How I met the author of the book I'm marketing

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6 years ago

Seven years ago I was looking at the personals in a newspaper, just for kicks. I saw that there was a picture of a charming 75-year old man with a debonair mustache. He was a federal prisoner in Texas, and the caption under the picture was, "I have a story. Want to read it?"

Well, that was a hook, line and sinker for me. We wrote back and forth a couple of times and then he introduced me to his book, ten pages at a time, as that was the maximum amount of mail he was allowed at a time.

He had typed the 200+ page manuscript one hour at a time, as that was the amount of time he was allowed at the typewriter each day. After several months I had received the entire manuscript. I had been scanning it into digital format each time I received an installment. I had to fix many scanning errors, so it was good I didn't get it all at once.

The story is a true crime story of how he got caught up in a conspiracy of selling arms to a South American rebel group called AUC, which was designated a terrorist group after 9/11/2001. The AUC group was going to pay for the arms with Cocaine.

As the author tells the story, because he spoke fluent Spanish and German, he was to be the interpreter between the AUC and the German guy who had access to the arms. Pretty innocent as he tells it.

But he knew about the arms, the Cocaine, and the AUC. His boss had enlisted him as the interpreter. Everybody stood to make a million dollars USD.

The book took several months of proofing, correcting, proofing and correcting again. After 18 months I sent it to a publisher and they suggested edits, which I did, and sent it back to the publisher. After three more months, we had a proof book, which I read for content and grammar. Then I let the publisher know to print and send me fifty books.

I didn't even know if I could sell them or not, but it's a good thing I have the books because the publisher (Tate) went bankrupt and its co-founders were sent to a federal prison for fraudulent business practices.

So now I have a remainder of 30 books to sell online. When they are gone, I still have the digital file that I can sell for less than the book.

Uwe Jensen is now out of prison and is living in Section 8 housing. He thought his book would provide him with a retirement fund. I'm hoping to get some exposure of the book for him. One book was sold online to Australia. And that's as far away from Kansas City as you can get.

If you like true crime stories, you can visit my website which is listed at the bottom of my profile.

He had a story. Want to read it?