by Chevy Alden
Review by Tom Hamilton
The field of aviation continually
supplies writers with enough good material to create thousands upon thousands
of unique aeronautical books. In today's competitive publishing world, however,
most aviation books will never make it to print. How To Write, Publish
& Sell Your Own Aviation Books is a 376-page, self-help manual by
award-winning author Chevy Alden that describes in detail how aviation writers
can successfully break through this publishing barrier.
Walter J. Boyne, a New York Times bestselling author and former director of the National Air and Space Museum, addresses this publishing barrier in his foreword to the book. Boyne writes, "The average person's difficulty in getting published lies in the arcane world of editors, publishers and agents, who all prefer to turn to already published authors. Many of them do not have the background to recognize good aviation material when they see it."
Chevy Alden assists struggling aviation writers by revealing numerous tips on writing, editing, publishing, promoting and marketing books. His easy-to-understand text is enriched with more than 130 photos, figures, illustrations, documents, publishing forms and sample letters, plus an excerpt from his action novel Black Falcon, a thrilling tale about aerial drug smuggling aboard tramp airfreighters.
The only shortcoming of the book is the author hasn't discovered the evolving world of printing on-demand books. This new technology promises to reduce the financial risk in self-publishing by eliminating the need to print large quantities and hold inventory. Instead books are printed as they are sold, right at home. It does require additional capital investment and skills by the self-publisher, but reduces the financial risk of printing large quantities of books to get a good price.
How To Write, Publish & Sell Your Own Aviation Books is available for $23.95 postpaid from Tri-Pacer Press, PO Box 840111, Pembroke Pines, FL 33084-2111.
