Tiny Giants by Erik Quisling

I got a phone call at work yesterday afternoon.

“Good afternoon, Shen’s Books.”

“Hello. May I speak to Renee please?”

“Speaking.”

“Hello Renee, my name is Erik Quisling…”

“Oh! Hi!”

“…I’m the author of The Angry Clam…”

“Yes! I know!”

I was so excited I barely let him get a word in. After I calmed down, I got the story: he had googled himself (a perfectly ordinary thing to do these days), found my blog, and then Shen’s Books, and subsequently, my phone number. He thanked me for the very nice things I said about his book. Then he explained that he had written two more books to go along with The Angry Clam, and he had gotten the rights back for it after it went out of print. So he has now republished all three as a trilogy in a boxed set called Tiny Giants, and has decided to publish and distribute it himself.

The set includes the three titles. The first is, of course, The Angry Clam, about an angry clam. The second is Grant’s Tomb, featuring a worm who lives in, um, Grant’s tomb. The third is Adventures of Glen in My Stone Garden, about an ant. Together they represent the greatest triumvirate of invertebrates in history.

The reason for his call was to see if, as a publisher, I would be able to give him any advice on how to widen the distribution of Tiny Giants. I was thrilled to help in any way I could, which turned out to be not much, I think. He had already tried most of my suggestions for distributors to approach. I mentioned a few trade organizations that might be of help, and publisher consultants. I feel bad that I couldn’t do more, but it seemed like he already had a pretty good handle on publishing basics, and he just needed to find a distributor that believed in the product, or a market that did.

I was going to ask if I could buy a copy right then, but he beat me to it and very generously offered to send me one. Signed and everything! I can’t wait to see it. But for those of you who were interested in purchasing one, try Amazon, and if that doesn’t work, email me, because I can get in touch with the author directly. We’re tight like that.

Tiny Giants by Erik Quisling

Tags: books angry+clam invertabrates publishing+distribution Erik+Quisling