Four years to write...and only months to get "shelved'

Recently, my novel Painting The Invisible Man was "turned down" for a review because it was "old"...meaning it came out in the fall of 2007.

This attitude is such a conundrum in publishing. A writer spends years creating a book; then the copyright date and the market determines its shelf life....It’s a crazy system, and one that works for the six major publishing houses only.

The fact of the matter, particular for small presses that do not have $50,000-$100,000 to spend on a national ad campaign, is that our back list is our lifeline. We can find new, untapped markets for our books years after the copyright date.