Julie H. Ferguson is an author, travel writer and photographer. She has an abiding interest in Canadian submarines. I recently interviewed her; here is part 1:
It’s pretty common for authors to
find cartons of unsold copies in their basements or their publisher’s
warehouse. I take it you had the opposite problem with “Through a Canadian
Periscope”?
Periscope sold two thirds of its print run in the first three months, and was
out of print a couple years later. I attributed this to the book being selected
for Books for Everyone just before
Christmas 1995 — no social network or Internet campaigns in that era, just
personal appearances on national radio and lots of positive reviews in the
print media. I didn’t have a website until late-1996. How times have changed!
Who put on pressure for the
second, updated edition, which just came out in March this year? Was it from
your end, or from your publisher?
It
was a joint endeavour — I’m fortunate to be close to my publisher, Kirk Howard,
of Dundurn and also have had an ongoing relationship with the VP Sales and
Marketing since 1993. Dundurn had published two other books of mine in 2006 and
2009, so I just told them about the submarine centenary over dinner one night.
This is the huge advantage of building a strong and long relationship with your
publisher and staff.
Were you anxious to do an update,
in order to discuss the acquisition of the Victoria-class submarines and recent
developments?
I
was more eager to celebrate the submarine centenary in the only way that I
could contribute. It was more that, than a desire to update Periscope. After all, I had another submarine book, Deeply
Canadian, that detailed the acquisition
of the Victorias after a ten day visit with the RN Upholder Sales Team in the
UK. All I had to do was to discuss the activation, operational and maintenance
processes with the RCN Submarine Force to get the books current. One benefit of
second editions, however, is the ability to correct a few mistakes that became
known after publication and another is the opportunity to restore the old
images and add new ones.
What were the challenges in
putting out the second edition?
None
for Periscope. Also as all rights to Deeply Canadian had reverted back to me, I was free to make
the changes to that book and publish it electronically using Kindle Direct
Publishing, which I know how to do.
How have sales been?
Periscope: Don’t know until I sit down with the team at the end of June, and
really we won’t know the details until after the centennial Submarine Week in
August.
Deeply: I had 300 downloads of the digital second edition over Easter following
a giveaway on Amazon and a huge promotion campaign on social media. I expected
about 50 copies max, so was thrilled. This also caused a spike in Periscope
sales apparently, but I don’t know the
figures.
That
was precisely my intention.
As
an aside, this campaign also directly garnered invitations to do signings, media
interviews, and presentations from the promotion of Deeply. A good result all round.
Julie Ferguson blogs at http://beaconlit.blogspot.com and is on Facebook, www.facebook.com/beaconliteraryservices. Her books are available on Amazon.ca.
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