1st Turning Point

Posted By Robert W. Walker on November 30, 2009

by Robert W. Walker
1st Turning Point Columnist
Copyright © 2009 Robert W. Walker

Again to the bottom drawer, literally.  It fit no “commercial” needs or cubby holes, no pigeon holes and no category.  It was historical but scary, as in real, reality-based terror in which neighbor hangs neighbor, but it was also a sociological tract that shed a light on human activity.  One that points a finger at us all.  No one was safe and everyone was guilty-even our hero, Jere Wakely, had unspoken issues that only helped to fan the flames-and it was a condemnation of church and state in bed together, and it was multiple points of view, and somewhere in there a romance was at work…and in final rewrite it became an historical romance, but not even that could save it from the crypt of the rejected manuscript.

Little wonder it has always been a hard sell.  At times I decided it was all a cursed foul matter that I should burn in the nearest roaring fire.  Instead, I would pull on something within me that insisted this story could be reshaped to get something other than a wonderfully kind, gently worded rejection that felt more like pity than a turn down.

But imagine it, a book so layered ought to be marketed to multiple venues-Psychology Today readers, Economics 101 audiences, Political Science 101, Geography magazine readers, and Theologians’ Digest, if there is such a thing.  History buffs could be tapped.   There seemed to me a huge audience for the book and a diverse one.  And how might I tap into these audiences and markets?  How might I make a romantic thriller relevant to geography buffs?  Theologians?  Lovers of history, the occult, paranormal mystery, paranormal romance-even if I did leap in and publish this book on my own with the help of digital publishing?

The place to start is a compendium of Associations of America.  Within the pages of AA, you can learn a great deal to target huge organizations who might want to know about a book dealing with the economics of witchcraft, or the theology of witchcraft, etc.  Oddly enough, for just about everything you use in your book, there is an association attached to it.  And my motto is use them before they use you.  Market to them by sending News Releases to their public affairs offices.

Locate newspapers and magazines as well that touch in any way on a subject dear to the book.  Write more News Releases and send as many as you can via email.  Write up your template News Release but slant it each time for the target you are going for-whether it be firemen or historians.

Rejected hundreds of times and stowed away off and on for some thirty years or more, Children of Salem has always been a labor of love.  I had every reason to lower it into the ground of my past writing attempts and leave it buried, and chalk it up to part of that large graveyard of previous work that stays in the grave but represents lessons learned, craft-building.  But I would not let it remain buried.  Instead, I published it to the world.  I became my own publisher in partnership with Amazon.com.  And I did it using a “dead” manuscript about a “dead” subject filled with “dead” historical characters in a “dead” time period.

As recently as July, I began putting up ebooks on the paperless book store for Kindle (the Kindle ebook reader via www.dtpamazon.com), and I put up a number of out of print titles, a book of short stories, and a how-to book that is doing well there.  Then, I decided to place up Children of Salem-an original never before seen anywhere else title.  Why put it up on Kindle, a book rejected by EVERY New York publishing house twice over in various permutations?  A book turned down in fact by any and all publishers, editors, and agents who ever took a look.  Was I just being arrogant and publishing the work out of anger or angst or what?  No, frustration is the word.  Fed up with traditional publishers who could not SEE the possibilities of this novel, a novel I had kept faith in for over thirty years, with agents who loved it but couldn’t sell it…with editors who could not turn it down without writing personal notes about how it affected them, etc., etc., little wonder that I see the new technology as a godsend for Children of Salem. and have decided to take the bull by the horns and put it out there.  My risk?  Only my reputation.  A little time, energy…might it be for nothing?  No charges to me, so you can’t call it vanity publishing as no money passed hands; no, this is the new face of publishing.

Maybe all those people who had rejected the novel were right, but I didn’t think so, and I trust that readers will agree with me, and at least all who have read it have raved!  But there are other perks to becoming a Kindle ebook author.  It feels freeing and great to have taken control, and vanity or not-whatever you call digital publishing-for me it was and is VINDICATION as Children of Salem is outselling all my other ebooks save my how-to (Dead On Writing).  To see the review and the fantastic cover art that my son, Stephen, designed for Children of Salem you need only click here:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Title-CHILDREN-Romance-Trials/dp/B002GU6LIC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257400408&sr=1-1

I kid you not, I never give up on a novel idea once I have determined it is a worthwhile project, worthy of my time, energy, blood, sweat, and rewrites.  This goes for Children, that it may even be thirty years old, rewritten countless times, given the “drawer” countless times, but never thrown into the flames or fed to the landfill.  Is this a good or a bad thing?  I suppose it depends on the idea and the execution of the novel, the crafty crafting of the craft.

There is a great well of resolve required to have faith in your own work for as many years as I held this belief for my Salem Opus.

Dead On by Robert W. Walker ISBN-13: 978-1-59414-781-4 Publisher: Five Star Books Just when disgraced Atlanta cop-turned-PI Marcus Rydell prepares to eat his gun, a kid in trouble, a call to duty, and a dirty blonde named Kat Holley stop him cold. Kat Holley pulls Marcus from a suicidal depression, and his soon-to-be demolished apartment building-only to make him face a past he cannot come to terms with without her. But not before she leads him on a deadly hunt deep into the blackest forests of the Red Earth State. Near the Georgia-Tennessee border in the breathtaking Blue Ridge Lake countryside, the pair witness a safe paradise become their death trap, as their prey is no ordinary man. They seek to destroy a local legend, a cave-dwelling ex-marine who happens to be a multiple murderer. In fact, their prey is a monster whose instincts and military training have allowed him to survive in the wilderness for four years, eluding the Feds as well as the Atlanta PD. However, the hunt for the evil torturer and executioner, Iden Cantu, pivots. And now Cantu comes for them, leaving the dead in his wake. In the end, they must duel with this psychotic deviant, who is equipped with night-vision, a high-powered Bushman and a cruel intent to kill by means of mental and physical pain. “Readers will hope to see more of this unlikely couple. An entertaining series debut.”—Booklist “Walker’s whip-smart dialogue, vivid charactes, and ever-building tension makes Dead On a terrifically compelling read.”—Tess Gerritsen, bestselling author of The Keepsake and many more.

Categories: All authors, Miscellaneous, Robert W. Walker
Tags: book cover design, digital publishing, ebook, ideas, plot, project