Douglas Brunt: Bestselling Novelist Takes on His First Nonfiction Book
Douglas Brunt is the New York Times bestselling author of Ghosts of Manhattan, The Means, Trophy Son, and The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel, and host of the top-rated SiriusXM author podcast Dedicated with Doug Brunt.
A Philadelphia native, he lives in New York with his wife and three children. Please visit www.douglasbrunt.com for more information. And follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
In this post, Douglas discusses one big surprise while writing his first nonfiction book, how he landed on his book title, and more.
Douglas Brunt (Photo credit: Jesse Dittmar)
Name: Douglas Brunt
Literary agent: Keith Urbahn, Javelin Agency
Book title: The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel
Publisher: Atria Books, Simon & Schuster
Release date: September 19, 2023
Genre/category: True Crime, History, Biography, WWI
Previous titles: Ghosts of Manhattan; The Means; Trophy Son
Elevator pitch for the book: When Rudolf Diesel disappeared from a steam ship in the North Sea in 1913, newspapers speculated that his death could have been an accident, a suicide, or that he might have been murdered by either Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany or by John Rockefeller because the new Diesel engine was a threat to each of their empires. Not only does The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel solve the mystery of what happened to Rudolf, it will upend your understanding of the forces that shaped the 20th century through to the present day.
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What prompted you to write this book?
In 2015 I bought an old boat. When I asked the gentleman at the boatyard what I should do to fix it up, he told me that I should repower the boat from its old gasoline engines to new Diesel engines. He told me that Diesel gave better fuel efficiency and range, emitted no noxious fumes the way gasoline engines do, that all boat fires happened with gasoline engines and none with Diesel. So I took his advice.
A few years later I was between novels and scouring the Internet for ideas. I came upon a list of ‘mysterious disappearances at sea’ and down the list a bit was Rudolf Diesel. I wondered if there was a connection to my new Diesel engines. I clicked on a report of his disappearance September 29, 1913, and began my voyage with this book.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I spent the first year researching Diesel’s life and disappearance, and also deciding whether I should write a work of historical fiction or narrative nonfiction. There was very little published material about Diesel, especially in English language. As I got better at navigating the archives in Europe and America that held information relevant to the Diesel story, I discovered a series of little treasures about Rudolf, and I determined that I needed to tell his story in a work of nonfiction.
During the COVID quarantine of mid-March through the end of June 2020, I signed with a new literary agent whose focus was nonfiction, wrote a proposal for the nonfiction book, submitted the proposal to a number of editors, held an auction for the book, then signed a deal with Peter Borland of Atria, Simon & Schuster.
Bizarrely, this entire process took place over Zooms, emails, and phone calls while the country was shut down and I was in Montana. I wouldn’t be in the same room as Peter even once for nearly another three years. During those three years, I spent hundreds of hours in archives or communicating with people in archives who would send me material during the periods when only employees were permitted inside (COVID-era research was challenging) and drafting the book from the proposal outline.
In total, the process of writing this book was just over four years (unless you go all the way back to purchasing the boat in 2015).
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
One surprise was an 11th hour change in the title of the book. I’d been wrestling with a good title to capture the scope of the story and the thrust of why the book matters. I finally had settled on Engines & Empires which my editor also liked.
However, during the internal sales meeting at S&S, the sales team and the company CEO felt that another title might give the readers a better idea of what’s in store for them in the pages. So, we switched to The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel which I like very much.
I learned that publishing CEOs and sales teams are much better at figuring out titles for books than I am!
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
As this is my first work of nonfiction, there were also learning moments in the writing process. A big one is the importance of keeping track of all research sources. I already had some idea that this would be important and could save future headaches, and in retrospect, I would be even more diligent in keeping tabs on all information. As I recently put together the Notes section, there were some frustrating late nights as I tracked down sources.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
Not only will readers find this story and investigation to be a white-knuckle thrill ride, they will also come away with a profound appreciation for Rudolf Diesel (for whom there has been a massive deficit of appreciation over the last hundred years) as well as a new understanding of the forces that shaped the 20th century through to the present day.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Stay curious, keep reading, keep writing.