After Sundown (41 page)

In publishing parlance, this is known as “crash publishing.” It happens more often than you know.

Unfortunately, because Dell was “crash publishing” my book for that May slot, they wouldn’t have time to do any marketing at all. No advance review copies to major media, no special placement in bookstores, none of the promotion they had promised when they bought the book.

As my agent explained when she informed me of this, Dell didn’t really have any money left to spend on
Into the Sunset
anyway—because they had blown the budget on that Very Very Expensive Cover.

But she was confident that they would make it up to me with a big push on my next book.  After all, we were about to start contract negotiations for the next three books in this series.

And the good news, she said, was that Dell was giving
Into the Sunset
a big print run (“ambitious,” she called it). It was the first book of a new series, and they didn’t want it to go out of print too soon.

Unfortunately, in the middle of all this crash-publishing craziness, someone neglected to tell the sales department that my book had been moved up to May.

So they never told the booksellers.

And the booksellers all ordered Bonnie Bestseller’s book instead.

Remember when we said
confusion in the marketplace can be disastrous for sales
? That turned out to be true. Not for Susie Superstar or Bonnie Bestseller, but for me.

The major chains didn’t know that
Into the Sunset
existed. It didn’t appear in their computers, in the publisher’s catalogue, or even on the Dell website. Bonnie Bestseller’s book was listed everywhere as the May romance from Dell.

So when
Into the Sunset
arrived in their stores, the clerks at the big chains did one of two things. Some left it sitting in the shipping box in the back room. Because they hadn’t ordered it and didn’t know what to do with it.

Others promptly shipped it back for a refund.

Authors who work with traditional New York publishing houses live and die by something called “sell-through” numbers. Your sell-through is a percentage that compares the number of books sold to the number of books printed. The ideal, of course, is to get as close to 100% as possible. Anything under 50% is considered a poor performance.

The buyers at the big chain bookstores—the powerful people responsible for ordering upcoming releases—see the sell-through number for your most recent book right next to your name in their computers. And there’s no little asterisk next to that number that says, “Oh, wait, the publisher screwed up royally! This was not the author’s fault!”

All they see is your name. And that number.

So, what happens when a publisher gives a book an ambitious print run, and a Very Very Expensive Cover, and no marketing support... and forgets to tell booksellers about it?

The sell-through numbers are so small they need to be viewed with a microscope.

Back when I was a starry-eyed, newbie author, my agent warned me that when things go well, publishers take all of the credit—and when things go wrong, publishers take none of the blame.

That certainly proved to be the case here.
Into the Sunset
was a failure of epic proportions. And my publisher placed the blame squarely on my shoulders. The reason for the book’s poor performance, they insisted, was that I wrote a bad book. I mean, just look at the way I dashed off those last chapters and
faxed
them in? They expected their authors to take much more care in their work than that.

When it was all over, the Bantam author I had fallen on my sword to protect, Susie Superstar, prospered. She probably never knew any of this even happened. (She’s actually one of my all-time favorite writers, and none of this—none of it—was her fault.) Her book came out as scheduled in May, sold well, and her career continued without so much as a hiccup.

The publisher had successfully protected their superstar.

My fellow Dell author, Bonnie Bestseller, also prospered. The only thing better than getting
one
good sales push from your publisher is getting
two
good sales pushes back-to-back. The sales department had already given Bonnie a big push as the May release, and after the scheduling mix-up came to light, they gave her another big push for August. They wanted to make sure that all the confusion wouldn’t damage her sales. And it didn’t. Her book sold well, she hit the
New York Times
bestseller list a book or two later, and BantamDell soon began publishing her in hardcover.

The publisher had successfully protected their big author.

And me? For me, the confusion in the marketplace proved deadly. “Bad sell-through” is a fatal illness in New York publishing, and there’s no way to recover from it. My career was finished. No publisher in Manhattan would touch me with a fifty-foot pole.

Including Dell. My agent had delayed the contract negotiations for the rest of my Lawless Nights series because she was so confident that
Into the Sunset
would be a spectacular success.

Instead, Dell dumped me. “We can’t offer her another contract,” they told my agent. “Just look at these terrible sell-through numbers.”

A few months and several rejections later, I did what every author does in this situation: I fired my agent.

Because, yeah, that would work.

The new agent I hired collected more rejections for me. All of them along the lines of, “Ewwww, look at those sell-through numbers, get this submission off my desk before the author stinks up my office,” and “I heard she
faxed
in the ending of her last book? I’m not working with a hack like that.”

Only one publisher—Berkley—was willing to offer me a contract. But only if I abandoned my Shelly Thacker name (and the stinky sell-through numbers attached to it) and took a pseudonym. Oh, and since I would be starting all over as a brand-new author, I would also have to accept beginner’s wages. They were offering me a 72% pay cut from what I had been earning at Dell.

I could literally earn more working at McDonald’s.

My new agent urged me to sign it.

When I said no, my new agent dumped me.

And that was the end of my New York publishing career. Ten years, two major publishers, two agents, nine books, national bestseller lists, two-time RITA finalist... and it was all gone.

The truly scary part is that none of the players in this nightmare set out to be purposely incompetent or malicious. This is just how things go at the traditional New York publishers. The bigger the company, the more frequently books and authors “just slip through the cracks.” Business as usual. Just another day at the office.

Exhausted and heartbroken, I walked away from the industry. I went back to work in the PR/marketing field. My husband and I had two beautiful babies, after struggling with infertility for years. (Maybe all that stress had something to do with it?) And I dreamed that someday, I might be able to return to writing novels.

Someday.

In 2011, after a perfect storm named Kindle hit the New York publishing industry like a tsunami,
someday
finally arrived.

As one of my favorite sayings goes, “If you haven’t reached Happily Ever After yet, you’re just not at the end of the story.”

The story of my New York publishing career ended in disaster—but the story of my indie publishing career is just getting started.

And I still believe in Happily Ever After.

Joys & Changes

After the way Dell blamed me for the epic sales fail, it was a special moment of joy when
Into the Sunset
became an RWA RITA Award Finalist for Best Historical Romance of the Year. That made me feel just a little bit vindicated.

To this day, I love this book. Despite everything I endured when it was first published, it’s always been one of my personal favorites. I know every plot twist and line of dialogue, yet the emotional impact of Lucas and Annie’s story still has the power to move me to tears.

When I started revising
After Sundown
for this new digital edition, I approached it with kid gloves because I didn’t want to tarnish any of its magic. I mainly focused on making the love scenes more satisfying, tinkering with some secondary characters—and thoroughly revising the final chapters, which had been dashed off and faxed in the first time around.

Another fix: because of the way Dell “crash published” the 1999 paperback, it was littered with typographical errors. My formatter and I fixed them all for this new edition.

Future Sequels

Sequels! Sequels!! Yes, I
am
planning sequels. I always intended this to be Book 1 of a series, and I have at least half a dozen Lawless Nights books in mind. Let’s see, we’ve got Dr. Daniel Holt. Mrs. Owens (What
is
that woman’s first name, anyway? I never did say. I’ll have to have a contest.) Deputy Travis Ballard and his sweetheart Valentina. Some (all?) of Lucas’s sisters. Gambler/rake/scoundrel Morgan O’Donnell. Annie’s long-lost brother Raphael Sutton. And Lucas’s team of deputy marshals.

Guess I’d better knock off all this chattering. I’ve got books to write!

Follow Me

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip behind the scenes of
After Sundown
. Be sure to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at
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Thanks so much for your support of my books.

Until next time, warmest wishes & happy reading,

Shelly

Reviewers use words like “exquisite” and “stunning” to describe Shelly Thacker’s unique blend of powerful emotion, edge-of-your-seat adventure and sizzling sensuality. Shelly’s historical romances have earned her a place on national bestseller lists and lavish praise from
Publishers Weekly
,
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, and
The Oakland Press
, who have called her books “innovative,” “addictive,” and “powerful.”

A two-time RWA RITA Finalist, Shelly has won numerous other honors for her novels, including a National Readers’ Choice Award, several
Romantic Times
Certificates of Excellence, and five straight KISS Awards for her outstanding heroes. The
Detroit Free Press
has twice placed her books on their annual list of the year’s best romances.

When she’s not at the computer, you’ll find Shelly reading with her kids, knitting in local cafes, or kickboxing at the gym. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and two daughters. To learn more, visit
www.shellythacker.com