Angels book comes
Out of the Blue
While the Boston Red Sox’s “Reversing the Curse” run to the 2004 World Series Championship has been well-chronicled and who knows what kind of tomes the White Sox 2005 title will bring, not all World Series championships are as well documented.

Joe Haakenson helps give the 2002 Anaheim Angels their due with Out of the Blue, published with iUniverse.

Haakenson, who covered the Angels for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a group of papers that includes the Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Pasadena Star-News and San Gabriel Valley Tribune among others, was pleased with his iUniverse experience.

“I’m happy with it overall,” he said. “I especially like how the cover and back cover came out. However, the quality of the pictures on the interior were not as good as I expected.

“The production process went smoothly. Cecilia (Cuevas) was my contact and she was helpful with the questions I had.”

Haakenson said he has some modest plans to market the book since it is coming out three years after the championship season.

“I’m hoping to get an advertisement in the newspaper I worked for,” he said. “I feel a little weird trying to come out and advertise hard now considering the book is on the championship season of 2002, over three years ago.

“I’ve gotten a word of congratulations from one of the top people in the team’s front office. I plan to sign a copy to give to the manager, Mike Scioscia. I’m going to look into finding out if they would be able to put the book in the gift store at the stadium.”

Haakenson, who is now the sports editor at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, has several other ideas for books kicking around.

“I would like to write more books,” he said. “Probably related to Major League Baseball. I also have an idea for a fictional story revolving around a baseball beat writer.”

Haakenson had shopped Out of the Blue to traditional publishers before coming to iUniverse.

“The traditional publishers seemed very excited and led me to believe there was a chance of publishing with them. Ultimately, they weren’t serious,” Haakenson said.

“I received advertising emails from numerous self-publishing companies that I’d look at now and again. For some reason, iUniverse stuck out. I don’t know exactly why. I think the simplicity of the process is very important. Going over the steps needed and breaking it down like that was very instrumental in pushing me to get it done.”