Misadventures in Book Publishing

By Caitlin Rother

Naked Addiction began as what we call in fiction-writing workshops “a germ.” It became one of a series of diary entries of my murder victim, which grew into a short story, which grew into a novel. At the time, I was working as a news reporter, writing as many as four stories a day. I needed a creative outlet, and I found it in fiction.

It took me 17 years of writing, rewriting, trying to find an agent, and then a publisher, to get this baby published. And although I could spend this entire blog telling you about those 17 years, I'm not going to do that. I'm only going to focus on the last five years, which will bring home my point: the keys to becoming a published author – and staying a published author – are persistence, determination, and the ability to rebound from rejection.

Fiction has always been my passion and it has helped me bring my narrative nonfiction thrillers alive. That’s good, because that’s what pays my bills. I can't tell you how excited I was when Naked Addiction first got accepted by Dorchester Publishing. I'd hoped to get a bigger publisher that would release my book as a hardcover, but after so many years of rejection, this was a victory and it felt good to proudly display this blurb from best-selling novelist Michael Connelly on the cover: “With a journalist's eye for telling the details of life, Caitlin Rother is a keen architect of the most important part of storytelling: character. The people in her prose grip you tightly with their truth.”

Well, the book didn’t sell all that well, because no one promoted it. Not the publisher and not me, because I didn't know any better at the time, and I was also working on back-to-back true crime books, on deadline, without a day in between to spare. My first book, Poisoned Love, had sold so well that Barnes & Noble ordered 10 copies of the new novel for every store, and when they didn't sell after only two or three months on the shelf – yes, this is typical for a paperback, thus the term “shelf life” – many of those books were returned. For those of you, when a book is “stripped,” the cover is ripped off and sent back to the publisher; the book goes into the trash. My royalty statement literally broke my heart.

Over the next couple of years Borders and Barnes & Noble stopped carrying it, and customers couldn’t order it from either chain. The frustrating thing was that the book was still in print, but no one could buy it unless they knew to get it off the publisher's website. Or, sadly, on Amazon for 99 cents, and later, only one cent. (I later learned that Barnesandnoble.com was still selling it closer to the cover price, but not till much later.)

Still, I could not let go, not after all these years and all that work. A million calls and e-mails later to distributors, Barnes & Noble, my agent and publisher, I urged my agent to try to get my rights back or ask Dorchester to re-release the book now that I was doing so well with all my non-fiction books. (Including this one, I would have six books out in 18 months.)

After lobbying for about a year, we finally persuaded Dorchester – which had been going through serious financial woes, continuing to sell books for which they no longer owned the rights, and generally angering so many authors that they launched a boycott – to do a re-release.

With a new editor and management team in place, my agent and I were promised that this was a new Dorchester, and they wanted to do right by my book. Naked Addiction would be part of their new trade paperback line and it would also come out as an e-book, with a higher and more acceptable royalty percentage.

I was thrilled. We set the release date of January 3, 2012, a month after the re-release of Poisoned Love, an updated edition with 20 new pages. This was a carefully choreographed move so the books would complement each other, and so I could promote them simultaneously.

I spent more money than I could afford on a combined web and radio tour and a revamp of my website. Along the way, I was thrilled that one of my books landed on the New York Times bestseller list, a first for me. And after having persuaded Dorchester to design a new cover for Naked Addiction, I was excited that they were able to redo it once again to include the bestseller mention. Things were looking bright. My radio tour went great, and my Web tour went off without a hitch.

The first sign that something was wrong came in December 2011. The bookstores where I had arranged signings couldn’t get advanced copies as Dorchester had promised, and even if they could the books were non-returnable, which meant that the bookstores wouldn’t carry them anyway.

Next, the VP of sales left the company, and without my knowledge, so did the president. I managed to guilt Dorchester into sending me a box of advanced copies without charging me for shipping (I still had to purchase the books), so the bookstores had something to sell, with the promise that the stores would replace my personal stock once the book came out – all so that readers could give the books as Christmas gifts.

Then, I got an e-mail from a friend saying that his pre-ordered copy from Amazon

wasn't going to be delivered in till March. March? How could that be? No one at the publisher would answer my e-mails except one very sweet woman in sales, who was doing everything she could to help me, but even she couldn't tell me what was going on – only that the January 3 release date might not happen.

January 3 came and went, the book was not released, and I still couldn't get anyone to respond to my e-mails, including the editor, who had seemed genuinely sincere in his previous efforts to do right by my book. The release date on Amazon now said March 1. It was perplexing and frustrating, and my promotions plan was losing traction by the minute. I put the pre-paid web tour on hold until we could get a new, firm release date.

Dorchester’s publicist said the editor was trying to deal with this and would get back to me – I had heard that this had something to do with ongoing negotiations with the distributor about the “no-return” policy – but she had also stopped reassuring me that the book would come out as planned.

Then the release date on the Dorchester website changed to a retroactive December 15, 2011, and the trade version of the book disappeared altogether. This was bad. I was watching my book release dissipate like tiny tufts of clouds in a strong wind. And there was nothing I could do about it.

I was right back where I was, only worse, because I had lost the benefit of the thousands of dollars I’d spent on publicity, plus an entire year’s worth of potential royalties, because I could have published the book myself as an e-book last year.

Then the sweet lady in sales was let go. The editor left a few weeks later, followed by the publicist. “They're moving offices,” I was told by someone who had been laid off, which apparently was code for “we’re going out of business and shutting our doors,” because my agent hasn't been able to get anyone on the phone since.

A few days ago, I found a blog saying that Dorchester had been acting as if it were in bankruptcy for the past year, trying to squeeze out every last cent by selling off assets (they apparently still owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to authors and booksellers), and that the goal was to liquidate everything, including book rights, before really filing for bankruptcy.

I fired off an e-mail to my agent, strongly suggesting that we immediately ask for my rights back, and enclosed the address for the registered agent for the corporation, given that the corporate headquarters had terminated its entire staff and was likely closed, before my book was "liquidated."

After much anguish, I've finally decided to go ahead with the prepaid Web tour because I do still have a couple boxes of books in my closet that I can sell myself. The e-book is still available on Amazon and B&N.com, and while I'll probably never see the royalties, maybe this will help draw some new readers to my other books. Only now I can't get the Web tour publicist to respond to my e-mails either.

But I'll keep trying. After all, the book was written for people to read. Getting paid for it would be nice, but at this point, I’m already gearing up for book #8 to come out in July (Lost Girls), and trying to focus on the accomplishment that the updated version of Poisoned Love went to another printing within a week of its release. I've finished a spin-off to Naked Addiction, which is in my agent's hands now, and I'm already working on my next narrative nonfiction thriller, and another book or two after that.

These days, my mantra is this: I'm a storyteller, I love what I do – sometimes more than other times – and no one can take that away from me.

Onward.

Oh, and let me know if you’d like to buy a signed copy. (crother@flash.net)

Losing Focus

This week I've been having a hard time focusing, and I can't figure out why. My brain's felt foggy. It takes me until lunchtime to get going. All my little tricks haven't worked so well. Getting more sleep, exercising, being outside; nothing's been successful.

A couple of weeks ago, I had way too much stuff to do. My agent asked for some edits on my new work, suddenly I had interviews, a bunch of kid activities, lunch dates, blog posts, doctor appointments, insurance snafus, (and probably more I've forgotten), but somehow having a lot of stuff to do made me work harder and smarter. Laser-focus! I even made bread and cookies. I read a ton of books. It seems like the less I have to do, the lazier I get.

Because I haven't exactly worked, I did lots of important Internet-related activities, like listen to countless covers of Joy Division's LOVE WILL TEAR US APART (seriously, there are some great ones). I also retook the Meyer-Briggs personality test. I'm still an INTJ (Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging), which a lot of writers are. No surprise. But then I took an ARE YOU A TYPE A OR TYPE B PERSONALITY? test and, much to my surprise, I'm a type A! Now, I thought I was too quiet (introvert, you know) to be a Type A, but when I thought about it, I realized I'm not internally quiet. Internally I'm extremely loud. If you were inside my brain with me, you'd be covering your ears and staring in wonder at the psychedelia erupting all around you. (Except for days like today, when it's slightly cloudy psychedelia).

And I hate being late and I hate it when people make mistakes and I really really hate it when I make a mistake. All Type A traits. But because I don't exactly go around yelling at everyone and being all Alpha about my Type A-ness, I never thought I was.

So perhaps, due to my newly discovered Type A personality, I just need to be slightly overburdened to feel at my best. I like a little bit of stress and juggling. I actually like human interaction, frankly, and when I have nothing scheduled (and somehow all my social and work stuff seems to happen at exactly the same time instead of being spread out), a piece of me fritzes out.

I wonder, dear readers, what you do when you find yourself in a dull lull. Do you give yourself a break? Beat yourself up? Introduce a new stressor into your life on purpose? Lie around and eat brownies while watching Judge Judy? Not that I've ever done that.

I guess I'll keep on fighting through, and hope this too shall pass.

-- Margaret Dilloway

Life Stories
by Susan McBeth

Life stories – they are all around us. We read them in New York Times bestselling biographies like Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts. We relish the memoirs that reveal an intimate peek into lives of high-profile people like Tina Fey in Bossypants, or LIFE by Keith Richards, and even into the lives of not-so-high-profile people like Theresa Weir in The Orchard or Amy Finley’s How to Eat a Small Country.

We tell our own stories by writing memoirs and keeping journals and researching family genealogy. We keep scrapbooks and photo albums and Pinterest boards. WeTweet and post Facebook messages and send text messages that share a little piece of our story, minute-by-minute as it is occurring. We telephone and meet with our friends and family and colleagues to share an exciting or devastating or interesting event that happens in our life story.

We are even fascinated by the lives of people who we’ve never heard of before their stories were portrayed on television reality shows. Millions tune in every week to follow the life stories of the Kardashians, the Real Housewives, the Bachelors and Bachelorettes, and the Biggest Losers. While many may express disdain over the value of these shows, what the ratings show is that there clearly is fascination with these life stories.

I am a firm believer that every one of the approximately seven billion people on this planet has a life story to tell. Some are tragic, some remarkable, some sensationalized. Some stories are short, some long, some simple, some complex. While we will never know all these stories, that certainly does not diminish their worth. And what I do know is that with every life story I discover, I discern something of value and relevance to my own life. So if that is the case, then why wouldn’t I want to learn as many life stories as I can, in my continuing efforts to become a better person?

That is exactly why I decided to take on the “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” challenge. It’s not an official challenge, but one I am undertaking after being inspired by the film that gets
my Oscar vote for the best film of 2012. Young Oskar is convinced that his father, who was killed in one of the Twin Towers during 9/11, left him a secret final message, so the boy sets off on a mission throughout New York City to unearth this connect to his father. While he never finds any message from his father, what he does garner through his visits with dozens of complete
strangers is a bigger understanding of the world that allows him to put his own loss in perspective.

So how will I undertake my challenge? Quite honestly, I don’t have a game plan, but I know that if I keep myself open to opportunities, they will present themselves. Take Edna, a woman I met earlier this week while a friend and I were having dinner in a local restaurant. Edna was dining alone and I found myself wondering if she was lonely and would be grateful for an offer of friendship, or if she was reveling in sought-out solitude and would resent our intrusion. My friend and I discussed our options, and I was so proud of my shy friend for stepping outside her comfort zone and accepting the challenge.

Edna declined our offer but stopped by our table to thank us as she left, and we spent a few minutes chatting. And while we never learned Edna’s life story, I would bet that my friend and I will now be part of her life story, as she tells her friends about two strangers who invited her to dinner. While it was really my friend who stood up to the challenge, I felt as if I, too, had reaped the benefits of our offer. Whose life story will I learn next? I don’t have a clue, and that’s the exciting part!

Who Knew?

Zoe Ghahremani

The glass doors of animal hospital close behind me, and I’m conscious of having left one of the best segments of my life behind. There, on the cart they so carelessly transferred him to, lies the gentlest being I know, our loving golden retriever. Who knew he would leave his soul inside of me and take a good portion of mine with him? Who knew I would not be able to let go of a beast that I had feared as a child?

His name is Pelé, the god of fire, the best a soccer ball ever saw, and my loyal companion of four-and-a-half years. When he came into my life, he was a small fur ball that could easily fit into my big pocket. It’s as if it was only days ago when he could hide under the kitchen cabinet. When did he grow to a size that the four of us could not lift his blood-covered body from the middle of the road to put him in my car?

As I sped way beyond the road’s limit, I knew no police car could stop me. “If they don’t like the way I drive, they can just follow me to the emergency room,” I said to myself as I pressed harder on the gas pedal.

Three paramedics in print scrubs rushed out and I heard his head hit the metal cart as they transferred him. Before I regained enough presence of mind to ask if I could stay with him, the doors had closed.

“You’ll need to sign here if you want the doctor to resuscitate him,” the young receptionist said. “And it will cost anywhere between $350 and $700 for that alone.”

“If?!” I asked her and took the pen while fighting tears to see the dotted line. “Just out of curiosity,” I said bitterly. “Would they not resuscitate him if I didn’t sign?”

Hours later, I sit in the corner we call “Place” and stare at his empty food bowl, scattered toys, and torn-up blanket. Other owners would take their dog on vacation, enter competitions, and run with him along sandy beaches. But I was raised to consider a dog just a dog, a guard for our home, indeed a creature that best be kept at a distance. When friends visited, we tied him up for fear he might want to touch them. Over the years, he finally learned that this family did not wish to have their faces licked. No, at our house it was always, “Pelé, no! Sit, boy. Stay there!”

He obeyed, but through his silence dug a deep tunnel to the heart of each every one of us, and it is in that tunnel that I wait now and hope against hope.

Please dear God, if you let him live I promise to go on long walks with him every single day. Please, help him to survive this and he can shed all the hair he wants over the furniture, I’ll never allow the groomer to shave his beautiful coat again. I’ll take him to the dog beach in Del Mar, where he can swim as much as he wants to and meet other dogs to play with. Who cares? I’ll even give him a real bone once in a while!

I check the phone to make sure it’s not off the hook. They will call me any minute to let me know he’s okay. Earlier, I took his favorite blanket to him and put it by his face, where he could smell it. That familiar touch is bound to make him happy, and I know soon he will want to open his soulful brown eyes. He will stand and wag his longhaired tail and the nurses will admit he’s the handsomest dog they have ever seen. I bet in a day or two they will send him home with another one of their “excellent patient” diplomas!

*

Who knew that a part of me would die with a dog? I had all sorts of images about the way my life might end. What I never pictured was that someday, I would see myself

dying on a small table, among strangers, and at the animal hospital.

Two weeks have gone by and each one of us has learned to accept a life without Pelé. There’s a birdbath in a far corner of our yard under which his ashes lay to rest. Sometimes I hear him bark at night, see his wagging bushy tail in a dream, or just wait for him to knock on the kitchen’s glass door the way he used to. Other times, I feel his warmth in my heart and am filled with gratitude for our short time together. But more than anything, I am a better person for the invaluable lesson he taught me, one that annuls the learning of a lifetime.

A writer, it had had been too easy to give words more worth than they deserved, not to mention let them rule. It took a gentle dog to teach me that, when it comes to expressing genuine love, words are absolutely immaterial.

On the Road with Annie Nakamura

Part II of a series

Noted in the last blog, Annie Nakamura’s last request was to be buried either on Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Forest in Washington or at Anza Borrego Desert. Four intrepid road warriors took to the road on a crystal clear blue-sky Saturday morning, October 8, 2011, in our trusty Nissan Altima.

The plan: Drive north to the Olympic National Forest, swing back down to San Francisco, return to San Diego via the coast.
Time frame: Olympic National Forest by Tuesday, October 11th; Hurricane Ridge on Wednesday; head south to reach San Francisco by Friday, October 14th. Reason for the rush? We needed to be in San Francisco for a burial and ceremony on Saturday, October 15th.

Day 1, Saturday, October 8th: After a round of picture-taking, we headed north on Interstate 395; first stop: Temecula for lunch. Back on 395, we drove through a stunningly beautiful upper-desert day to Randsburg and stopped for a quick tour of Manzanar, (site of the former World War II Japanese Internment camp) leaving a small paper crane in each spot. Our first night is Bishop.

Day 2, Sunday, October 9th: We stop at the Mammoth Loop, and amid snow covered ground, we take Annie’s urn for a round of pictures and leave a commemorative crane. Our intended stop is Mono Lake to see “tufas”—limestone columns created by the precipitation of carbonate minerals from the lake. Kawa is delighted to use her “senior” national park membership, and we trek down the walkway to the lake. It is a magnificent shade of blue, and the tufas jutting out from the water creates an almost other-worldly scene.
Another scheduled stop is Reno. In 1980, Don and I eloped in Reno at the “Heart of Reno” Chapel. Years earlier, Annie tried to convince us to take a “wedding party” back to the Heart of Reno to “renew our vows.” We go searching to find the chapel only to learn that it now a parking lot. Kawa and Janet doubt the authenticity of our marriage. Not to be deterred, we stand in the location with Annie in hand and take pictures and leave a crane.

Day 3, Monday, October 10th: Having spent the night in Alturus, one of our goals is to travel to Crater Lake. Along the way, we stop at Tule Lake, the largest World War II Japanese Internment camp. Little did we imagine that this road trip would also be a Japanese Internment Camp tour.

It is another beautiful day, but as we near Crater Lake, Kawa mentions that on previous road trips, Annie was only able to see the lake once. As we wend our way to the top, the fog rolls in, the ambient temperature drops to 41 degrees, snow is on the ground, the wind howls, and the rain begins to pour down. At the visitor’s center, we brave the elements to find the spot where Annie, Kawa, and another friend, Julie, had taken pictures so that we, too, can commemorate “another typical Annie Nakamura Crater Lake moment.” The wind is so fierce that Janet’s flimsy olive drab poncho billows wildly with each gust so much so that Don has to virtually carry her back to the car. With teeth chattering, we begin the descent. At Discovery Point, there is a momentary clearing; we pull over, and we can actually see some waves on the lake. We scatter a few ashes—our first, say a few words, and leave a crane.

Day 4, Tuesday, October 11th: We spend the night in Salem, outside of Eugene, and continue the journey. We stop at the Chehalis Tribe casino in Rochester. There we find a perfect basket for Annie’s ashes. Made by Cindy Andy, a Chehalis tribe weaver, it is a basket woven out of sweet grass with a whale design. As we leave with the basket, it begins raining, and the sky is filled with a beautiful rainbow—we take it as a positive omen.

That evening, we arrive at the Olympic Lodge in Point Angeles, gateway to the Olympic National Forest. It is a beautiful, four-star hotel with magnificent views of the area. That evening, we prepare the burial basket.

Day 5, Wednesday, October 12th: The skies have clouds, but patches of clear blue are visible—NO rain! At 7:30 AM, we commence our tip to Hurricane Ridge. Along the way, we stop to take pictures of the breathtaking views of pine trees, water, and skies filled with clouds; mists float amongst the pines. As we ascend, more and more snow is evident so much so that by the time we reach Hurricane Ridge Visitor’s Center, visibility is virtually nil, temperatures are a chilly 32 degrees, and we wonder if we can make it to the parking loop. As we crawl up the road, we make it to the loop, although two cars are parked, no one is in sight. We wander into the center cluster of trees; Don makes one attempt at digging amongst the pines but soon encounters too many roots to continue. We wander off to the left to discover a small meadow that has a view of the trails, water, and mountains. Don digs; Kawa assists. I set up the altar. It is so cold that Janet’s teeth are literally chattering. We place Annie in the grave; each of us throws a bit of dirt; say a few words. A sense of satisfaction prevails.

We begin our journey south.

Day 6, Thursday, October 13th: After spending the night in Eugene, one of our designated stops is Bandon, Oregon where Annie raved about the cranberry candy she once had. We find the store, and our homage is to purchase the cranberry jells, leave a crane, and head for Port Orford and Redwood.

Day 7: Friday, October 14th: Driving through the Avenue of the Giants, we decide to leave some of Annie in the magnificent redwood forest. We find a hollowed out tree, set up an altar, scatter ashes, and revel in the beauty of the majestic trees.

On our way to Fort Bragg, we meet a fellow sojourner at a scenic view, who is also on a journey of memory. VR lost his wife and after scattering her ashes off Wind ‘N Sea in La Jolla, he decided to journey north to leave her wedding ring among the sequoias. We relate our tale of friendship and fulfilling final requests. A crane is left.

We arrive in San Francisco.

To be continued.

Judith Liu
January 13, 2012