In 2004, I wrote The Second Great Depression. No major publisher or book agent was interested, despite my having published two earlier books with a major publisher. The reason they gave was that I was not an economist and I was predicting something radical. So I investigated POD publishing, choosing BookLocker because of their positive reputation and because they were selective in what they published.

Once the book was published and listed on the web booksellers’ sites, I needed some means to let people know that it was there and to spike their interest. Amazon.com had a program by which you could “couple” your book with another book that was selling well, such that the buyer of both would get a 5% discount. Although the program was expensive (over $1000), I did it twice with the intent of getting several hundred “seed” books out into the marketplace. One of the books got noticed by a popular website that regularly interviewed authors with books related to the economy. The resultant interview triggered a large amount of sales. Over the next several years, I had additional interviews, including on an NPR station. I also set up a blog on the Amazon book site. My sales rose to over 6,000 books.

I was working on a separate book with John Wiley & Sons and mentioned that I was thinking of again approaching major publishers with my depression book. Within two weeks, I had a publishing contract with John Wiley, and they will be publishing a new version, titled The Great Depression of Debt.

BookLocker has assisted in this transition, which included ceasing the publication of the POD book. But BookLocker is still publishing my illustrated children’s book, Laoch, the Guide Dog Puppy. So, hopefully, our very positive relationship will continue for a long time!

Warren Brussee spent 33 years at GE as an engineer, plant manager, and engineering manager. He earned his engineering degree at Cleveland State University and attended Kent State towards his EMBA. The author has written two other books, Statistics for SIX SIGMA Made Easy and All About Six Sigma.