So you wrote a book…
Posted in Uncategorized on March 7th, 2012 by Dorothy Read –1 Comment - Click here to add yours
Now what? Well, you sell a few hundred without working too hard at it. Everyone you know wants to buy a book, so you oblige by keeping a stash in the car. You also keep one in your purse and make sure it creeps out at every opportunity, a gentle reminder to those who haven’t asked to buy one as yet.
Your friends arrange parties for you and your co-author, and you insist upon bringing the cookies and tea (or the hors d’oeuvres and wine). Then local groups begin to invite you to speak at their meetings. Then you start to get royalty checks. It starts slow, but it builds to a whopping $192.14 in just one month! That’s the same month you pay $384.17 to your state’s department of revenue for sales tax. Your income as an author is actually a little more than your outgo. You’re astonished. Some IRS guy is going to fibrillate.
The local book stores start calling you to bring in books, three at a time, because people keep asking for your title. They know you’ll make more money if they buy it from you rather than order it from the distributor. You become grateful to the community that is supporting your writing habit.
But you know there’s a great big beautiful readership out there, beyond your zip code, beyond your time zone, beyond your continental shelf. You hear from people that your book was life-changing, spellbinding, awe-inspiring. Almost every day someone tells you, “I couldn’t put it down.”
Something snaps and you give the okay for a thousand press releases to go out to every corner of the land. You hope for a few responses from the media outlets that now know about your book and the remarkable story it carries. Not leaving it to chance, you begin the grueling task of making follow-up contacts.
“Hello. A few days ago you received a release about my book, END THE SILENCE, an eye-witness account of a gut-wrenching piece of World War II history revealed by a survivor who waited six decades to tell her story.”
Now we’re getting somewhere!
“Ilse and I will be in your area and we would be glad to appear on your show.”


Watch the program.