Harlequin Author June Shaw Dishes on Keeping Her Book Alive

June Shaw is an advertiser on my website, www.howtodoitfrugally.com (see the home page and others). Because she is traditionally published, her book is no longer available on its publisher's website so we got into a conversation about keeping a book alive even with certain rights restrictions. She shares with you here:



Keeping Your Book Alive
by June Shaw

Some publishers put an author’s book out for one or two months and then that’s it. The story you’ve created and worked on for possibly years could be gone. I’ve been fortunate enough to have my debut book in print, Relative Danger, stay alive and keep doing well.

Five Star bought my humorous mystery and published it in hardcover in December, 2006. After Relative Danger was out and receiving great reviews, I offered it to Harlequin Worldwide. They bought reprint direct-to-consumer rights; thus they reprinted my book in paperback in December 2007 and sold it to their mystery book club members and on their website. I checked into large-print, especially since Relative Danger features a spunky young grandma with attitude and her hunky sometimes-ex lover. A few months later Wheeler put out a large-print edition, which kept it alive even longer.

While enjoying the fruits of all of these printings and various looks to my book, I sold Five Star the second book in the series. Killer Cousins. It will be out in January. Along the way I also checked into audio rights. Books in Motion recently sent me a contract to make Relative Danger an audio book within the next few months.

Even with all of the various rights I’ve sold to Relative Danger, I still own mass market rights. I do not have an agent. By studying The Frugal Book Promoter soon after I made the first sale, I discovered that a book doesn’t have to die soon after a publisher puts it out. I created my baby. I am in charge of nurturing it to make certain it thrives. (Of course readers who love it help, too: ))
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The author of this article is June Shaw, www.juneshaw.com. She is the author of Relative Danger. Metsy Hingle says it is "all-heart, humor and suspense.” Shaw's second in the series, Killer Cousins, is coming in January.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure success. She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal." Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.