On Sept. 29, 2008, Dr. Timothy Mayers of the English Department was sent an e-mail informing him that his novel, Intelligence Manifesto, bested a field of 80 to win the 2008 Paradigm Novel Contest – and on Feb. 5, 2009, the contest sponsor and publishing company responsible for publishing Mayers’ book, Rain Farm Press, sent him another e-mail.
This time, this e-mail informed Mayers of something else. “Rain Farm Press told me, ‘We were hit hard last summer by plummeting sales and the sad truth that no one will pay advertising dollars to a small publisher,’” Mayers said.
The publisher also informed Mayers that, “This is a letter that I do not want to write. In fact me sending this puts the final nail in the coffin for our company.”
The print publishing company suffered its first downfall after several financial backers pulled their investments when the national state of the economy began its own downfall.
Even after this, though, Mayers was informed that other financial backers were found and that the steps to publish Intelligence Manifesto were still being taken.
“I had gotten some clue that there might be some things going wrong because it would sometimes take them a while to get back to me, and I would sometimes send a series of questions and they might only answer one of them,” said Mayers.
Rain Farm Press had begun selecting cover art for Mayers’ novel, choosing blurbs for the back of the novel, and had registered an ISBN number for his novel. They had also told Mayers that the book would have its own website.
“They had put together a printed proof of the book. When that happens that is usually pretty close. I know from my scholarly book, that is one of the final stages,” said Mayers. Intelligence Manifesto was in the final stages of being published to prepare for their goal of publication in May, prior to Rain Farm Press’s financial downturn.
The publication company did not give Mayers substantial assistance in finding another publisher, though they did help him get in touch with the judge from the Paradigm Novel Contest, Raymond Benson, best know, for the novels he wrote in the James Bond series.
“His own literary agent is trying to convince him to write a non-fiction book because novels are so hard to sell,” said Mayers of Benson. Mayers sought the council of Benson in order to sculpt out the next steps for the Intelligence Manifesto.
Benson has reiterated to Mayers the hardships that many fiction authors are facing with publishing their works because of the current state of the economy.
“He suggested that I might want to go to a writers conference in New York in July. If you sign up for it, there is a session where there will be a room full of agents and prospective authors can pitch their work, I may do that; we’ll see,” said Mayers.
Benson gave Mayers some hints and recommendations about what to avoid while looking for a publisher. Benson recommended Mayers avoid self-publishing avenues, for numerous reasons.
With self-publishing, “I think the problem you run into as an author is that you are completely responsible for advertising and distributing it,” said Mayers. “I think too that there is probably a still something of a stigma against people who do something like that, like you didn’t really get it published in a traditional way.”
Mayers plans to begin working on the sequel to Intelligence Manifesto not only because he wants to, but also because a sequel may stimulate interest to prospective publishers.
Mayers also thinks that after the sequel is generated, the Intelligence Manifesto may be able to become a longer book, including the sequel in the original text, depending on what the future publishers decide.
Mayers also plans on changing a few aspects of the novel before pitching it to any major publishing companies. “I want to throw an extra wrinkle in, and that wrinkle will play out into the sequel,” said Mayers.
The changes Mayers is planning to make will be possible because of the delayed publication, despite how disappointing the financial situation of the publisher is.
“I had thought about it and I decided against making those changes at that moment, I don’t think they are absolutely essential to the story; it was just something I wanted to do, and I took a hard look at it. Is it worth the effort and possibly delaying the publication for these changes? And I thought no, but now that its publication is not imminent, I can go back and work a couple of these changes.” said Mayers.
Although Mayers was looking forward to holding the first printed copy of his book in his hands this May, he will continue to look for a publisher for Intelligence Manifesto.
“Its not through any fault of my own that this isn’t going to be published, so it’s just a matter of trying again,” said Mayers.
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