In 2011, at the behest of others who had read his original manuscript for *Patriots of Treason*, David Thomas Roberts sent out inquiries to numerous publishers. Most of the publishers never even acknowledged receiving them, and enlisting a literary agent to assist in finding a publisher was nearly as difficult.

Finally, a small Midwest publishing firm made an offer to publish the title, and six months later, Dave had launched his first book. As he began to tour the country promoting *Patriots of Treason*, he learned many things the hard way. First, he seldom met another author who had anything nice to say about their publisher or publishing experience. Secondly, because his fictional story—based on current political events from a conservative point of view—”branded” his book in the very liberal and progressive world of publishing and book retailers, it ultimately limited exposure of his title on retail bookshelves.

Despite these difficulties, as Dave was traveling through a North Carolina airport, he stopped into an airport bookstore and there, to his amazement, was his book prominently displayed with a healthy inventory in a very good location. He naturally figured that if this could happen in this major airport bookstore, why couldn’t it happen everywhere? When inquiring how this had occurred, his publisher had no definitive answers. To this day, their best guess is that a particular retail bookstore corporate buyer liked it, or a local manager promoted it—but even the clerk at the bookstore couldn’t tell him.

When it came time for Dave to start realizing royalty payments from the publisher months later, and despite healthy book sales, he always seemed to be in a negative royalty scenario with the publisher. Even when royalty statements were owed to him, they were always late, and he seemed to be chasing his royalties on a monthly basis. The final domino fell when the publisher had a major publishing event at the University of Missouri, with all of their titles displayed and promoted—except his. His title was deemed “too conservative” to expose at a public university by his own publisher, despite being one of their bestsellers!

During the period in which this publisher had his publishing rights, Dave dove deeply into the publishing business, learning how books end up on retail bookshelves and understanding online book sales strategies and Amazon. Being an entrepreneur, he figured he could take his own title and have better success than his original publishing company—but not as a self-published work, but by becoming an independent publisher. Because he kept his rights to the title (authors should never relinquish rights), he terminated the publishing contract and re-released *Patriots of Treason* with a new and updated cover, and with his own marketing techniques.

Later would come the sequel, *A State of Treason*, which was even more successful than the first. Now Dave was ready to take on other authors and give conservative and libertarian authors an alternative to the East Coast and West Coast liberal publishing houses. Over the years, Defiance Press & Publishing has had great success with its authors, whom it considers family, and many of its authors have come at the recommendation of existing authors’ publishing experiences with the company, which is one of the highest compliments it could receive.

At Defiance Press & Publishing, which Dave founded, the commitment to authors is one of integrity, transparency, communication, and partnership! To readers, it offers high-quality, thought-provoking titles from an ever-growing outstanding family of authors.