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Seeing it on the Shelf

Writers need an audience. Putting words together aptly and meaningfully with a ring of poetry is not quite enough just as giving a speech in the middle of an empty field would not be enough. So how do you become a published author?

My case history might give you some ideas because there is no one simple path to glory.

My first manuscript was an extensive set of University teaching notes on "Fast Reactor Safety." I got tired of Xeroxing 30 reams of paper each year so the idea of having the students buy a text-book was a natural. Academic Press publishers were a natural too and the subject matter was an uncontested market. Six months later after 900 hours of turning notes and diagrams into a book, I had a text.

The next book was born out of frustration in hearing bad advice given. "If you can run a mile, you can run a marathon," said Mayor Daley who only experience was in running for office. My running colleague and I formulated a book, divided up the chapters and started writing annotated outlines for each. I was in charge of getting a publisher.

It was an awful experience producing nothing but a raft of refusal letters. "We wish you the best but the work doesn't fit our current marketing plans, " is the usual reply. When we had about given up hope I read a newspaper article about a man who had run across Kenya. He was a senior editor for Macmillan a company that had already refused us. Nevertheless, I phoned and congratulated him on his run, and, incidentally, mentioned, as an aside, our book. He said, "Send it to me."

To cut a long story short, "TARGET 26 a guide to running the marathon" was published by Macmillan in two editions, published again by their offshoot, Collier Books, and sold to Fitzcultura y Sports for publishing in the Soviet Union. The book sold almost 75,000 copies worldwide. It is pleasant to receive favorable comments from readers from Australia to Kazakhstan.

Then I was laid off when an engineering project collapsed and became a full time writer: half of each day trying to sell proposals and half of each day writing.

From this effort, my next two books were sold to McFarland, a publisher who specifically supplies libraries but since there are thousands of libraries, the market is ample. Both books were sold on the basis of detailed annotated outlines: "Women in Chess," and "The Literature of Chess." At the time, I was the editor of an audio chess magazine for blind players so I had access to all the chess information and

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