When we lived in northeast Kansas, I coached scholastic chess
from 1993 to 2000. My son was the trigger for that. We lived in a small town of
about 1,100 people, yet we had a Saturday chess club of about 8 to 10 players.
The players eventually became strong enough that the team won 2nd
place at the Kansas State Championship tournament . . . twice. They beat out teams
from much larger schools from cities like Kansas City, KS, Wichita, Topeka, and
Lawrence. When we moved to Iowa in 2000 due to the Quaker Oats plant in St.
Joseph, MO closing, and I transferred to Cedar Rapids, my son was going into
the 10th grade. We didn’t continue with chess because at that time,
there were very few scholastic tournaments in Iowa. I only played in a few
tournaments myself. I’m back to coaching and have been coaching since 2009,
inspired to return to it by writing the chess book (below).
In early 2009, my wife told me I should write a book
about coaching chess so people could learn from my successful coaching experiences.
That was very exciting and I started writing it on February 1, 2009. My
original intent was to write a book about how to coach a scholastic chess club,
but not to get mired down in having a section on how to teach players the game.
It wasn’t long before I realized you couldn’t have one without the other.
I used the same Excel spreadsheet template I’d used for
the two novels, with some changes, of course, since this was nonfiction. Worked
great, though. While working on the book, I was also researching how you “pitch”
a non-fiction book. The process is quite different from a novel. For a novel,
it’s a gigantic no-no to try to land an agent without first finishing the book.
For non-fiction, the reverse is the norm. You pitch the book with a three
chapter sample, an outline, and where the book will fit in the market. Sort of
like what makes your book so special?
Somewhere along the line, I’d also started researching
self-publishing. At that time, self-publishing, also known these days as indie (independent)
publishing, was still carrying a stigma that the writer was “not good enough”
for the traditional publishers. I think a large part of this was due to two
things: 1) people thought it was the same thing as “vanity” publishing, which
it most certainly is NOT. More on this in a second. And 2) Few people believed
the quality of the self-published books was very good. Back to vanity publishing:
this is where YOU pay a company to publish your book. They offer “services”
like editing and book covers, but you pay them for each service including the
actual printing. You typically have to order quite a few copies of the book. As
a general rule, self-published writers take the position that we should never
pay someone to publish our books. Paying someone to edit our books and / or to
create our covers is okay and is considered a cost of our publishing the book.
Back to the chess book, which ended up having the rather
lengthy title of Chess Handbook for Parents
and Coaches. Those were the two target audiences. The first half of the
book helps a person teach a student (or child) how to play the game. It’s based
on how I taught many kids to play. It includes the benefits of playing chess. The
second half of the book is about the world of chess: the United States Chess
Federation (USCF), famous players, world champions, how to start and run a scholastic
chess club, how to prepare for a tournament, and what actually happens at a
tournament. How to help players during a tournament, but not during a game, which
is expressly forbidden by the rules of chess.
I finished the book and used Amazon’s CreateSpace to publish
the paperback in early August, 2010. I had done it! I had published a book.
Whoo hoo! I really didn’t do any marketing and I sold a few books a month for
some time. I contacted the USCF, which has a great online store (www.uscfsales.com) for all things chess,
and they agreed to buy six books on consignment. If they sold, then they would
reorder. I’m happy to say I get orders from them every year. I also sell to www.wholsesalechess.com every year.
Meanwhile back at the ranch . . . I figured if I couldn’t
land an agent for Operation Devil’s Fire,
why not publish it myself? I finally did that for the paperback in July the
next year, on 7/11/11. Again I sold a few a month, sometimes only one.
Sometimes only zero. I also had
figured out how to publish for Kindle and did that a few weeks later (7/23/11).
I did absolutely no research on Kindle pricing for WWII books, so I just picked
$4.95, thinking that was an okay price. It sold just as many as the paperback,
sometimes zero.
This disheartening lack of sales continued into January,
2012, when it finally occurred to me that maybe I should see how much other
Kindle WWII novels were actually selling for. Well, that turned out to be both
a smart thing to do and an embarrassing thing (that I hadn’t done it back in July!).
Almost all of the WWII novels were selling for $0.99. Less than a dollar. I didn’t
even have to think about it, I mean what did I have to lose? Zero x $4.95 was
still zero. So I changed the price and let it go.
It sold a few in February and March, and a few more in
April (remember, this is 2012). Then in May it sold more than a few. I got
excited, but figured it was due to Memorial Day coming up. But sales kept
climbing into June. Then July shot through the roof. Then August through November
all doubled July. The book was in two categories. All 9 books are in the same ones:
War and Military. Operation Devil’s Fire’s
ranking peaked at #7 in the War category, and somewhere around #1,300 in Paid
in Kindle Store!
I could hardly believe my good fortune. A book turned
down by 50 agents was selling! I was getting good reviews and very kind
emails from readers, some of whom shared their personal stories about WWII such
as their family members who served.
During June, 2012, when the numbers per day were really
climbing, my wife and I started a nightly tradition: just before bedtime, I
would check the total sales for the day (and yes, I used Excel, and still do,
to track these numbers) and give her the number. We’d stare at each other in disbelief
and then grin. I felt then, and still do now, very humbled by the success of
the books and grateful for readers’ support.
In July, 2012, I decided to shelve a modern-day thriller
I’d been working on because of what was happening with Operation Devil’s Fire. I still really like that story, and may
someday finish and publish it. Anyway, I started writing Behind German Lines in August, which I finished on June 23, 2013,
so a little less than a year. It was published on October 25th.
So that’s my writing story. Not all glorious, but I
learned what to do, when to do it, became a disciplined writer, and wrote books
that I loved writing for readers who enjoyed them. I had perhaps tripped and
fallen into my niche, WWII novels. And I was thrilled because I love WWII
history and I’ve shown you how that came to be in earlier posts.
Here’s a list of all my books, the date each was
published, and how many calendar days elapsed between publication dates.
* Remember, I started writing the book on 1/4/2004, so it
actually took 7.6 years to get it published.
** I retired from
my day job on this date! Note that the frequency really jumped after that. My
goal had been to hit three per year and I’ve done that.
I’ll be forever
grateful to my wife for suggesting I write the chess book. With that idea, she is
responsible for everything that came to pass with the Sgt. Dunn Novels. She
also provides me with encouragement for each book, as well as being an editor.
I hope you
enjoyed a little peek into my writing life. If you’re a reader of the Sgt. Dunn
Novels, please accept my heartfelt thanks for your support! If you’re a writer,
I hope you can draw some inspiration to persevere, and learn from some of the
things I did.
The main thing
is be disciplined. This means writing every day. This means writing when you don’t
feel like it. This means write what you love.
Thanks for
stopping by!
