Storytellersunplugged

Several years ago, when I first got into this business, someone told me that it is better to be published well than to simply be published. I thought I knew what that meant. But I’ve come to understand that sometimes, you think you are being published well, when in reality, you are not.

Case in point.

In 2005, Pocket Books published my second mass market novel, HERETIC. It was the first book in a series known as the Templar Chronicles, a series that was intended to run for at least three books. It had great cover blurbs by Clive Barker and Peter Straub. The cover art itself was pretty good. It quickly sold foreign rights in several countries and was an Alternate Selection for the Mystery Guild, Military, and Doubleday Book Clubs, who did their own hardcover editions. My podcast of the novel over 56 weeks gained 37,000 listeners in 83 different countries. Most recently, the story was adapted into a six issue comic series that completely sold out its first printing.

From my perspective, that’s a fairly successful book.

Before HERETIC ever hit the shelves, however, Pocket had made the decision internally that they wouldn’t be working with me any further on the series. This was because sales of my first novel (unrelated to HERETIC) hadn’t done as well as they had expected.

Pay particular attention to the timing there – Pocket decided BEFORE publishing HERETIC that they wouldn’t be doing a third book with me. Not based on the performance of HERETIC, but based on the performance of the book before that.

I’m sure you can guess what they meant for HERETIC. Sure, they went through the motions. They published the book. They made it available through the normal distribution channels. Their sales team went out and marketed it. Most of the usual chains like B&N and Borders had a copy or two on their shelves. But since Pocket was writing it off, it became very easy for the bookstores to write it off. No one was pushing them to reorder once those first few copies disappeared from the shelves and it soon dropped out of the public’s awareness.

Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, HERETIC was on track to disappear into that great remainder stack in the sky.

Skip forward to April 2007. The first of those foreign editions hits the shelves in Germany. The title is now DER KETZER, but it is the same book – same story, same words, just a different language.

And more importantly, a different publisher.

My German publisher, Droemer Knaur, is a large paperback house. My editor takes great pride in his work and from the very start told me that he intended to make me a household name in Germany. I have to admit that I was skeptical – at the time I was dealing with the recent news from Pocket and I wasn’t quite comfortable believing anything that I was told by a publisher.

But then Droemer’s well-oiled machine went to work. The editor talked up the book at the publishing house, getting everyone else excited about it. The art team produced a dynamic and interesting cover. The sales team went out and did such a bang-up job that the initial print run had to be doubled to handle the demand. The publicity team followed suit.

In short, they decided that, in Germany, the name “Joseph Nassise” would be synonymous with great supernatural thrillers and they set out to make sure it happened.

DER KETZER hit the shelves two weeks ago. It has spent those first two weeks in the number #51 slot on the paperback bestseller list. It’s current Amazon.de sales ranking is #76 and it has stayed in that range for the last couple of weeks. It has done so well that preorders for the next book in the series, DER ENGEL, are flooding in and the decision has been made to promote it as one of Droemer’s lead books at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.

Remember, this is the exact same book, writing wise, that was released in this country and then seemingly disappeared without a trace a few months later.

Suddenly I understood what that person had been trying to tell me five years before.

Publishing is a joint business. Sure, the writer has to produce a decent book in the first place. But the hard part comes next, when the editor, the art department, the sales team, the publicity team, the local bookstore manager, and the reading public all have to work together to make a book a success. And the team that you have behind your creation makes an INCREDIBLE difference to the success or failure of that work.

It’s true. It’s not enough just to be published. If I had settled for that I wouldn’t have my first bestseller and I wouldn’t currently be negotiating a new three book contract.

Being published well – now that’s something worth striving for.

(A quick note for those wondering what’s happening with books two and three in the series. Overseas, all three books have been acquired and will be released with about four to six months between volumes. Here in the States, my agent and I are actively involved in looking for a new publisher to complete the trilogy. Hopefully, we’ll have some more news soon.)