AUTHOR WILLIAM MANCHEE
A JOURNEY ACROSS AMERICA
Shortly after Manchee was published by a small Canadian press
he realized, much to his dismay, that his publisher would be doing very little
to promote his book. But by this time he had realized that writing was his true
passion in life and had no intention of letting anything get in the way of
success.
He immediately began researching and experimenting with various
marketing techniques. It wasn't long before he learned a reality of the publishing
industry--the major presses had a lock on the distribution system and it was extremely
difficult for an author from a small press to get their titles into the bookstores. In
fact, the only sure way it seemed was to have the author do a
signing at their store. If they agreed, they would buy books, and hopefully, keep them in
stock after the signing was over.
This certainly wasn't what Manchee expected when he set out to write
the "the great American novel. "I was very naive. I thought when my book was
published it would automatically end up in the bookstores, airports and the local grocery
store," he laughs. "What a joke that turned out to be. Anyway, I finally
accepted the fact that I was going to have lots of signings--and I mean lots, literally
hundreds of signings to get my novels out there were people could find them."
Manchee set a goal of traveling to every state of the Union to promote
his novel. His wife Janet travels with him. "I couldn't have done it without Janet's
support. She's a great traveling companion.
