For the Smith family, life was good. John, most known to R-J readers as Nevada’s best-read newspaper columnist, and wife Tricia, were the parents of a beautiful little girl, Amelia, then eight-years-old.

That perfect and perfectly normal life was shattered with the terrifying diagnosis of a brain tumor. Little Amelia was whisked to specialists in Phoenix on an medical flight for life-saving emergency surgery. Then the worst-day-in-their-life got worse yet with the news the tumor was cancerous. The next days, months, years were dizzying rounds of doctors and hospitals, chemotherapy and radiation, recoveries and replapses.

As the Smith family went through this terrible ordeal, John pondered the old adage — write what you know. Should he write about Amelia’s health crisis? In the ensuing five years, John did write about his brave and stalwart daughter as she endured the relentless pain and suffering that comes with modern medical treatments for cancer.

AMELIA’S LONG JOURNEY will debut at the Vegas Valley Book Festival. John will present the keynote address, “The Challenge of Writing What You Know” this Saturday at the Flamingo branch of the Clark County Library. John and Amelia will sign books together.

Amelia’s favorite childhood cancer charities will benefit from sales of the book. They include:

• Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada
• Make-A-Wish Foundation
• Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation
• St. Baldrick’s Foundation

The book acknowldeges the crucial supportive role these charities provide to the families of children with cancer.

When: Saturday, November 7, 7:00 PM
Where: Clark County Library Theater, 1401 E. Flamingo
Web: www.ameliaslongjourney.com

Writing is a solitary endeavor, and save for some tweaking by an editor, the storyline and characters are the author’s own. The author is in charge of what happens when, what each character does, says, and even looks like. So how did seven of the region’s best authors, all tremendously accomplished in their own right, deal with having to share?

John L. Smith said, “In school I often got into trouble for failing to work well with others, so I wasn’t optimistic that I could cooperate on a story with six  writers. Collaborating on a writing project was pretty new for me. But it was intriguing to participate in a collective creative writing project. And I think the story works.”

RESTLESS CITY will debut at this year’s Vegas Valley Book Festival. A signature project of the festival organizers, editor Geoff Schumacher invited seven of the area’s best-known authors to each write a sequential chapter in a yet-untitled book. The only provisions were it had to be set in Las Vegas, be fiction, and each chapter was limited to 3,000 to 4,000 words. Oh, and they’d have a short couple of weeks to write their chapter.

H. Lee Barnes. John Irsfeld, Brian Rouff, Leah Bailly, John L. Smith, Constance Ford and Vu Tran were game for this admittedly experimental project. Barnes set a high standard with the first chapter, and introduced his colleagues to a story we’ve come to label Vegas Noir. By the time John Irsfeld added his contribution, the title RESTLESS CITY was coined by editor Geoff Schumacher.

The concept of a serial novel was recently a bestseller in THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT by thriller-master Jeffery Deaver and a team of likewise bestselling mystery and suspense writers. I read THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT with great curiousity, wondering if I could sense the different voices from chapter to chapter. Yes, I could.

As I can in RESTLESS CITY. But not in a negative way. It is more of an undercurrent that something has shifted as the story moves on. Too, there was a greater anticipation as to where the story would go next as each new author took the reins.

According to author Brian Rouff, RESTLESS CITY required him to “step up my game”. Rouff said “Chapter three was a great opportunity because I got to delve into back story. John Irsfeld gave me a lot to work with. In turn, I finished my chapter with an old-fashioned cliffhanger for the next author. I hope the readers had as much fun as I did.”

THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT was such a success, that Deaver and his colleagues have produced THE COPPER BRACELET. Deaver was fascinted to “see how a group of authors with vastly varied writing styles and approaches to creativity produced such a cohesive thriller with a relentlessly fast-paced narrative”.

Vu Tran, the final chapter author said, “Writing the last chapter and trying to tie up everyone else’s plot and character threads was in turns a unique, infuriating, and fun experience. Complementing and resolving other people’s ideas was even more difficult than I thought it would be, but I ultimately found it very satisfying and educational.”

RESTLESS CITY is available at www.RestlessCity.com and will be available on Amazon and in local bookstores shortly. Both a print and eBook formats are being published. The book will debut at the Vegas Valley Book Festival with a reading by final author Vu Tran on Saturday, November 7 at 4:00 PM at the Historic Fifth Street School (on Fourth Street). Authors will be available to sign books.

Q: I’m particularly interested in how the digital revolution and easily available print-on-demand services are affecting the book world.—Megan, Las Vegas

A: That’s a big subject, Megan! The digital age has certainly impacted the book industry, by enabling short runs of bound books. The downside is that unit costs of digitally printed books in small quantities are typically too high to allow for wholesale distribution and market competitiveness. If you want 25 copies of your book to share with family, or to print 100 at a time for sell at your speaking gigs, this isn’t a problem.

Most traditional publishers (including Stephens Press) use POD (print-on-demand) to print ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) which are printed in small quantities and sent to book reviewers ahead of publication of the printed book. This helps us acquire those “blurbs” (testimonials) on the back of the book jacket before going to press. In some instances, we may use POD in place of offset printing to test the interest in a book before committing to a larger quantity, or to keep a small number of copies in inventory in place of declaring a title out of print.

The high unit cost, coupled with the typical low quality of books published by POD service providers, has led bookstore chains to routinely decline to shelve these books in their stores. Their issues:

Low Quality — Digital printing (which is akin to photocopying) isn’t the quality of ink-on-paper printing (especially for photos), POD books are known for poor editing and design as well. Self-publishers must arrange for their own editing and book design. Too often they either don’t recognize the need or get less than stellar help.

Non-returnability — Throughout the book retail environment, bookstores purchase at wholesale on essentially a consignment basis and the inventory is completely returnable for full credit. Throughout the POD publishing services industry, the books they distribute on behalf of their author-clients are not returnable. This impasse means virtually no self-published books are stocked by book retailers (although they can be special ordered).

Unrealistic Pricing — Many POD providers set the retail price on behalf of the authors at prices that make them unsalable in a competitive market. Or if the author can set their own prices, that high unit cost makes it impossible for them to offer the typical 50-65% discount required of distributors and wholesalers and cover their expenses, much less make a profit.

Digital manufacturing has changed book publishing — and like most technological advancements — both for better and worse. I can’t say it has leveled the playing field, but it has made the prospect of becoming published more accessible for all writers.

I’ll cover other digital advances such as audio and e-books in future posts. Want to know more about book publishing? Email your questions to cuber@stephenspress.com or leave a comment below.

P Moss, proprietor of the insane and insanely popular  Double Down Saloons (Las Vegas and New York City) is one of our newest authors. We’ll be publishing Blue Vegas, his darkly Vegasesque story collection  in early 2010. The Double Down was just named was of the best bars in America by Esquire. A Sin City fixture himself, Moss undoubtedly has enjoyed a colorful cast of characters at the Double Down to serve as fodder for the fictional characters he creates. A CityLife Books title, Blue Vegas will debut in February. Read Scott Dickensheets review here. Congrats, Moss!