Writers Fight the Odds

I was born in 1955 and toy factories were still stuttering back into normal production after the war when they'd been requisitioned to make things for the war effort. My Nanna searched London for a teddy bear when I was born and was so upset because she could not get a golden furry teddy only a dark brown bear with some sort of plush covering, I loved him dearly.

When I was a toddler Nanna found a beautiful panda bear and gave him to me in place of old brown teddy but I refused to look at the panda and held on tight to old brown teddy. He was a long-suffering bear and never minded being carried around by an ear, or being left out in the rain. He was my first friend and he was not very good looking but he was very good for hugging.

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It has just occurred to me: Publishers are ostensibly in the game to make money, but increasingly they seem to be propelled by less than economic motives.

I remember when my first major book came out, Project Seek: Onassis, Kennedy and the Gemstone Thesis,in 1994. It took years just to get the first run sold, and it still is a hard sell despite being an outstanding book in its field -- perhaps the best-ever written on the Gemstone File conspiracy theory.

Yet, that's the way of many good books. They get lost in the flurry. It's kind of strange that Sen. Ted Kennedy will appear on "The Daily Show" as he did (April 20), plugging his book which was released in 2004.

But the reason Kennedy is out there now is that his book did not sell in 2004 because Bush was swept back into power. Now that Bush has been proven to be a fraud, it's time for Kennedy to make his move again and for his publishing company to bankroll another book tour.

It's all timing, brother. All timing.

So keep those blogs coming. Someday your blog collection will be combined into an excellent, readable essay collection that will be published and be a super best-seller.

Not!

Project Seek: Onassis, Kennedy and the Gemstone Thesis

There’s More Where This Came From

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