I have entered into a publishing contract with Strang Communications.

The previous publisher’s model is what is called “Print On Demand.” They underwrote all costs for The Y Factor, but did not promote it with any marketing effort and limited their business to Internet sales. This type of publishing works best for authors who have the ability to self-promote, which requires a significant time investment. The most recent success story with this type of publishing is The Shack. In my case, I could not devote the necessary marketing time for a variety of reasons.

In contrast, Strang is a traditional publisher. They will print many copies and distribute the book nationally. More importantly, they will begin promoting it for the summer reading season.

Strang’s fiction division has an upper limit on the number of pages in their books, which means I will need to trim about 15,000 words from the current 135,000. This provides an opportunity that I have been wanting to explore. Much of the feedback I’ve received is that the technical and scientific segments of The Y Factor could be compressed. A comment I’ve often heard is that readers struggled through the first 75 pages, and then became interested in the book’s action. Marketing experts agree that you have to capture a reader’s attention by this time or many of them will never finish.

In this regard, Strang is underwriting the cost of a line editor who is providing expert direction. Ironically, we have trimmed most of the section that was the impetus for writing the novel in the first place.

Here’s why: I never imagined that I would write more than one book, so I tended to contrive scenes in The Y Factor in which I used my characters as mouthpieces for my worldview – sort of a Liam Roberts’ Manifesto. For the book to appeal to the mass market, it needed to be less heavy-handed.

I also have introduced a new character and written another out. Dr. Austin, the college professor who argued against the myth of macroevolution, is gone. This is an admittedly difficult topic to distill down to a few pages tucked into an adventure novel. Besides, there are more eloquent authors who posses the appropriate credentials to argue the topic more effectively. To bridge the gaps introduced by the re-write, I have introduced Hamdi Tantawi, an Egyptian Muslim who receives his BS in biology and goes to work for The National Geographic Society’s Genographic project. This is ultimately the reason for Alana and Eric to join the staff upon their graduation. Hamdi is a good friend to my protagonists and provides balance in my first book, which otherwise might be seen as Muslim-bashing.

But wait – there’s more! Months ago, I submitted my partially-completed manuscript for the sequel: The X Syndrome to Strang Communications. I also included provided synopses for two additional sequels The Genesis Paradox and Dawn of the Prophet.

The end result is the contract with Strang is actually for two-books. They would like the final manuscript for The X Syndrome submitted by August and will publish it by year-end.

Strang has also suggested a series title: The DNA Conspiracies. I liked the concept, but have suggested instead.

Here’s the tentative cover design. I’ll change the format of the blog to match the cover once the final design is approved.

In Him,
Liam Roberts