When I finished my manuscript and found a publisher willing to take a chance on me, I thought the journey was complete.  After all, I had written a 250-page manuscript and was proud of my accomplishment.  I even had a title — “Maxed Out:  The birth and death of the Tamms supermax.”  It’s time to rush the book to press and make some money.  Not so fast, my publisher said.  Marketing, the part authors don’t like, is the name of the game.  Without marketing no one will read your book.

Been there, done that.  What a devastating thought.

I can’t tell you how many titles and subtitles we explored.  In the end, the publisher suggested the obvious, Supermax Prison.  Of course we needed a subtitle for additional information on the book.  I told the publisher that “control” was the original reasoning for a supermax, and that prisons were out-of-control.  Hence, the subtitle was born.  Controlling the most dangerous criminals.

Next we needed book blurbs from people who are smarter and better writers than myself.  It helps if they are experts on the prison scene.  We have three blurbs from writers familiar with the incarceration of violent inmates.

As a member of the FBI Swat Team that put down the Atlanta prison riot in 1987, I recognized the need to separate the average inmate from the violent prisoners quick to instigate a prison uprising as the killing of a fellow inmate.  Supermax Prison does a remarkable job of informing the reading public of an important and little known subject. Highly recommended.
Jack Owens, Special Agent of the FBI (Ret.) Author Pock Trilogy