasizes these themes, while at the same tiime weaving into it your personal experience."
My story is a truthful account of my 17 month adventure on the front lines of substance abuse at the height of the sixties: 1967-1969. The story weaves back and forth between my initial idealization of the program and the director who after a series of increasing destructive interventions in the name of imaginiative psychotherapy begins to appear as if I am in One Flew Over the Cuukoows' Nest II.
Massive contradictions between lofty ideals and bad practice raise severe doubts. Because there is a lot that is therapeutic in the best sense of that term my sense of reality is called into question. This is when I appointed myself the unofficial scribe of Odyssey House and kept copious journal notes.
Fortunately I was in NYU at night working towards my Ph.D. in counseling so I was able to separarte out effective from ineffective treatment. I was also given the responsibility of running my own satellite basic training center I named the "Pressure Cooker" in Harlem wherein I was able to compare my treatment methods with the now questionable methods of my boss.
As dramatic and highly inappropriate interventions increase staged by the executive director I feel the need to take a stand and either confront her directly, blow the whistle, lead a palace revolt, or leave.
At one point she determined that one of the patients diagnosed as schizophrenic was not good marriage material for one of the ex addict staff members who fell in love with her and wished to propose marriage. To prove to M that Dr. Judi was accurate in her judgment she arranged an encounter to "induce a schizophrenic breakdown" in Joan. When this backfired - she accussed Joan of lying. Feeling betrayed by Dr. Judi - Joan, who had up to this time revered Dr. Judi - ran out of the building in tears. Two weeks later she was found dead in her parents home in the Bronx. I heard various stories as to how her death occurred. These ranged from havinf accidentally fallen through an open elevator shaft, had a congential heart problem that resulted in an aneurysm, to having overdosed on a shot of heroin. In my opinion the cause of Joan's death was Dr. Judi's betrayal.
I hope this gives you and others a sense of the dramatic story line.
The factual drama is also weaved into the application of my excellent training and original ideas as treament progresses over those 17 months. I identify a lack of a solid self structure coupled with ego weakness as the root cause underlying all of the addicts I ever worked with in breadth and depth. Each of them suffered from intense affect intolerance. They got anxious whenever they were anxious; depressed because they were depressed; and especially were frustrated whenever they were frustrated. By altering their attitudes from being threatened by these inevitable feelings they began to comit to coping with them than by their tens of ways of avoiding them.
I am attempting to give you the flavor of the story as it actually unfolded. In my not too humble opinion this memoir is unqualifibaly one of the richest, detailed, informative, and dramatic stories about what really happens behind the scenes of a drug rehabilitation therapeutic community.
Your changes in my foreword are very helpful. Thank you...
You knew I'd be taking a look at this, where I work for a publisher. Once again, I'm only the marketing manager, and not the key part of our staff who makes the decisions on submissions.
Overall your project sounds worthwhile, but I might believe the depth of your memoir could could very easily be your worst enemy.
Herein lies a story that takes place during the Vietnam War, as relavent as it might be for this day and age, and most publisher's staff, responsible for accepting submissions, were only (at best) teenagers or in their early twenties, during that era. That said, unless they have a college degree in psychology or similar, what you have to say is way over their heads.
Let's say, for example, I'm the one looking at your mss. I may, at best, have a Bachelor's Degree in English. Okay, so I know the English language well enough to be able to look at your mss, and say it's written well, with minimal grammatical errors, but I have no education in the subject matter that you're promoting to me, nor does anyone here at the company.
I now have one of two choices to make: 1) Send it back to the author with a rejection, or a more common reply, This material is not something we can use at this time. Or 2) Gamble with the company's money on an unknown author who's writing a memoir on a very heavy topic.
I'm not trying to discourage you, Gibbs, just enlightening you as to what you're up against. I don't know what you have for professional endorsements, but my suggestion to you is this.
Use those endorsements in your query to any publisher. Let the person who's looking at your mss know the people who are endorsing it.
Don't give up...! You've come too far to give up on it. If your writing is polished, as near to perfect as it can get, then place the same kind of care into your QUERY. A weak and ill-prepared query will, no matter how great the mss might be, destroy your chances of being published.
I hope this helps, Ernie
Which specific publishers have you approached with this memoir? I believe that due to its nature, the story may not ever be mainstream marketable. Bestselling memoirs are usually about political dirt or celebrity. Unfortunate, but true. Your memoir, though it might contain some social significance and might help millions in their dealing with addiction and rehabilitation, probably doesn't met the prurience index of current memoir substance.
I read Gibbs Williams as an intellectual with depth and experience in life. This is not the fodder of today's bestselling memoir. Publishers simply no longer believe American readers are interested in this kind of real life story. They are more interested in lying reporters, crooked lawyers, mass murderers, and the like -- the publishers, I mean, not the American readers. It is those kinds of sensationalistic memoirs that sell the most copies in the shortest amount of time.
That the publishers you have contacted have been puzzled about how to market your memoir is a sign of the times in more ways than one. It signals that the market itself might be stalled for socially relevant material, but more importantly it signals that publishers have forgotten how to create a market for socially relevant material to begin with.
Publishers present material to the public. The public would never know material was available otherwise. Who, then, is determining what will sell? The publishers want you to prove to them that your book will sell (prompting you to send them 85 pages (!!!) in response), a task formerly purely their responsibility. They are asking you to do the research for them. You say you have sat down with your agent and tried to understand their reluctance. I submit their reluctance is based on the fact they haven't the slightest idea how to market a new idea because they are stuck in the past.
This is why self-publishing is making such a comeback. New ideas are constantly being floated in the market through internet publishing and POD. This unconventional warfare on establishment publishing has them in a quandary. They are more and more reluctant to strike out in a new direction, or even look away from their current successes. Their reluctance forces more authors to turn to self-publishing, compounding their original distress.
Does anyone remember the typewriter? How many of us, as authors, use them any more? Authors are more willing to use the new tools and avenues available to the art than those who supposedly define what the art should be.
I said all that to say this: rejection or not, your work is your own. Do with it as you like and do not let convention stand in the way. Reach out to your audience as you would to your own circle of friends. Use the same voice, without pretention. Talk to them as you would to a buddy in front of the television wathcing football. So you''re talking about heroin addiction in the 1960's? I've had stranger conversations in front of the TV. Don't lecture. Talk.
Best of luck with it.
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"Gibbs William's book is an entertaining and revealing trip into the social-psychological dynamics of a therapeutic community from the inside out. The author describes in insightful detail, through a variety of dramatic incidents, how the process works and at times doesn't work in treating addiction. Of considerable interest is how the author's personal psychological issues became an important part of his therapeutic role in Odyssey House. The book is also significant in describing the manner in which the people in power in a TC, especially the founder and Director Dr. Judi, can fall into a cultlike posture. I highly recommend this book for therapists attempting to treat addicts, and anyone involved in learning more about the addiction problem and its possible solution. Given the gravity of the American drug addiction problem--this includes everyone."
Dr. Lewis Yablonsky, Emeritus Professor of Criminology
California State University-Northridge; and author of 19 books including: THE THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY and
SYNANON-THE TUNNEL BACK.
In fact - all who have written have been wonderfully supportive and understanding. Thank you all so very much. I hold onto some advice I got as a busboy in a summer resort in New hampshire as to how to make the hungry hordes of guests lined up for their nightly feasts happy given the fact that they would sometimes have to wait a relatively long time to be served: "The longer you wait, the better it tastes."
My point is that in this commercialized market, you need a hook, a grabber. You need something, I think, that makes the piece look and seem marketable to a wider public who may be more interested in the sensationalism than in the deeper content. I am not advising you to sell out -- I'm advising you to play the game. If you play it successfully, your book will find its way to the audience that will appreciate the depth.
Anyone interested in my second proposal: The Nature and Uses of Meaningful Coincidences (Synchronicities).
If you think the Odyssey book is radical - wait till the publishers find out that I am probably in a group of 5 percent of the researchers of these perplexing phenomena that believes they are explainable from a naturalistic perspective. I dismiss references to the collective unconscious of Jung, the latest fad on viewing everything connected to everything else via quantum physics, and the like. As I am going on and on I am beginning to think that self publishing may be the way to go.
I am reminded of Van Gogh's brilliant commentary to his brother Theo: "If I could buy my own paintings I would be self sufficient."
I remember when everybody assumed the world was flat and everything that was shipped international got the "flat rate." But much has changed since I exchanged my toga for a pair of Dockers and a ukelele.
You know, when I was growing up life was simple. . . We didn't depend on fossil fuels to get us around town, no we had the real deal. We rode atop Brontosaurs and other reptilian subjects. We needn't worry about the three-thousand mile oil change. Back then, everything was built real close to each other. I had my academy across the road from Wendy's. The market was fifty yards toward the hill. . .and if you didn't want to climb aboard your Bronto you walked. I had real strong legs back then. . . . well, I still do but that is because I had to run a lot from cannon-carrying misanthropes and pistol-strapped hoodlums and low self-esteemed tyrants. . .
Oh, and since I am on this subject I am going to say right here, right now that this idea of "the eternal soul" is much more than mere supposition. . .that and the subject of reincarnation among other metaphysical theories and propositions has been proven to me to have validity. I need not delve too deeply here but after an honest, clear-headed re-examination of my life including the myriad of "parallel events" or "synchronistic events" I have no reason to deny the "truth of my observations."
You see, in life there are "coincidences" that I am quite aware of and then there are events that defy the logic of "coincidence" and when your life is faced more often with the latter than the former you must draw a reasonable conclusion, in which I did. . .
I don't like to draw religion or theology into my summations as they seem to cause divisiveness and at times, an onslaught of daggers. I had put down my shield some time ago - a necessity if I were ever to reach an unbiased conclusion. . .although right here, right now I will say that the idea of suffusing Christianity (or any -ism) with Philosophy is an idea that holds much merit. This is my belief and you are welcome to hold on to your own beliefs which in all actuality I suggest you do - though in an understanding, non-violent kind of way.
Looking at the timeline beginning with Plato and extending all the way to Ficino and then to the "here and "now" I have a more profound understanding. . . one that allows me the freedom of ideas and a smooth flow reaching far beyond the pond in which they emerge.
I wrote something not so long ago: An idea is nothing but a mere abstraction of a concrete undertaking." Perhaps, the reason for my writing. . .
As many of you know and for those who don't much of my knowledge is drawn from experience and observation - my formal education is drawn from a G.E.D. and a little bit of time spent in a community college where I wrote "Community" among other papers. It was 1993 when I wrote this paper and I had held on to it ever since. I have not wavered much from my initial investigation and I pretty much adhere to the same ideals. Oh, and something I wrote not so long ago: "Time needn't be anything more than the special moments cherished for all of eternity."
Beginning with September 11, 1992 I must say right here, right now that it had become clearer to me what purpose I have in this world - one that certainly includes writing. Before September 11, 1992 I certainly wasn't prepared to write. . . as a matter of fact, my vision was obstructed because of drug and alcohol... Let me tell you right here, right now the freedom one has after awakening to a new day - a day free from the fog that had veiled you for quite a long time.
Today I look out my window and then turn introspectively. With that I surmise this: "The Soul Reigns through the Artifice of Time"
One clarificaton before I turn this page: None of my thoughts, beliefs or ideals are to be written in stone. . .I am just a mere student and not the master. But let me also say this: "A foundation is but the base and it is the collection of building blocks that creates what many should strive to ascend."
What are the risks?
Depending on the size of the publisher, a "FIRST RUN" can be between 2500 books, for a small publisher to 250,000 books, or even more for a top publishing house, depending on marketability. The publisher is the one who has to risk their money to print these copies, including front and back cover in the hopes that they can "MORE" than recoup their initial outlay. No publisher, no matter what genres they publish, wants to print 10,000 copies and not have a market they can sell to.
The unknown author today has a rough job breaking in whether it's fiction or non-fiction. The unknown author needs to have a following. How do you get a following
without having the book published? I'll tell you how I did it, and now have a following. Publish the book yourself through Lulu.com. You seem to have your marketing stratedgies all laid out. You can publish through Lulu.com and it doesn't cost you a penny and you set your own royalties. I'm published through them and have sold over 300 books, so I now have a following. The only money it cost me was to have my own book covers created, and that was done before I even knew about Lulu. The setup is easy and I've used them six times. I haven't devoted as much time to marketing lately, so my sales have fallen off. If you need any help with Lulu, send me an e-mail through here and I'll get back to you.
You asked me how would I react to the endorsement you posted? I cannot honestly answer that, because the subject matter is so far over my head. I do not have a college degree of any kind. I've never worked with drug addicts in any manner. How do I answer your question honestly? The endorsement looks great, ar far as what I saw, but who am I?
Others have said this, and I'll add my own input here, 85 pages of marketing is OVERKILL. Yes, today's publisher wants you do do a lot of your own marketing. They'll do some, but it's no longer solely on the shoulders of the publisher and a marketing package of that magnitude is overkill.
The problem of drug addition is much more engrossing and more widespread than it was in the sixties. The rehabilitation centers are found all over the world. The pioneering efforts are, therefore, important and relevant to understand the strengths and weaknesses of such programs.
The series of rejections is a big disappointment. Many great authors too have gone through the same phase. I wish you persevere and, in the meanwhile, continue to polish and refine the content.
You may also have to study the intricacies of the publishing world. Nick Souter published a series of articles about publishing on Gather sometime ago. There is a book called "The First Four Pages" which gives an insight into how the overworked editors look at a manuscript.
Wish you all the best and good luck.
In all honesty you seem like a very intelligent man who's lived a fascinating life. I would be interested in reading your book. Good luck with it! I don't have any idea where I would hear about a book like this. The internet has so much free writing. Its a daunting task. At the very least you could publish it as an e-book and promote it through Gather.