Traditional publishing houses don't always get it right when it comes to spotting potential winners.
Nowadays they operate under considerable pressure with profit margins cut to the bone as major retailers, online and offline act more and more like supermarkets in their demands.
As a result, mainstream publishers tend only to accept proposals on what they reckon will sell in big numbers.
I was a victim of this policy myself.
Despite acquiring bestseller status with my first 2 books on the topic of retirement ('Your Retirement Masterplan' and 'Earn Money in Retirement') I came unstuck with the third entry.
'Maximising Mindpower to Enrich Your Retirement' (ISBN: 1933817364 EAN: 9781933817361) was turned down flat on the basis that it did not fit in with the publisher's profile (whatever that means...).
As I was of the opinion that this was the best book I'd ever written, I decided to have it published privately which I did in August 2007.
Amazingly, just three months late and with no promotion on my part, it would appear to be attracting inordinate attention online and is currently featuring prominently on 1000s of websites including Amazon, Google Books, The Reading Warehouse, and a miscellany of major and minor online booksellers.
Despite the fact the book is not stocked by offline booksellers, sales are starting to flood in - and I do mean 'flood'...
The moral of this delightful situation: if you have written a book of any description which you are convinced other people will want to read but haven't yet found a publisher who agrees - do it yourself. With the ever-growing incidence of POD (print on demand) the costs are negligible.
After all, DIY did John Grisham no harm; the sole vehicle of distribution for his first book was the boot of a car.
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