A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: The "Oh, By the Way, Can you" Type of Book Commission
It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today, we step away from our weekly format to tell a couple of stories that might be revealing and helpful to authors who think that the only ways to get a book published are through the help of a literary agent, direct contact with a publisher, or self-publishing. Likely, very few authors think they might be contacted by a publisher and asked to write a book. But it does happen. How it happens, though, tends to be an "oh, by the way" that comes up as a publisher's need or as a publisher's insight about opportunity. Thre examples come from our publishing house. When the pandemic broke out, there seemed