ROCKY’S ROAD IS AUTHORING A BOOK

I’ve been writing stories for Jefferson61 for several years. In February of this year, I was encouraged by Lynnette Bohlander to author a book using all of my stories. I was somewhat overwhelmed as I started looking into the publishing of a book.

With all the stories I have completed over the years I thought that I could put together a manuscript to forward to some publisher just to see what they had to say.

I found a publisher in Pittsburgh, PA. The Dorrance Publishing Company has been in business for nearly 100 years. So off went my manuscript which I thought it might be sent right back to me. So then what?

I waited two weeks to get a letter which came from the President of Dorrance Publishing Company. He said in his letter that they have 2,300 titles and they want me to be part of their company after they reviewed my manuscript. Wow! How did all of this happen?

He even titled the book: “Rocky’s Road: Stories of 30-Plus Years in the Northwest Drag Racing”. I certainly couldn’t turn him down.

So I signed the contact in February and away we went. The book takes

170 days to complete with 200 pages, 45 chapters and about 100 photos. October is when the book will be completed.

As I understand it, some authors send out many manuscripts and some of them get pushed aside and left behind. How in the world did I get my manuscript approved, when so many other authors send out manuscripts and then don’t get any answer what so ever? He just knew that I was a Jefferson grad (chuckle).

After the book was accepted, the publisher put me to work finding pictures and getting permission to use them in my book. I learned a lot about how to send big files on a computer, something I didn’t enjoy a lot. At the same time, the editors at Dorrance went to work on the manuscript.

My 30-plus years in the Northwest Drag Racing was mostly about marketing and promoting the events. So right away I put together listings for radio (4), television (8) and newspapers (11) in Oregon, Washington and Idaho for my book. This book should fit well through those areas in the Northwest.

Dorrance Publishing markets world-wide and has agreements and strategic partnerships with Google, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and many more. They will want to do signings throughout the Northwest at major book stores that they deal with.

It’s possible some signings could take place in Portland. And, of course, we could have Ken Roberts keep the Jefferson folks aware for the location and the schedule. Maybe I’ll get to see you.

Dorrance Publishing will complete the books in a few months and I will let every one know when I have an actual release date.  

Thanks to all of the readers of Rocky’s Road at the Jefferson61 website over all of these years. I really appreciated the encouraging remarks that I received.

Gratefully,

Jim Rockstad, Jefferson61