The House Dad - by Jonathan Rosen

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The House Dad - December 2007

Happy Holidays

December 25th 2007 00:46

Hi everybody,

I hope you all have a very happy holiday. It is after 7 p.m. and everybody is probably home and awaiting the morning. It is an exciting time to be a child (and an adult). Funny thing today, I mentioned the other day how I had decided to self-publish because of just wanting to get my book out there and the bad experience I had with an agent. An agent had agreed to represent me and even called me to discuss it. She asked me to notify any other agents I had contact and withdraw my request for representation. She said she would get a contract in the mail right away. I waited and waited and never received anything. Any time I e-mailed to find out what was going on, there was always a reason why I didn't get anything. From they were changing the template of the contract design to the head of the agency was very sick and in disarray. The old spider-sense went off and I immediately regretted contacting other agencies to pull any offer they might have made. Not that they would have, but that is not the point. I received an e-mail every now and then saying they would get back in touch with me soon. You already know what happened next. Soon enough the e-mails stopped and I heard nothing. I sent out a few other queries to agents and got rejected. I was disheartened after wasting a good 6 months with this one agent.

I know in the large scheme of things that is nothing, but I was fed up and decided to just get my manuscript out. For the next one, I will pursue all avenues until i bleed them dry, but for Billy Buttles, I kind of want it out there.
To get back to the point of this agency, I finally heard from my "assigned" agent today. I was e-mailed to notify me that she was leaving the agency and any questions I had should now be referred to the head of the agency. You have to laugh. Now, I don't know if it was the agent that was assigned to me that played all of these games or the agency itself. I don't know if I should contact the agency head again. If anybody reads this and has any suggestions, please let me know. I have heard that the publishing business is a funny one, but I really thought this was unprofessional.

As far as self-publishing, I am going ahead with it. If anything happens with any agent, it will be a pleasant surprise, but I wish to move ahead just in case. I have already hired an illustrator through Guru.com and will see how that turns out. If everything plays right, Billy Buttles and the Gravesend Witch should be available for purchase by March. The illustrator will do the cover and one picture, a splash page, per chapter. The woman I hired seems nice enough, hopefully she will do good work for me as well.
In the meantime, I have now finished my second children's manuscript and the proposals for two other non-fiction books. I also am in the middle-stages for two other Young Adult novels. I hope one of these things catches fire and can get me published. Let's all hope together, I could sure use the luck.

Happy Holidays again,

Jonathan

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Which self-publishing company

December 23rd 2007 03:50

Hi,

It has been a few days since my last posting. I seem to have caught this bug that is going around south Florida. It is terrible nausea and then includes vomiting. I know...lovely. I'm sure you're all glad that I shared it with you. My kids had it earlier in the week and I caught it yesterday. I remember my kids crying last weekend and throwing up. My son, who is 5, was hysterical crying and said he wanted to go to the doctor, as if that would make it instantly better. I felt awful and said that if I could take the pain from him, I would. Be careful what you wish for. This was terrible. Felt like my chest was on fire.I had a nice streak going of close to ten years without vomiting and it all came to a halt yesterday. I hate that feeling. Sitting over the toilet and waiting for it, knowing that it's inevitable. I felt slightly better afterwards, but only for a couple of hours until it hit again. Thankfully, today is just nausea without the throwing up. Even the nausea is not as bad as yesterday. Hopefully, another day or two and we're done.

Now back to writing. When I last left off, I mentioned that I had decided to self-publish my manuscript Billy Buttles and the Gravesend Witch. I gave my reasons for doing the first one. After searching through many companies, I decided to go with Mill City Press. There were many reasons I went with them. First one was higher royalties and the ability to set my own price. Many of the self-publishing companies take a royalty and set the price of retail for the book so high, I believe you are pricing yourself out of the market. I spoke to many places that were going to set the price of my Young Adult novel at around $17.95 per book. I don't know of many people who would take a chance on an unknown author at close to twent dollars a copy. This is a more manageable $9.99. I think some people might be willing to take a risk for that price. Mill City also seemed to have a fairly good marketing plan. My goal is to try to get Billy Buttles into as many places as possible. That of course includes blogging and posting on some message boards. Since this is going to be done primarily through my own efforts, I have to create a Billy Buttles awareness. That will mean linking it to other Young Adult stories, perhaps even message boards about witches or supernatural things. The more places and people that know about Billy Buttles and the Gravesend Witch the better. My goal is to have the book published by March. So, between now and then it will be up to me to try and create a buzz about it. Mill City also has their own imprint as a small publisher. I have to try and work to get Billy Buttles listed through one of those. I know there is some sort of stigma attached to self-published authors. I used to have that thought as well. That is until I met several self-published authors who seem to be doing pretty well for themselves. It is all about marketing. I will delve into other methods next time. The nausea is too much for me right now. So, in the meantime, tell your friends about Billy Buttles and the Gravesend Witch. Until next time.

Thanks,

Jonathan

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Self-Publishing Billy Buttles

December 19th 2007 03:41

Hi everybody,

Hope all of you are well. First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Jonathan Rosen. I am originally from New York, but I now live in Coral Springs, Florida. Around six years ago, I started working on a Young Adult book called, Billy Buttles and the Gravesend Witch. I have always wanted to be a writer and the inspiration for this story came from the place I was living, Gravesend in Brooklyn. It was so named because there actually was a small cemetery at the end of the area. As a kid, I used to let my imagination run wild with things and think about a cemetery that was there before the town started. That was the impetus for my story. A cemetery that nobody knows how it got there and the strange things happening around the town. I started and stopped many times over the next few years, before finally deciding to just sit down and write it. I finished it at the end of 2006 and naively figured I would send it out and it would be greeted with open arms. Sure I thought I might get a few rejections, but I thought overall it would be positive. In the first batch of ten that I sent out, I received four rejections, three no-replies and three requests from agents to see more of the manuscript. I figured three out of ten was great. I sent in more material and two out of the thee asked for the full manuscript and one agent asked to represent me. I know that you shouldn't jump at the first one that offers, but I did. They told me to withdraw my manuscript from consideration from the two open agencies. The agency, said that they would send a contract out and never did. They kept giving me reason after reason they didn't do it. First telling me not to worry about it and then telling me the agent got really sick for a time, but it never came and go figure, soon the e-mails from them stopped as well. This was a good introduction to the business. This took several months. Afterwards I sent out several more queries and received rejections. Completely disheartening. In the meantime, I have continued writing and have nearly completed another manuscript and am halfway through a third. All of which are Youn Adult stories. I have also sent in some proposals for two non-fiction works and am waiting to hear back.
I know this is off topic, but I am telling it for a reason. For right or for wrong, I have decided to go ahead and self-publish my first story, Billy Buttles and the Gravesend Witch. I know they tell you to give it a lot more time and rejecions, but my reasoning is this: I want my name out there for future stories. I know the agents and publishing houses won't care whatsoever about my self-published work, but I am going to try to market it the best I can for now. I have a very good friend who is the president of a large PR firm in New York, and I am going to ask for a favor to help promote me. I just want some name recognition for future endeavors. I thought this blog would be a great way to help people keep track of the process. One, for fun and two, in case anybody else is thinking about going through with this, they can share my experiences. In my next post, I will tell you all which company I picked and what the details are. Until then, stay well and keep a lookout for my name.
Thanks,
Jonathan

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