Tina Welling inks two-book deal

This article appeared in the June 11 issue of Publishers’ Weekly. It includes some good news for Jackson’s Tina Welling, who received the 2003 Frank Nelson Doubleday Award from the Arts Council for an excerpt from her first novel, Crybaby Ranch, published in 2006 by Ghost Road Press. Read on:

Although at age 63 Susan Wasson is semi-retired, she still maintains the mystery book section at Albuquerque's Bookworks, orders its mass market titles, and writes reviews for the store's Web site and newsletter. But what makes her unique in the eyes of both large and small publishers is her unofficial role of agent. In the past decade, three novels acquired by New York houses were initially released by small presses and brought to the attention of the larger companies by Wasson. The most recent deal occurred this past spring, when Penguin acquired Crybaby Ranch by Wyoming author Tina Welling.

Welling's debut novel was published in 2006 with a 750-copy print run by Ghost Road Press in Denver. After Wasson read Crybaby Ranch last year, she passed it on to Penguin sales
rep Eric Boss, who, in turn, passed it on to executive editor Ellen Edwards at Putnam's NAL imprint, which eventually led to a two-book deal.

“I love it when a bookseller's enthusiasm leads to our discovery of a terrific new writer,” Edwards said. Crybaby Ranch will be released in trade paper in January as part of the NAL Accent line of women's fiction.

Prompted by Wasson, the Bantam Dell Publishing Group has acquired two novels, each initially released by a small feminist press. In 1997, BD acquired Into the Forest by Jean Hegland, which had a 3,000-copy printing when it was first published in 1996 by Calyx Books. BD acquired the title in a two-book deal that netted the author $700,000. Five years later, BD bought The Elegant Gathering of White Snows by Kris Radish, first published with a 3,000-copy run by Denver's Spinsters Ink. BD, which reports 200,000 copies in print, published The Sunday List of Dreams, Radish's fourth novel, with a 100,000-copy run in January. “One of the most remarkable things about Susan,” said Bantam Dell publisher Irwyn Applebaum, “is that she's a book lover and parlays this into a knowledge of what will sell a book. It's not enough to like a book, we've got to be able to sell it. Not everyone in this business can make that leap. She's one of a kind.”