The Day the Cows Slept In

The Day the Cows Slept In (1979) Post 292

The Day the Cows Slept In  was (I think!) my third published book, though how "published" it was I've never been able to work out. My memory of exactly what happened is pretty vague after all this time (38 years have passed, after all!) but my impressions are as follows.
After "Her Kingdom for a Pony" (1978, and my first published book) was accepted, I set to work to write a sequel. "Kingdom" was made up of linked short stories, set in and around the town of Springford. There were several repeating characters, and the stories took place over the range of about two years. In "Cows", (which I considered called "Till the Cows Come Home"), these characters and others are extended for a further two years. Hereby lay the problem. My editor at the original publisher's felt that readers of the first book would not be interested in reading about older characters, even if they had already met them younger; i.e. Susan at 15 probably wouldn't be of interest to someone who'd read about her at 11-13. The characters had got into teen years and yet the stories weren't "teen". This left the book orphaned, because selling a sequel to a different publisher is always difficult. For one thing, any publisher one approaches will know it was rejected by Publisher 1. 
Around that time, a local printer decided to put out a subscription book service. I believe this was a very early form of POD. He put out a magazine which went to households around Tasmania with "tasters" of various things. He was willing to put in a story from my ms. The problem was, all the stories were too long, so I wrote a new one especially. The books (at least some) were printed, and the magazine went out and I waited with interest to see what might happen.
You know how many orders came in for my book? 
None.
That's it-- none. 
I had my author copies, but as far as I knew not a single book was sold through subscription. The idea was quietly dropped.
However, that darned book kept on turning up for YEARS in garage sales, remainder sales and even as far away as New Zealand. I don't know how that happened and I'm reasonably sure no one made any money out of it. (I sure didn't.) I assume the publisher "dumped" the print run, which can't have been big, somewhere and it leaked out from there.
I just checked the net and yes, there is at least one copy for sale out there ($14...).

Here is the author's note from the book, listing the 13 stories though not the several poems also included. 

Author's note: People often wonder, when they read a book by a local writer, how much of the story is true and how much is pure invention. The answer, in the case of ‘The Day the Cows Slept In,’ is that the setting - Springford, is an entirely imaginary town in a very real district - the North West coast of Tasmania. The people are also invented - though I feel that something of myself may have sneaked into Jenny’s character. So never fear - you won’t find yourself or your neighbours or any of your friends (or enemies!) enshrined in the book. All the events are imaginary, and some of them are unlikely, but I feel that no story - except, perhaps, ‘The Ghost’s Field Day,’ is really impossible. As for Honey and her companions, and old Jim - maybe animals don’t really think like this. But they certainly behave as if they do!  Contents: The Ghost’s Field Day; The Nanny; Thanks to Julie; Dog in the Manger; Thomas’s Place; Honey’s Flood; The Day the Cows Slept In; The V.H.C.; Show Story; The Guest; House Cow; Bloat!; Springford Centenary.

The Ghost’s Field Day was the extra story I wrote to go in the magazine, so it is shorter than the others.

By the way, I obviously didn't learn, because I wrote a novel about some of the characters and called it "These Guests of Summer". No one wanted that either. This is the sort of thing that can depress young authors so much that they stop. I - um - didn't. Nearly forty years on I'm still in the writing game.

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Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. If you enjoyed a post, or want to ask about any of my books or my manuscript assessment service.