Guest Blogger: Marcus Brotherton

Let’s Say You Want to Buy a Ferrari

What actually happens on the golden day your book is finally released?

Before I was published I imagined it was like going to the Emmys. Red carpets and hotly lit interviews would abound. The president would call to congratulate. I’d buy a Ferrari with the rush of the royalties that instantly showed up in my bank account.

What actually happened?

Nothing.

My latest book, “We Who Are Alive & Remain: Untold Stories from the Band of Brothers” was just released. It’s a midlist military non-fiction book that’s hit number 28 on the New York Times Extended Bestseller list and hovered there the last three weeks.

When it was released just after midnight on May 5, 2009, the Amazon sales ranking inched up a notch, and people were now permitted to write reviews on the site. Early the next morning I phoned my city’s Barnes & Noble to see if my book was actually on shelves. The sales clerk needed to dig around in the back stockroom. He found three copies, all still in a box.

Over the past few years I’ve learned that was a pretty good opening day. I’ve had other books released, and my local bookstore never knew they existed. Some pretty big names were included in this forgotten list, too. Like Susan Scott Krabacher's memoir, "Angels of a Lower Flight," which I collaborated on a few years ago. It was a good-sized New York memoir about a former Playboy centerfold who changed careers to run a string of Haitian orphanages. I phoned bookstores up and down the West Coast but never did find it on a shelf. A friend of mine quipped, "You know, unless I knew you, I would never even know that book existed."

I don’t want to be pessimistic here. I want to be an encourager and tell you that publishing a book can be done. But I also want to give you a gut-level reality check about the hard facts of this business. Once you fly over the hurdles of wooing an agent, landing a contract, writing the book, and traversing the editing process, there's still another hurdle to clear—getting the book into people's hands. That may be the biggest obstacle of all.

Some will argue that I should have been doing something proactive the day my book came out. In truth, I was sitting quietly in the midst of a publicity campaign. There were signings being lined up, and blog tours in the works, and articles that would be running, and on-line ads to be a-popping.

The actual big day, however, was spent quite routinely. I wrote for about six hours in my home office, then knocked off early, went to the post office, and got my hair cut. After dinner I had a root beer float with my 6-year-old daughter. That was the grand celebration.

Here’s the encouraging part. Regardless of the lack of red carpet treatment, my book’s release day indeed came with a strong sense of accomplishment. There was the hope that the book would enjoy a good solid climb upward and stay there for a long time. There was also the mysterious sense of not knowing exactly—never knowing really—how a book might impact someone’s life for the better. Since its release, I’ve received letters from as far away as Holland from people saying they enjoyed the book. You just never know.

So, how about you? What are your aspirations for what happens the day you’re published? What do you hope your book will do in minds, souls, and lives of readers? How do you hope the publication of your book will change your own life, if at all?

Or, if you’re a published author, what actually happened the day your last book was published? Was it all you hoped it would be?

Feel free to leave comments about the encouraging, the discouraging, and everything in between.


Marcus Brotherton’s most recent published work, We Who Are Alive & Remain, is his 19th book (authored or collaboratively authored), but he doesn’t drive a Ferrari, or anything close to it.