A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: How Book Tortoises Cross the Finish Line
It is Tuesday. 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's topic addresses slow-selling books . Books that look like tortoises. They do not take off upon release. In some cases, you could say that they fail to launch. Generally, in my experience, tortoise books fall into two categories: late discoveries and slow crawlers. Late discoveries are books that sell few, if any books, at launch. Even some years later, they are not selling in any quantity. Authors are likely to move on at this point, defeated. If they persevere, however, sometimes little miracles happen over time. Our bestselling book of all time, laid low, napping, for TEN years; then it was discovered by an Influencer and over