The Author Guy Blog by Larry B. Gildersleeve

 21 June 2024

Hello out there,

Welcome back. As I’ve written about previously, in December of last year I signed two-book contract, exclusive in nature with grant of right-of-first refusal on all future manuscripts, with a noted publisher aligned with the powerhouse Simon & Schuster. A brief update on where we are.

I agreed without hesitation to the publisher’s request to re-publish and re-release my award-winning Blue by You novel that was first released as a self-published book in 2022. I worked for several months with a wonderful Toronto-based editor going word-by-word, line-by-line, to elevate what I (and others) believed was a very good book into a great manuscript. We’ve moved through the first two stages – developmental review and line edit, and we’re close to finishing the copy/detail edit process. From there, we move to cover design before the book actually goes into production and is placed in the hands of Simon & Schuster worldclass marketing and sales professionals. The initial print-run commitment is 2,000 copies.

The not-so-rough draft of my fifth manuscript, a book entitled For the Love of Charley Chaplain, will soon enter the developmental review process ahead of an anticipated early 2025 release. My goal is to have my sixth manuscript submitted to the publisher before year-end, with the hope, dare I say expectation, that they will affirmatively assert their right to publish it. 

It’s been said success is a journey, not a destination. Whether or not I become an outsized commercial success in the publishing world is decidedly secondary to the pure joy I experience on a daily basis as I move along my author journey.

Until next week … Vaya con Dios

Larry B. Gildersleeve

Location: Bowling Green, KY, USA

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