Tailspin, Unexpected Success, and What’s Next

In this post, guest author John Armbruster reflects on publishing Ten16’s bestseller Tailspin.

My book Tailspin came out in April of 2022. This narrative nonfiction work centers on the story of Gene Moran, a World War II tail gunner from Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, who was shot down over Germany in 1943 and survived a four-mile fall without a parachute.

After cartwheeling in the severed tail section of his B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, Gene crashed into a forest in Northwestern Germany and split his skull wide open. He was immediately taken prisoner and went on to endure a grueling eighteen months as a POW. After Germany surrendered in 1945, Gene came home, but for him, the war was never over. For most of his adult life, Gene battled the post-war demons of seizures, nightmares, meltdowns, and alcoholism.

Wartime headlines across the country had made Gene famous for a short period of his life, but after 1945, Gene locked his story in his mental vault for almost seventy years. Many people in Southwestern Wisconsin knew the basic facts of his story. But no one dared to ask him about it.

On a spring evening in 2022, the staff of Orange Hat/Ten 16 gathered in Southwestern Wisconsin at the ridgetop home of one of Gene’s daughters for a pre-book launch party. After three years of interviewing Gene Moran (who had died in 2014) and another eight years writing, Gene’s story would finally become public. Tailspin would be launched the next night at a party in La Crosse.

I told Shannon Ishizaki, founder and then owner of OH/Ten 16, to expect 300 people at the launch party. Shannon later admitted to me that she believed that number to be a tad high, being that the crowd estimate emanated from an excited and naïve writer about to launch his first book.

More than 500 people showed up. The standing-room-only crowd depleted the on-site beer and wine and wiped out all the catered food. My only calories came that evening from a cup of beer that Shannon managed to squeeze through a crowd standing in line to receive a signed copy of Tailspin. After signing more than 300 books, my cup was still half full after my right hand finally set my pen down.

Just before the launch, my editor Heather Shumaker told me that she believed that my book “had legs.” Gene’s legendary fall was a tale known throughout Wisconsin, and many had waited a long time to know the full story. She prepped me to get ready for speaking requests and to brace for pitches for my second book.

Second book? I thought. I was just launching my first, a book I’d never imagined I’d write before hearing about Gene’s story.

Today, almost three years after Tailspin came out, I recently just finished my 116th public event for Tailspin: 88 speeches and 28 signings/meet-and-greets. My schedule for 2025 looks just as busy as 2024.

And over all these events, I’ve found my editor’s prediction especially prescient about people wanting me to write their stories. At my home, I have about fifteen folders, binders, typed manuscripts, etc., which outline the basics of someone’s war story. I’ve lost count of direct inquires made after speeches of people asking me to write their war story or the saga of a relative. One time, a man approached me in a parking lot after a Tailspin presentation, pointing his finger at me and demanding that I write his brother’s Vietnam story. Another time, a woman waited in line to have a book signed with two of her brothers, both Vietnam Marine veterans. She looked at me and pointed to each of her brothers flanking her side and flatly stated, “Your next book is right here!”

I mentioned all these story ideas to a friend that knew Gene Moran from Tailspin, and also knew of my personal struggles to finally get Gene’s story published. Could one of them be the subject of another book? In response, he asked me, “Do you really want to sweat blood again?”

Sweat blood, indeed. The research, the writing, and rewriting. The countless query letters and publisher rejections. The awkward phone calls and nervous knocks on doors to ask veterans to give up their horrifying stories to my voice recorder. And if I take this next step, is it to record history or advance my own self-interests?

Tailspin did have legs. But this author isn’t sure he wants to walk this road again. So for now, I’ll focus on the amazing experiences that Tailspin has brought to me and the joy I have in sharing Gene’s story with receptive audiences around Wisconsin and beyond. 2025 is sure to be another busy, exciting year.