A Gamble Pays Off

Have you heard about this novel, The Lace Reader? It is some sort of supernatural mystery by first time author, Brunonia Barry. But it's not the novel that interests me - it is the story behind the novel. Apparently after she finished writing the book, Barry and her husband decided to self-publish instead of taking the traditional route and submitting it to publishers. Now I've heard stories about people self-publishing, I've even heard a few success stories - but nothing like this. Barry and her husband gambled big - they spent $50,000 of their own money putting this book together and promoting it. Reading between the lines it sounds to me like they worked hard - really hard - trying to get people to read this book. They went to bookstores, conventions, even got book clubs to read it and then listened to readers' feedback and made a few editorial changes. Their lucky break came when The Lace Reader got a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Then Hollywood pricked up its ears and soon after the big publishers were in a bidding war over the rights. Morrow won out by wooing Ms. Barry with a rumoured 2 million dollars, two book deal.

Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it? But to be fair, it sounds like the author took care of all the really important stuff first. Meaning she wrote a good story. From the reviews I've read it seems this is a hard-to-put-down sort of tale, with a great surprise twist near the end. It also seems that when the Barrys were promoting their self-published baby they sent it out to book bloggers. I wasn't sent the book, and I have no idea how big of a role bloggers played in getting the word out about this book, but it is an avenue of promotion that I don't think is being used as much as it could be by publishers, large and small. Maybe in the future. In the meantime, congratulations to Brunonia Barry!