publishing

Dwight Eisenhower was a distant relative of mine by marriage. His brother, Roy, married Edna Shade who was related to the Eckhoff family. My mother’s mother was an Eckhoff. I have been collecting material about ‘Ike’ for about 40 years and finally published an article in a peer-reviewed journal, Kansas History, on his religious upbringing. My article was given the Edgar Langsdorf Award for superior writing, as determined by a panel of judges appointed by the Kansas Historical Foundation.

I am occasionally asked about publishing by someone who would like to publish a manuscript they authored. Since I now have published 60 books, sales totaling 80,000 copies, I have some experience in the process. It is often assumed that authors send manuscripts to potential publishers, then wait for an answer. Few publishers even bother to answer these inquiries. The fact is, less than one percent of all submitted manuscripts are ever published. Publishers today are swamped with submissions, so have become very selective.