A New Chapter for The Green Line
Today was a big day for me and my book. As some of you know, Wells Street Press, my publisher, was created by me. After spending two years working toward publishing with one of the big houses (six months seeking an agent, and then a year and a half with an agent) , I had to regroup. No one was biting and I didn’t know whether it was my book, my agent, or the industry. So I sought some more objective reviews of the work and when they came back positive, I finally decided to take matters into my own hands. I am a do-it-yourselfer by nature, and though I didn’t know what to do, I knew that like anything else, research would teach me.
So I got busy, invested a little money, and after about four months of production work, seeking reviews, and learning about the business, The Green Line launched. I tried not to expect too much. It’s a first book from a complete unknown and I had nearly zero marketing budget. I thought that if I was really lucky, I’d recoup my investment by the end of the year, and if I sold a thousand books, I’d consider that a great success. As I had learned, the vast majority of self-published titles sell less than two hundred and the rare break-out stars of the self-publishing world are just that—quite rare. AND—those people seem to have a lot of titles. It took me many years to get this one finished, and I wasn’t about to follow it up in just a few months. (I’m at work now on book two, but the research is intense and we’ll just see how long it takes!) I had also heard that if the book did really well, then perhaps publishers would come to me, offering to take it to the next level. That was a nice dream.
It was a great launch and a fun summer. My friends and family were my first buyers—which gave me such anxiety of course—but they were incredibly supportive and it seemed they really liked it. Word began to spread, I did a couple of free promotions, and the title started getting around. Reviews started coming in. Every so often, I’d get a message from a reader on my Facebook page that really made my day. People from all over the country and even Europe were reading and reviewing the book—it was surreal!
And then about a month ago, I got a Facebook message that I’ll never forget. It was from a senior editor at Thomas & Mercer, she had heard about the book, read the book, loved the book, and hoped that I’d talk to her about the possibility of working together. Of course I promptly cut and pasted that message into an e-mail to my husband, siblings, and parents with a “What?! Holy Cow!”-type message. The dream of getting a publisher’s attention had never gone, but I never thought it would happen so soon!
Long story, short, we had a great first conversation, several follow up conversations, I did some research about Thomas & Mercer, spoke to a couple of their authors, sought some advice, dealt with some of the legal stuff, and mulled over the pros and cons. After several weeks of talks and negotiations, this morning I signed on the dotted line. I have no idea what will come of all of this, but I’m excited by the possibilities, thrilled that an audio version is in the works, and just got an email about setting up a conference call with “my marketing team.” The very idea that there’s a team supporting me just makes me giggle! It’s like I’ve been at sea on this tiny little boat, trying to survive and find my way with very few supplies, and suddenly, this big ship has pulled up, with a whole crew aboard and they’ve offered to give me a lift. What a day!
