Interview with Emilio Corsetti III

Emilio Corsetti III is a professional pilot and author. Emilio has written for both regional and national publications including the Chicago Tribune, Multimedia Producer, and Professional Pilot magazine. Emilio’s first book 35 Miles From Shore: The Ditching and Rescue of ALM Flight 980 tells the true story of an airline ditching in the Caribbean Sea and the efforts to rescue those who survived. Emilio’s latest release Scapegoat: A Flight Crew’s Journey from Heroes to Villains to Redemption tells the true story of an airline crew wrongly blamed for causing a near-fatal accident and the captain’s decades-long battle to clear his name. Emilio is a graduate of St. Louis University. He and his wife Lynn reside in Dallas, TX.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

Website Address: https://www.EmilioCorsetti.com
Blog: https://www.35milesfromshore.com (dedicated website)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilioCorsetti 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Emilio.Corsetti.III

About the Book

On May 2, 1970, a DC-9 jet departed New York’s JFK international airport en route to the tropical island of St. Maarten. The flight ended four hours and thirty-four minutes later in the shark-infested waters of the Caribbean. The subsequent rescue of survivors involved the Coast Guard, Navy, and Marines. In this gripping account of that fateful day, author Emilio Corsetti puts the reader inside the cabin, the cockpit, and the rescue helicopters as the crews struggle against the weather to rescue the survivors who have only their life vests and a lone escape chute to keep them afloat.

ORDER YOUR COPY

Amazon → https://amzn.to/39zbKBq

 Barnes & Noble → https://bit.ly/39HL7dz

 

Can you tell us what your book is about?

The Titanic meets The Perfect Storm but in an airplane.

Is it hard to publish a nonfiction book?

Getting any book published today is a difficult task. I used to think that if you wrote a good book, the offers would come flooding in. The truth is that it is all about the numbers. Before any publisher will take on a book, they must be convinced that sales of the book will exceed their expenses. Take a book like Forrest Gump by Winston Groom. I don’t think that book sold more than 5,000 copies before the film. If the marketing department can’t guarantee sales of at 50,000, the book has little chance of being published by a traditional publisher. There aren’t a lot of first-time authors who can generate those kinds of numbers. That’s why you see book deals going to people who have large social media numbers or individuals involved in the public eye.

Which author(s) do you admire?

Michael Lewis, Mark Bowden, Hampton Sides, Nathaniel Philbrick

What do you like the most about being an author?

There is nothing cooler than being the first person to tell a story that no one has ever heard before.

What kind of advice would you give other non-fiction authors?

Pick a subject that interests you. Writing a book is a long process. If you get bored, the reader will get bored also.