Page 96 - The Westerner Magazine Halloween 2018
P. 96
quarter. Or whatever those other disks… R.G. Yoho: I’d never talked about it. I really
and so a lot of that doesn’t exist. And thought it was a dream that I was giving up
somebody had a copy of that manuscript and I regret the fact that I wasted that much
and I didn’t know it—a relative of my time but, you know, life is as it is.
wife’s—and sent it to me. And I thought,
Interviewer: Oh, yeah. Things keep rolling
my gosh, this is something I could work on.
and you have to keep with what’s going on
And that’s kinda how that came about. I
in your life. But it must have been quite an
didn’t even know I had it till just a few
interesting thing to be picked up by New
years ago.
York publishing house.
Interviewer: How did you first get your
R.G. Yoho: Aw, yes, it was. It was pretty
first book published? I mean, what was that
exciting back in those days. New York was
process like?
where it all happened. If you were gonna
R.G. Yoho: That process was about thirty publish a Western, it pretty well had to
years. Probably closer to nineteen. Some of come out of New York. Of course, the
those manuscripts, about the third or fourth business has changed since then. But I do
one, I went to a writers’ conference in regret that I didn’t keep at it because I have
Pennsylvania. It was probably my second or a lot of manuscripts sitting around that
third conference and I actually got a literary could be books right now had I kept doing
agent at that conference. She took that it. But like I said, you live life how it is, not
manuscript and put it on the New York how you wish it should be.
publishing house desk and I thought I was
Interviewer: What avenue did you take
on my way then to be quite honest with ya.
with that first book when you published?
And then nothing happened. My agent
Did you self-publish, or did you go to a
contacted me some time back and said they
publishing house?
were gonna publish it, that the market died
for Westerns before a slot opened up. My R.G. Yoho: The first book I had published
daughter was 2 or 3 when that happened. was with an outfit that used to be known as
And I threw my manuscripts in the drawer, Publish America. I won’t say much about it
just really forgot about them and wrote except they don’t have a really great
other things. I just really quit writing reputation and most of their books are
Westerns. And when I decided to try to pull largely sold to their own authors. And now,
them out and get published again, my a lot of people may say some bad things
daughter was probably about nineteen and about this publishing house, but it actually
at that point she never knew I’d ever gave me a break in allowing me to go
written a Western. somewhere else. And my second book,
which wound up being Death Comes to
Interviewer: Interesting.
