I know you are busy, so please take your time.

G.E. Colpitts

Good post and great responses. Note that the average Savas Beatie book sells a lot more than 1,500 copies, mainly because we target widely OUTSIDE normal distribution channels.

I am writing about these and other issues now on my blog. Stay tuned and check in.

–tps

I worked with John Ferling at West Georgia for ten years and we remain great friends. He is a consummate historian, a nice guy, and it’s always good to see him win some deserved praise. Thanks for mentioning him. I also think his John Adams biography is the best one on the market, but it never stood a chance against the trade book/HBO marketing machine that soon swamped it.

As for the larger topic, Perryville sold a little better than the average, but I still have my day job 🙂

Ken

Much space and many words will be devoted to the issue of marketing. Let’s revisit this once I write that post.

Eric

I appreciate your point, and I intend to address some of those issues in another post. When I do so, I would appreciate it if you would chime in again.

Eric

Oh, and another person who has done well financially is Bud Robertson. His Jackson book has been reissued numerous time.

I would STRONGLY suggest going, if possible, the route of self-publishing. If you get the right company to print your books (it took me a couple of whacks and two small initial printings) you can enjoy all sorts of great benefits. I own the copyright and distribution rights to both of my books and will for any I release in the future (number three is coming out this year). My publishing company foots the full printing costs, I pay them a per book fee for each sold, and then I keep the rest. So far I have sold over 5,000 copies of my first book in 24 months and nearly 1,000 of my second in 12 months. Honestly, I anticipate hitting 10,000 sold on the first book by the end of 2009.

If you find the right company, you can make terrific money and have total creative freedom. You may never have your book at Barnes & Noble, but honestly, who cares. Few people in Oregon or New Mexico are going to buy my books about Civil War history in Tennessee. But they can buy it on Amazon, God bless them. Target your market, get the right publisher/printer, and enjoy life. A university press would have to beg me to publish my book(s) and I’d still say no. 🙂

I’ll add one last thing. When I see some of the garbage that major university presses print today, and what they decline or pass on, it motivates me all the more to do it my own way. I will never forget when the University of Tennessee Press told me they would not even look at my first manuscript because it would conflict with James Lee McDonough’s books. They wouldn’t even look at it!!!! Read it and say you don’t like it fine, but don’t even review it???

Eric A. Jacobson