David Trawinski asked James Conroyd Martin:

James - Congrats on your great success with your Polish trilogy. I write to thank you for trailblazing this Polish fiction sub-genre and to wish you success with your latest novel. My Chopin trilogy attempts to do the same for espionage thrillers. How did it come to pass that your self-published novel was picked up by St. Martin's Press? Did you actively seek them out due to the Polish theme of the novel?

James Conroyd Martin Tardy in answering this~so sorry. I published with Xlibris right on the cusp of self-publishing. Getting a big publisher interested in a self-published book that does well was easier then. I posted my success on Publisher's Marketplace, and when Random House became interested, I got a TOP agent who sold it to St. Martin's. My excellent editor left in the middle of the sequel, so I got little support. I went on to create my own company for the third and haven't looked back. Unless you are one of the true biggies, you'll make 4 to 10 percent on a book with an established company versus much more by self-publishing (for e-books it's 25% [a travesty!] versus up to 70%.) And, the big companies do less and less as far as advertising~it's up to the author. Oh, and after two or three months after publication, your book is forgotten.
Best of luck with your trilogy, David!

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