Published: June 21, 2006
CSI/Stateline News

The Write Stuff
Roscoe man publishes first novel;
business plan includes 4 more in 3 years
By Margaret Downing
For The Stateline News

ROSCOE – When newly published Roscoe
author John Prieve set out to write a novel, he decided to stick to what he knows. The result, a contemporary adult thriller, takes readers into the recesses of the pharmaceutical industry, where a corporate hotshot reluctantly becomes s whistleblower.

Prieve, a pharmaceutical sales professional, wrote "Big Pharma" in his spare time over the course of about a year. He would get out of bed at 4 a.m. and write for two hours, he said, "plus, maybe at the end of the day put in another two hours, say from 9 to 11 p.m."
"It also took about a year to locate an agent and find a publisher willing to work with a new author," he said.

The work was worth it. Prieve recently received his first copy of "Big Pharma," and is planning a promotional effort to help market the book.

"The local Barnes and Noble is not loaded yet, and we're in the process of getting to local retailers to let them know, 'Hey, I'm the local guy who wrote the book; here's the...ordering information. Please bring some copies in and I'll self-promote and we'll take it from there,'" Prieve said.

His target audience is the pharmaceutical and health care industries, which he hopes to reach through an Internet and e-mail marketing strategy.

"The pharmaceutical and health care industries have very extensive Web access points to reach their membership that will be helpful in marketing and promoting the book," he said.
Prior to beginning work on the novel, Prieve, who is in his late 40s, took a businesslike approach to the process of bringing a book to market. First, he targeted a specific audience. In this case, the pharmaceutical and health care industries offer two million potential readers.

Before approaching a publisher or agent with a final manuscript, he recommends "editing it like crazy," and composing a one-page query letter describing the book and explaining its target audience and how it will be self-promoted.
"Knowing that we have this book as a product, we've got to market, we've got to advertise, we've got to sell it," he said.
To do that, he and wife Tracy formed a small company called Duchess, Inc.

"That's our marketing and advertising company specific to the books we will produce over the next three or four years," he explains.

Prieve plans two sequels to "Big Pharma" – "The Lobbyist" and "Roll it Up."
And he is collaborating with his 15-year old son, Chase, a freshman at Hononegah High School, to write a pair of novels geared to the preteen, elementary and middle school age market.

"The series my son and I are working on, 'Mattress Football,' books one and two, each will be about 125 pages in length," Prieve said. "We've done our research on what is the best length book for kids in the elementary and middle school age group, and about 125 pages is the appropriate size for a story."

They're just now putting the finishing touches on both books. "We're about 90 percent done...and should be finished by the end of summer," Prieve said. "Then we'll get them published, and Tracy will take these products to elementary and middle school libraries, public libraries, and to the Scholastic publishing house, which would be 'the home run.' If we can get the books placed with Scholastic, then we have a real nice chance to promote our books."

They'll also approach school-based state reading associations that recommend summer or classroom reading.

"We feel that 'Mattress Football 1' and 'Mattress Football 2' are really good stories for preteen, elementary and middle school age boys and girls, and will be a nice enhancement to reading selections," Prieve said.

As he did with "Big Pharma," he first identified a target audience for "Mattress Football."
"(We) then said, 'OK, let's create the story that would fit that niche.' Chase is very creative and has always been a huge reader and has done just a super job with the chapters I've assigned to him."

"Mattress Football," he added, explores two themes – strong friendships and lifelong lessons.

"The story involves a group of neighborhood boys set in the late 1960s in a small town in northern Wisconsin called Fall Creek," he said. "It's a whole different time then from what kids are growing up in now. There's one group of good boys who are the protagonists, and a group of boys who are kind of the bad boys and are the antagonists. The books follow their story over a two-to three-year period of time."

All told, Prieve and family plan to produce five novels over the next three years.
"Duchess, Inc. will then go out to market, promote, advertise and generate sales for the books," he said. "It's a two-prong approach. I'm the creative guy and Tracy's the marketing expert. In order to line up the distribution system we've got set up through the publishing company, Duchess, Inc. will basically be responsible for the marketing, advertising and promoting of the books through such activities as signings and interviews, mailings and so on."

It's a job, he added, that will keep his wife busy full time.

Prieve's book is available for $19.95 through PublishAmerica's Web site – www.PublishAmerica.com, which offers an online retail store. It can also be found at www.BarnesandNoble.com and at www.Amazon.com.
The price at those locations is $24.95.