For many years I wrote stories about Galvestonians and the city’s rich history. The average length was about 1,250 words. The pieces appeared one day each week in the Galveston County Daily News.
I’ve never counted, but a quick mathematical calculation says more than 600 were written.
In 2000, a Texas press, VanJus Press, contracted with me to publish a book, Bill Cherry’s Galveston Memories, which would be a 300 page anthology of about sixty of the first columns.
For about two months, VanJus’ marketing manager, Lynn Branch, scheduled book signings in stores around the Galveston-Houston area, and offered me as a program for various clubs and churches.
Bill Cherry’s Galveston Memories sold many thousands of copies for $19.95 each. The book is no longer in print, but interestingly, used copies evaluated as “gently worn” bring $88.55 up, and new copies that were apparently hoarded by a distributor are offered for sale at $319.09.
The brother of a Galveston newspaper columnist retained me last year to put together a collection of his brother’s column, written circa 1947. Christie Mitchell, the writer’s name, was a well-known and liked fellow who promoted the city’s tourist industry.
He was called The Beachcomber.
We tried to get two of the Texas university presses to publish the book, but without success. We thought that to be unusual since Christie Mitchell was an alumni of the University of Texas, and his brother was an alumni and the largest individual benefactor of Texas A & M University.
Finally, we decided to go the self-publishing route available through amazon.com. For about $1,000 an author can get his book published and on the market by using amazon.com’s Create Space Publishing Co.
The Night Owl became available for sale in July. However, unlike the publisher of my previous book, Bill Cherry’s Galveston Memories, at Create Space there is no counter-part to VanJus’ Lynn Branch.
What I can tell you is that book selling depends very heavily on the marketing. In the case of The Night Owl sales have been only a fraction of what we experienced with Bill Cherry’s Memories.
While it suits other authors, I would never again consider one of the self-publishing routes.
Bill Cherry, Real Estate Brokers
Dallas – Park Cities
Since 1964
214 504-8563
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