As hardback books, few Black Horse Westerns sell directly to the readers. The publishing company's stance for many years has been: "This light fiction series in hardback is sold exclusively into the public library system and not through the retail trade, where the paperback rules supreme."

London writer Ray Foster (aka BHWs' Jack Giles whose career you can read about in the Extra's June 2008 edition) notes at his Broken Trails blog,  "Once upon a time most books could expect a paperback deal to follow. These days it is not so much the case."

The standard contract from publisher Robert Hale Ltd secures from the writer "sole and exclusive rights throughout the world", including paperback rights, which would seem to hold out promise that they might be used. In the event, the admission is readily made: "The [UK] paperback publishers do not want westerns at all, I am afraid. . . . With the knowledge of this fact it is a waste of time and money as well as an irritation to send paperback houses books that we ought to know they would not want."

No way could be seen to counter the "blank refusal" of the paperback editors, with whom the Hale subsidiary rights person carefully went through all the company's publications. "I am sure you will appreciate that there comes a time when you cannot politely tell your customer how to run his own business."

Similarly, the BHW publisher has never held out hope of selling subsidiary rights to publishers in the United States, for hardcover or paperback: "I am not at all sure we can achieve anything with westerns in the USA. We have for years tried . . . and quite frankly have been wholly unsuccessful. I am unaware of any non-American western writers being published in the USA, and with so much domestic material to hand I suppose that is hardly surprising."

This sad history makes all the more remarkable what promised to be this year's most notable achievement on the BHW scene.

In July, Ray Foster spread the happy news that Matthew P. Mayo had reached a paperback deal with Dorchester Publishing of New York, home of the mass-market Leisure Books paperbacks. "I was quite thrilled and can only congratulate him on this achievement. I think that Matthew P. Mayo is the first Black Horse Western writer to have his novels reprinted in paperback."

Leisure Books announced it would issue all three of Matthew's BHWs, beginning with Winters' War in May 2011. But in early August came the shock news that Dorchester was pulling out of its traditional market, effective from September. "The company will not do any more mass-market paperbacks for retail distribution."

Ray had said the word was Dorchester/Leisure were looking for authors who would like to see their books reprinted. "I hope some of the BHW writers will seize the day and take advantage of the opportunity."

For a proverbial five minutes of wonder, BHW "guns" tried to jump on the Dorchester bandwagon even as it was faltering. Company president John Prebich said that after retail sales fell by 25% in 2009, Dorchester knew 2010 would be a defining year, but rather than show improvement, sales had been worse. Dorchester had had a difficult time getting its titles into stores as shelf space for the mass-market format was reduced.

In our article "Paperback Blues" Matthew gives his vision of what the future might hold.

In this connection, it should be remembered Hale said long ago, "There is far less category publishing these days and by and large it is the author rather than the type of story which makes impact."

Reviews of Matthew's novels have been laudatory without exception.  Matthew is an American citizen.  He is a member of Western Writers of America and was a finalist in that organization's 2010 Spur Award for Short Fiction with his story Half a Pig. He was also able to attend the WWA annual convention in Knoxville, Tennessee, and enjoyed "yammering" in person with editors and fellow writers. "Like old hens clucking away. It was great fun," he said at his website.

He has also noted that his literary agent "only signs folks she's met at conferences. In that respect, and many others, attending WWA conventions has been time well spent for me."

And it's no detraction from Matthew's significant victory to remind those desiring to emulate him of the message once given by bestselling paperback author Terry Harknett (aka George G. Gilman) about the "large percentage of very necessary luck". This Terry detailed as partly "the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time and to know the right people".

Hard work – he called it perspiration – also came into it, but that was not enough to achieve the goal: "Should you wish to tread this same path, I cannot teach you. All I can offer are the [writing] rules ... with the proviso that they are no guarantee of success, for what they amount to is merely that 49 per cent of perspiration. You will have to get your own two per cent of inspiration and keep your fingers crossed that Lady Luck will smile on you."

You can't add better to that, so to the writers everywhere ... good luck!

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