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Finishing the novel hardly the end of the process
By Steve Arney
sarney@pantagraph.com

Robert D. Sutherland stands near mounted illustrations at his home in Normal. The illustrations were used for his first novel, 'Sticklewort and Feverfew.' (Pantagraph/CARLOS T. MIRANDA)
You think you have a novel in you, and you indeed might. Robert D. Sutherland had one in him -- two now, and he's not done writing, although he's thinking of working on short stories in the future for more immediate closure.

You might have a novel in you, but you may not have the patience, endurance, willingness to research and fortitude to continue after rejections -- all required in putting a book into the market.

As it happens, Bob Sutherland has the staying power.

Copies of his novel, "The Farringford Cadenza," arrived from the press at the end of June and the book gets released, officially, this month.

About the book

It is a mystery, but it also is a parody of mystery. It is clever, not slapstick; think "Monty Python," with Brits deadpanning through absurd situations, rather than Americans making self-conscious jokes on "Saturday Night Live."

The plot revolves around the work of composer/pianist Charles Philip Farringford. A cadenza is a soloist's interlude within a classical piece, and Farringford's cadenza is a six-minute solo for a soon-to-be published work. It moved all who heard it -- so sensual that one listener was cured of impotence.

Farringford died in 1947. The manuscript was recovered from his belongings, minus the cadenza. The piece was published regardless, with the cadenza left blank so composers had to ad lib this portion. (The impotence returned upon news of the theft.)

The cadenza is found in present time, at Page 8, which in the book is 1981, but it goes missing again. Into the action arrives a private investigator with no vowels in her last name, N.F. Trntl.

About the publishing process

It is dizzying.

The book in its various revisions and forms has been in Sutherland's mind and on paper and on disc since he was 49 years old. He's 69 now. He describes himself as a slow, careful writer, but he also had other occupations and preoccupations along the way.

He taught English at Illinois State University until 1992.

He has been active in peace movements and anti-establishment activism -- all legal, he insisted, but generating enough interest for 500 pages worth of FBI files. He has the majority of the FBI material as proof.

Sutherland also was chief editor and prime mover behind a national publication called the Pikestaff Forum, from its creation in 1979 until 1996, when the work stopped being fun and Sutherland and co-creator Jim Scrimgeour folded it. The 40-page tabloid had come out yearly, or thereabouts. It was a collection of poems, reviews, short stories and youth writings.

Sutherland and Scrimgeour shared the duty of selecting and rejecting; Sutherland said he sometimes rejected the work of his own friends and colleagues. He made it a practice -- and continued it almost to the end of the Forum -- to provide feedback to the submissions.

He didn't provide a form letter stating that the work wasn't what they were looking for at the time. Rather, he provided a personal letter to the writer with a specific commentary on the submission. He estimates that the Pikestaff Forum published seven-tenths of 1 percent of what was submitted.

That's 99.3 percent rejections.

Sutherland knows something about novel publishing, too. It's full of rejections.

"You just take it in stride," he said casually. "You assume lightning isn't going to strike. You assume it's a tough world out there and the competition is great."

It's tougher still in recent years, said Sutherland, because, while there are still some 1,000 independent, small presses, the majors have consolidated into a handful of companies, and these companies are risk-averse, swarmed with submissions and extremely concerned about profit.

But lightning does strike. "Farringford" had hit potential, the professor believed. Sutherland believed a major publisher could pick it up, promote it and produce brisk sales.

"So, I sent query letters off to the big house publishers. ... And I got rejected again and again on the basis of the query letter. Nobody ever saw the manuscript."

He persisted.

"So then I said, 'Well, maybe we need to have an agent.' My friend here in town, Jared Brown, is a playwright and he writes biographies. He has an agent and he suggested, 'Maybe you should get an agent.' So, I said OK. I've never had an agent."

Sutherland identified 30 agents he thought would be well-suited for and receptive to "The Farringford Cadenza."

"They all rejected me on the basis of the query letter. They never saw the manuscript."

"They would say things like, 'This isn't the kind of book I think we could push.' 'Maybe you should try someone else.' 'Blah, blah, blah, blah.'"

Sutherland's first novel was published in 1981. "Sticklewort and Feverfew" was a book that children, teens and adults could enjoy on different levels. It was illustrated with his own drawings and won the 1981 Juvenile Book Merit Award. It remains in print.

Sutherland said he feels humbled that people read this book, reread it years later, read it as a child and read it to their own children. But he also said it is a "masterpiece."

"Sticklewort and Feverfew" was published through Pikestaff Press, an imprint of Pikestaff Publications. Headquartered in Sutherland's house in Normal, Pikestaff has published other books, primarily poetry, but does less than one title a year.

After a year of shopping "Farringford," Sutherland brought that novel home, too.

"After a while I said, 'Why don't we publish it ourselves?'"

That was a year ago, when the drive toward publication really heated up.

Sutherland is one of three directors of Pikestaff, a not-for-profit corporation. He has a contract with the company in which he assumed the risk and the upfront printing cost, and Pikestaff makes a commission on sales.

Not exactly the big advances you hear about for celebrity books. But then, those advances can be overrated. If it's an advance based on sales, Sutherland said, a writer whose book flat-lines will be asked to return his advance.

"That's awkward if you've bought a car or a house with it."

But advance or not, big publishing houses have this huge advantage: Distribution contracts and money for promotions. There, too, there are limits, Sutherland said, and being published by a major house is no guarantee of being well-promoted and well-served by it.

Start with the cover. That's up to the publisher.

Sutherland designed his own: a collage of the Washington Monument in Baltimore, a blood-spattered music manuscript and a piano.

Left to others, the cover might turn out well, or it could be awful.

There also is the ordering and distribution. Sutherland ordered 2,000 copies on the first run. Most are stored in a warehouse in Michigan and the distributor will handle orders of five or more. Sutherland himself must ship single copies. He can have more printed as -- or if -- needed.

And then there is his ability to promote. The writer generally is left to promote himself when published by small presses, but he isn't restricted to the conventional methods of the major publishing houses, said Sutherland.

Sutherland is niche-minded in a nichey world.

He obtained blurbs of praise for the back cover from a critic, famous colleagues and two concert pianists and the former principal flutist from the London Symphony Orchestra.

Sutherland has printed postcards promoting "The Farringford Cadenza" and these get circulated generally but also in a targeted method.

Think of all the music schools. Think of all the music faculty members.

He intends to send personalized letters, plus a postcard, which can be used to order the book, to scores of faculty members he selected while sifting through the biography pages of music conservatories.

If some of the teachers read the book and like it, more will read it. There's a buzz about a good novel, said Sutherland, and classical musicians comprise a fairly small and familiar population.

For general audience, he's hoping book reviews gain reader attention. That meant sending review copies to publications specializing in books reviews and to major newspapers.

His other niche: Mystery.

It's common knowledge that the small, independent bookstores are a shrinking bunch. Hurting the cause, said Sutherland, are discounts and specials given to major chains by the major book publishers. He feels so strongly about the issue that he arranged for "The Farringford Cadenza" to be stocked in uptown Normal at Babbitt's Bookstore but never bothered to talk to Borders and Barnes & Noble. (If the chain stores want to order the book, he said, he'll sell it to them.)

Within this shrinking market of independent sellers, there is a niche -- a niche within a niche. Scattered throughout the states are roughly 60 specialized mystery bookstores. All get a free copy of "The Farringford Cadenza."

These mystery-heavy bookstores are the kinds of stores where seller and customer connect. Owner/employees know customers. The stores have Web sites and staff recommendation lists. The readers have book groups and they engage in lots of talk about new mystery books.

In short, Sutherland intends to create buzz for "The Farringford Cadenza" through this patchwork of mystery readers.

And in the end, maybe this novel and, in this situation, its author, will break even. Sutherland thinks he'll make a little money.

That's the way of novel writing in the 21st century. Almost no one, said the retired professor, begins to try to make a full-time living from it. There are other motives.

"There's an imperative you feel," said Sutherland of his motive. "You have something to say. You hope people appreciate it."

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Take a look
'The Farringford Cadenza' is a mystery as well as a parody of mystery. Sutherland considers its catchy rhythmic title to be cliché, which is why he chose it. (Pantagraph/CARLOS T. MIRANDA)
Sutherland in his living room: This is the corporate headquarters of the not-for-profit Pikestaff Press. (Pantagraph/CARLOS T. MIRANDA)
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