Way back in 2006 I began the process of trying to find a publisher for my book 35 Miles From Shore. It was a long and arduous process. I won’t waste time going through that process now, except to say that I collected a mountain of rejection letters. “Aviation books don’t sell,” was one common theme. Another common rejection had to do with the size of the potential market. “We just don’t see a market for this type of story.”
I had an agent. I had a second agent. I had an American publisher who expressed interest but ultimately passed. Then I got an offer. It was a publisher in Europe. They offered me 3,000 euros for world rights. Three thousand euros worked out to something like $2,500. By this time I had spent four times that amount and three-plus years working on the book. I turned them down. Thus began Odyssey Publishing.
Over the ensuing years, I have sold close to 20,000 copies of 35 Miles From Shore in one of three formats: eBook, print, and digital audio. I’m now in the third printing of the softcover version. That’s not earth-shattering by any means. A best-selling book from a major publisher will sell that many books in a day. But it is a good number for an independently published book. This leads me to the whole reason for this post. My only motivation for writing a book is to tell a story that hasn’t been told before and to reach as many people as possible. Over the years I have received emails from all over the world from people commenting on my book. Recently, I came across a post written in Portuguese. The post contained some fairly well-done animations. Having done some work with video and 3D animations, I can tell you that a lot of work goes into making those types of videos.
You can read that post here. The post is in Portuguese, but you can have it translated to English by using the built-in translator in your browser. I used the new Microsoft Edge browser. Below is a fourteen-minute-long video that summarises the ALM 980 story. You can’t keep a good story from finding an audience.
