Larry Andrews’ Book, “A Space Oddity” (Offsite at Mary & Joseph Retreat Center)
Our Club’s newest novelist, Larry Andrews, is an engineer and aerospace consultant. He loves to read novelists including Tom Clancy, James Michener, Noel Barber, John Grisham and Patricia Cornwell. He likes people, traveling and cultures, and describes himself as emotional, romantic, and with a vivid imagination. He decided to write a novel based on his experiences and places he’s been.
He described the process of organizing a novel, including collection of scenes, outline of characters and environment, protagonists, and situations, and the benefit of belonging to a writing group (there are several in Palos Verdes) where actual and potential authors share their work with each other for ideas and critiques.
Based on his aerospace work, his novel, “A Space Oddity”, features a female French cosmonaut (Babette) and Russian male cosmonaut (Misha) marooned together for 3 weeks in a disabled MIR orbiter until they could be rescued. There is passion, deception, intrigue, and testing a forbidden relationship.
He reviewed the production process, which includes editing, choosing a title (which the publisher may wish to change), recruiting a cover designer, page layout design, acknowledgments, dedication, back cover bio, and PDF proofs. Although authors can self-publish, selling the books goes better with finding a publisher. Some publishers want an author’s agent first. (He answered 36 query letters from publishers on his book concept.)
Then comes the marketing process. It started with his publisher (Tate), distributor (Ingram), buyers (Costco and Barnes & Noble), and then promotion to consumers by a website, Facebook, press release, and book signings (which are often scheduled and publicized by the publisher). He brings an extra supply of books to each signing to avoid running out of the bookstore’s supply.
To climax his presentation, he brought out copies of his book after our meeting and personally signed them to willing Club members for $15 each. Today is his official publication day. Congratulations!