Daily Progress Article

Ready to Invest Toil and Persistence to Get Published? That’s “The Ticket”

By David Maurer January 28, 2017

Publishers like to believe that literary works worthy of publication eventually will find a home between book covers, be they soft or hard.

A slew of would-be novelists likely will vehemently dispute that claim. They could argue that the worth of a manuscript can’t be judged if it’s never seen by an editor’s eye.

A successful “over-the-transom” presentation of an unsolicited manuscript is, at best, a long shot. Local attorney Fred Shackelford learned through experience that without the help of an agent, the ramparts of major publishing houses are all but impossible to scale.

The ninth-generation Virginian carried on a quixotic quest for many months in an effort to find a publisher willing to take a chance on his debut novel. His perseverance finally won out; last month, his book, “The Ticket,” was published by Black Opal Books, based in the Pacific Northwest.

The novel is a fast-paced thriller that also will be enjoyed by those who love mysteries. Recently, Shackelford talked about his book and what it took to bring it from an idea to reality.

“The book is about an attorney, Channing Booker, who is a compulsive gambler,” said Shackelford, who works for locally based National Legal Research Group Inc. “He has lost a lot of money with his betting, but one day, he wins the Mega Millions lottery.

“His marriage is falling apart, and he doesn’t want his wife to get any of the money. So he comes up with a scheme, but the plan goes awry.

“I would say the book is a cautionary tale in some ways. Booker is a good example of what not to do. He’s a very devious, scheming, sleazy character who gets into a lot of trouble.”

Trouble wasn’t something Shackelford envisioned when it came to getting his novel published. He had one book already to his credit — “Judges Say the Darndest Things,” which was published in 2004.

“That wasn’t really a lot of my work,” Shackelford said of his first book. “At the time, when coworkers would find something humorous in a case, they would often copy it and post it on the bulletin board.

“For my own enjoyment, I would keep copies of those, and eventually the stack piled up so high that I decided to put them into a book. I did that and then sent out 25 to 30 queries to publishers, and within a month or so, I had an offer.

“That gave me a false sense of what it takes to get published. I thought, ‘Well, this isn’t that tough.’”

It isn’t “that tough” to get a book published by a vanity press when the author foots the cost. But when a publishing house is covering expenses, and, in many cases, providing an advance on royalties, the manuscript has to compete and win against formidable odds.

Local writer Janet Martin is a journalist and author of the book “The Christmas Swap.” She said that getting a first novel published these days constitutes a “huge success.”

“In 2017, publishing a first novel is an open door to a literary world that offers more readers than ever before in history,” said Martin, who has worked for CNN and PBS and as head of television media at the University of Virginia. “Yet it is a most difficult thing, because the marketplace is stacked against first-timers.

“Fred Shackelford has surmounted the current publishing obstacles and, with Black Opal Books, has created an appealing novel that is destined to attract a fan base.

“His writing is smooth, intriguing and full of surprises. Simply, a satisfying read.”

Kenneth G. Elzinga is the Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics at UVa. He co-authored with the late William L. Breit a popular trio of murder mysteries that utilize principles of economics to solve crimes.

The novels, written under the pseudonym Marshall Jevons, are said to be assigned reading in many college economic classes. Elzinga read Shackelford’s novel when it was in manuscript form and encouraged him to seek a publisher.

“What I look for in a ‘whodunit’ in the British traditional vein is the opportunity to learn about some interesting characters,” Elzinga said. “To be confronted with a crime and a puzzle, and then encounter a solution to the crime that leaves me thinking, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

“‘The Ticket’ caught my attention because of the ticket itself. I’m an economist, and I write mystery novels that involve crimes connected to economics.

“So Shackelford’s novel had a natural appeal to me. I learned about a part of the economy in which I was not well versed — and I got fooled at the end. Once I got started, I wanted to finish the book in one sitting; I was that hooked.

“Charlottesville has such a diverse portfolio of engaging authors. It is a treat to welcome Fred Shackelford to the group.”

A Mega Millions lottery ticket enjoys front-cover placement on the new book. Getting permission to use the image proved to be yet another hurdle along the road to publication.

“The story is all about a lottery ticket, so I really wanted that on the cover,” said Shackelford, who attended UVa for his undergraduate studies and law school. “I had to go to some effort to get the rights to use the Mega Millions logo.

“I had to do some detective work to find out who owns the rights. It turns out that they belong to the Georgia Lottery Corporation. The Virginia Lottery and Georgia Lottery were very helpful, and I was allowed to use the logo at no charge.”

Like many people, Shackelford would read a good novel and wonder if he could write one. And he was teased by the fact that he had enjoyed writing fiction for fun when he was in school.

“I do a lot of writing at my job, but it’s a different kind of writing,” Shackelford said. “I’m an attorney working at a legal research and writing firm, so it’s not like a typical law firm.

“Basically, we’re ghostwriters for other attorneys all over the country. We write briefs, and they sign off on them. I’ve written thousands of pages of legal documents, none of which have my name on them.

“The novel was a way to try something different. Legal writing is very constrained, kind of dry and, many people would say, boring. Whereas, with fiction, you have complete freedom, you can develop characters, use a different vocabulary and make things up.”

What sounds easy when verbalized can prove to be just the opposite when put into practice. Holding a reader’s attention from the first sentence through several hundred pages to the final word is a tremendous accomplishment.

“I thought if I could write a novel, I would feel a real sense of achievement,” Shackelford said. “I kind of imagined myself in a nursing home someday, and my great-grandchild walks in to visit and asks me what I did with my life.

“I can point to my books on the shelf and say they were something that I achieved. My first book was relatively easy, and I thought if I wrote something for a wider audience, it wouldn’t be difficult.

“The joke was on me, because it was very difficult.”

The idea for “The Ticket” came to Shackelford after he read a news article about someone who won the lottery and then waited until the last minute to cash in the ticket. The premise gestated in Shackelford’s mind for a lengthy period of time.

“I know there would be reasons to wait a month or so to cash in a winning ticket,” Shackelford said. “You would want to maybe talk with a financial advisor, lawyer or whatever.

“But I wondered why someone would wait and cut it that close. I started thinking about that, and eventually an idea for a possible scenario popped into my head and gave me the basic idea.

“I started the book in July 2005 and finished it around Labor Day 2010. I tried to estimate how many hours I spend actually writing, and I think it’s probably between 400 and 500.”

John F. Jebb is an assistant professor of English at the University of Delaware. He is the author of “True Crime: Virginia — The State’s Most Notorious Criminal Cases” and co-author with J. K. Van Dover of “Isn’t Justice Always Unfair? The Detective in Southern Literature.”

“The fun in Fred’s novel involves the juggling of the three main characters,” Jebb said. “Channing makes a wonderful villain; his greed overcomes his rationality in ways that are amusing and frightful.

“Fred deftly portrays Channing’s wife as a mix of resourcefulness and great fear. She reflects the conflicted thinking of a lot of women trying to escape dangerous marriages. The third character, the neurotic disabled officer, offers another case of mixed motives, both noble and acquisitive.

“The characters are a lot more than plot devices in a thriller — they are intelligent, aware, quick to recover and forge ahead. They move the plot by their decisions. Fred may use thriller forms, but he lets the plot grow from the characters.”

Jebb, a UVa alumnus, also enjoyed how Shackelford used Charlottesville as the setting for his book. And he lauded how he never gave up on the book, and steadfastly pursued a publisher until he found a receptive ear at Black Opal Books.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is how difficult it is for a new writer to get published,” Shackelford said. “I’ve also learned that if you stick with something, you have a good chance of succeeding.

“My advice to other first-time novelists is to be aware that it’s going to be a long process, and to work on the editing after you’re finished. I had no idea how much editing and polishing I still needed to do when I finished my manuscript.

“It was 117,000 words when I finished, and 93,000 words when the editing was done.”

Shackelford’s experience helps to give some credence to publishers’ broad-brush assessment that good books get published. He says he would like to write another novel, but isn’t about to gird himself for another long slog at the writer’s desk without having a good plot in mind.

And after years of writing and waiting for the finished book to finally be in hand, the moment of long-anticipated triumph can be anticlimactic.

“I had this vision that the day my first copy arrived I would go out and have a nice dinner with Champagne,” Shackelford said with a smile. “The fact is that I was so busy that I had little time to sit back and enjoy it.”