Sonkrai publication postponed A brief update on The Sonkrai Tribunal. The publisher has told me that they have decided to postpone publication to sometime early in 2007.

As the publisher said in an e-mail,

we have a very heavy military publishing program already committed for the rest of the year. The market for military books can only support a limited number of titles in any set period and we feel we are at the limit for the rest of this year.

We do not, as a matter of policy, publish military titles between October and January.

Now that's what I have heard from other authors, military history doesn't do well at Christmas. Apparently as one author told me, Aunt Martha doesn't want to give a depressing war book as a Christmas present.

I have mixed feelings about this. As I have said on this blog before, writing the book was a struggle, since the small advance wasn't enough to take time off and concentrate on the writing. And so the project took a lot longer than I thought it would,and the manuscript ended up being a year late.

On the other hand, from my point of view as a journalist, publishing in September 2006, the 60th anniversary of the trial was the ideal news peg to interest reporters, editors and producers.

The question is who is right? The marketers with their spreadsheets or the the journalist who is also looking for a peg for a story? We'll never know, but as all authors do know the bookstore chains rule and the book buyers go by the computer formula because it always safer for thier jobs. 

10:43 PM posted by Robin Rowland  
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