[Guest Post]: How to sell your First Fiction Book by Roger L. Liles, the author of “The Cold War Begins”

Today, I’m pleased to introduce you Roger L. Liles, the author of The Cold War Begins, which was just released in September 2020. Roger talks about benefits and downfalls of finding a traditional publisher.

How to sell your First Fiction Book

Only a tiny fraction of first-time writer’s fiction submittals to the big five publishers or even to other smaller firms ever get into print. But you’re the exception. Your manuscript and a cover letter got the attention of the individual who is tasked with separating the wheat from the chaff at every publisher. You’re really good or have had your manuscript professionally edited and formatted. You’re cover letter really got their attention. Perhaps you are so good that you’ve got an agent interested in your book and he/she is pitching it to one or more publishers.

Your first chapter is a real attention grabber. The editor who is assigned the manuscript gives it to one on the new college graduates in the firm to read all the way through. That individual is bowled-over by your book. Your editor reads it and is soon pitches it to the editorial staff in their weekly meeting—all the editors agree that your book must be published. You’re being touted as a part of this publishing firm’s future.

Your agent gets a low six-figure advance (say $100,000), but there are catches. The publishers are in business to make money. First and foremost, it’s a three-book deal, and it will take you at least 18 months to finish the manuscript your working on and write another whole book. You have to give your agent his/her 15%. Are eighty-five thousand dollars enough to support you and your family for perhaps two more years? That $25 an hour job at Home Depot may pay more per hour than you are going to make since you’ve already invested two years of your life in your first book.

Next, you’re told you must give up all rights to the story and characters. You know that Michael Connely was forced to pay $6.8 million to buy back his Hermanus Bosch character, but you don’t care your riding high. The publisher will take care of promoting your book and you’ll sell enough copies to get rich. Then you’re told that about a dollar for each paperback and ebook copy sold will be applied to reducing your advance balance and that your advance must be paid back in full before you will receive any royalties. Since few writers sell 100,000 copies of their first book, you may not receive any royalties until the second or third book comes out. You’re told that audiobooks are selling big, and you will receive several dollars in royalties for each audiobook sold. Your agent says, “It’ll take them almost a year to publish your book in all forms. But don’t worry in less than two years, you’ll start receiving regular monthly royalty checks—they may be small, but they’ll be something.”

There are two viable alternatives. One is Hybrid Self-Publishing which essentially involved you paying an experienced third party to serve as the publisher. You learn what is required to get your book published and pay for everything including advertising which can be expensive and also not as effective as you might desire. You’ll learn a lot and may even be able to publish as many books as you want for little money after that.
The second is total self-publishing (there is no room to explore that minefield here). Both of these alternatives involved untold man-hours and your success will depend on a little bit of luck and a lot of diligent effort on your part.

Having a well-written manuscript that is expertly edited and formatted on a topic of interest to a lot of people is the key to success no matter which publishing path you select. If you’re young, the traditional publishers may take a chance on you with a one book offer of $20,000 to $30,000. If that book is a flop, your dead in the publishing field. You’ll have to change your name before trying again.

When your 79 years old like me, no one is going to take a chance that you’ll even be around to write your next book. We write because it is a compulsion and we love it. Good Luck in your writing endeavors.

About the Book

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Second Volume of the Berlin Tunnel Trilogy

Genre: Historical Fiction

Date Published: September 8, 2020

From Amazon bestsellers list author Roger L. Liles comes the second volume of his Cold War trilogy—THE COLD WAR BEGINS. The setting is war-ravaged Berlin in late 1946. Spies from both sides begin to move with relative ease throughout a Germany occupied by British, French, American and Russian military forces. Kurt Altschuler, our hero, soon becomes one of them.

While working behind enemy lines as an OSS agent in France during World War II, Kurt learns that intelligence collection involves both exhilarating and dangerous encounters with the enemy. He relished every moment he spent as part of the vanguard confronting the Nazis. 

That war has been over for 18 months when he is offered a job as a CIA deep-cover agent in the devastated and divided city of Berlin. He jumps at the opportunity, but is concerned that his guise as an Associated Press News Agency reporter will offer little action. He need not worry. Soon, he is working undercover, deep inside of Russian-controlled south-eastern Germany. Eventually, KGB agents waylay him and tear his car and luggage apart. His chauffeur is beaten. He is threatened with prison, torture and death.

Enter Erica Hoffmann, a very attractive, aspiring East German archaeology student. Any relationship between an undercover CIA agent and an East German woman is strictly forbidden; she might be a KGB or Stasi agent or operative. But he cannot help himself—he has fallen hard for her. Kurt strives assiduously to maintain their tempestuous, star-crossed relationship. 

Eventually, Kurt works to counter the efforts of Russian and East German spies, especially a mole who is devastating Western Intelligence assets throughout Europe. He also must work to identify and expose enemy spies who have penetrated the very fabric of the West German government and society. He frequently observes to others that: “the spy business is like knife fighting in a dark closet; you know you’re going to be cut up, you just don’t know how bad.”

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About the Author

[image error]Roger L. Liles decided he had to earn a living after a BA and graduate studies in Modern European History. He went back to school and eventually earned an MS in Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1970. 
In the 1960s, he served as an Air Force Signals Intelligence Officer in Turkey and Germany and eventually lived in Europe for a total of eight years. He worked in the military electronics field for forty years—his main function was to translate engineering jargon into understandable English and communicate it to senior decision-makers in the government.
Now retired after working for forty years as a senior engineering manager and consultant with a number of aerospace companies, he spends his days writing. His first novel, which was published in late 2018 was titled  The Berlin Tunnel—A Cold War Thriller . His second novel  The Cold War Begins  was published in late 2020 and is the second volume in his planned The Cold War Trilogy. This trilogy is based on extensive research into Berlin during the spy-versus-spy era which followed World War II and his personal experience while living and working in Europe. He is in the process of writing its third volume of the trilogy which will be titled  The Berlin Tunnel—Another Crisis  and takes the story into 1962 and the era of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
 



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Contact Link

Website: RogerLLiles.com

Giveaway

$5 Amazon Gift Card & eBook Copy

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/408264011182

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Add to your Goodreads Shelf

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54819275-the-cold-war-begins