Bright Morning Star by Tom Coffey
I was pleased when my latest book, BRIGHT MORNING STAR, was
accepted for publication by Oak Tree Press, but I didn't have the feeling of
overwhelming joy that I did in 1998, when Pocket Books, then a division of
Simon and Schuster, agreed to publish my first novel, THE SERPENT CLUB. I
imagine it's the same feeling that comes over parents when they have their
fourth or fifth child -- they're happy, of course, but the level of excitement
just isn't the same. (For the record, I have one kid.)
While I understood that the nature of publishing has shifted
radically in the last 17 years, I hadn't experienced that shift in a real way.
My first three books were printed by traditional publishers, who have their
time-honored ways of doing things or, more frequently, not doing things. Oak
Tree is an independent -- a scrappy outfit based in California that does not
have much of a budget but that does have, God bless it, much more of a
willingness to say "yes" to writers than the old-line outfits do.
Oak Tree's acceptance of BRIGHT MORNING STAR meant that a project
I'd spent years on would finally have a chance to find an audience. But I now
realize it meant something else: My real work had just begun.
No writer in the world believes that his or her work is marketed
properly by the publisher. I bet Dan Brown sits around at night muttering that
his books would have sold a few million more copies if only Random House had
tried harder. But going the independent route means this: When it comes to
publicity, you have to do most of the heavy lifting yourself. (For the
record, Oak Tree has been upfront about this, and has offered guidance on how
to go about it.)
For the writer, this means getting a Web site going and creating
events on Facebook and arranging signings and readings and posting on
Facebook and emailing local media and hanging around on Goodreads and tweeting.
That's just for starters. I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of things.
It has been a learning experience and, as my wife likes to say
(quoting her late grandmother), "All education is costly." On the
other hand, I'm a lot smarter about the process now.
This process can create a danger for the writer: You get so hung
up on the marketing process that you almost forget what the book is about. So
let's talk about BRIGHT MORNING STAR. It's is a historical novel set in early
20th century America. The protagonist, Emma Pierce, is a young journalist in
New York who is determined to learn the truth about war crimes committed by
U.S, troops during the nasty guerrilla war in the Philippines that followed the
Spanish-American War. She focuses on the case of a soldier who has been
court-martialed for atrocities -- a young man she knew quite well in her small
hometown, and with whom she was once in love.
I've had the idea for the book for many years, and I'm grateful to
Oak Tree for publishing it.
And here's the author bio:
Tom Coffey's first two
novels, THE SERPENT CLUB (1999) and MIAMI TWILIGHT (2001), were published by
Pocket Books, and his third book, BLOOD ALLEY (2008), was printed by Toby
Press. THE SERPENT CLUB and BLOOD ALLEY both received starred reviews from
Publishers Weekly. A longtime journalist, Tom has worked as a reporter and
editor at some of the leading newspapers in the country, including The Miami
Herald, The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and New York Newsday. Since 1997, he
has been a staff editor in the Sports Department at The New York Times, and he
has been a member of Mystery Writers of America since 1999. Tom lives in Lower
Manhattan with his wife and teenage daughter, who is also his tech adviser.
Website: www.bloodalleynovel.com
Comments