Brian T Shirley

Brian T Shirley
Jokers Wild, Atlantis Resort

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

I'm excited about my next book, here's the cover!

  I have published two books to date and sales have been less than spectacular on the Internet to say the least. I added "on the Internet" because when I sell them after shows, for the most part it's been a different story. At clubs where people do buy merchandise, I've been pretty happy with sales and these book do better than anything else I've ever sold such as T-shirts,CDs or DVDs. Part of that could be I've grown as a comedian, but we have been in bad economy for few years now and I still sell more items than I ever did.Self publishing is a very tough thing to do though. You don't have the respect of the traditional authors or readers. You pay to have the books published, buy them at a discount to sell them yourself  and you have to pay to even get the books considered to be put inside a major book seller's building. I am available world wide on the Internet, but if no one knows or cares, it does me no good.

  Having laid all this out, I am still very excited about my newest book. For one thing, I was approached by Libboo.com to write this book. I have an illustrator on my team who is willing to work on this project for a percentage of the book sales later on because he wanted to. He was inspired by the stories enough to want to illustrate them. This book is different than my first two in that is a series of true stories and not a long list of one-liners or "jokes". I have chronicled some behind the scenes tales from nearly twenty years of performing comedy on the road. I have poured a lot into these stories, as many are some of the funniest memories I have of this crazy life I lead. This will be an eBook to start with as the young publishing company Libboo is still in the process of setting up their printing process so I am not counting on much in sales to begin with. None the less, I'm just glad to get this book out. I've learned a little from putting out the first two and I have much to learn about writing and book promotion, but it is very interesting. Whether or not this book helps ease the pain of being a struggling comic, I know this won't be the last. I submit for your consideration the cover of  "A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Club" as it exists now. All feedback is welcome as I can only grow through this exercise.Thanks.