During my career I was fortunate to work in a spectrum of publishing-related fields. These ranged from clerking in a bookstore, to being a buyer for a wholesale distributor to bookstores, to being a marketer and project manager for a couple of East Coast publishers. In light of my extensive experience I believed myself well prepared to set foot upon the riskiest territory in publishing: becoming an author.

[Cue the scary movie organ music.]

This blog’s title is a timeworn publishing mantra, one meant to help neophytes keep a stiff upper lip in the face of the inevitable rejection and disappointment they will experience on the road to seeing their work in print. And, if they’re lucky, fame and fortune follow . . .

Another mantra counsels, “Write what you know about.” Suits me. For years the core of my pleasure reading has consisted of books on cultural and military history, in the genres of fiction and non-fiction. I believe this background prepped me to pen my novels “The Tower at Petite Vigne” (2010) and “Gettysburg 1913” (2016). These works drew on my deep knowledge of events of World War II and the American Civil War, respectively.

At this point neither novel has caught the attention of a literary agent, so all I can do is feel good about my projects. Will either of these books ever grace a bookstore shelf, or be on the amazon website? I wish I could say.

In the meantime, I am banging away at my third novel, whose plot might turn out to be unique enough to set the publishing world on fire. Stay tuned!