The Book Bin

Pump Up Your Book Announces Mystery Author Dave Zeltserman's 'Dying Memories Virtual Book Tour 2011'

Join Dave Zeltserman, author of the thriller novel, Dying Memories (StoneGate Ink), as he virtually tours the blogosphere in May 2011 on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

About Dave Zeltserman

Dave Zeltserman won the 2010 Shamus Award for 'Julius Katz' and is the acclaimed author of the ‘man out of prison’ crime trilogy: Small Crimes, Pariah and Killer, where Small Crimes was picked by NPR as one of the five best crime and mystery novels of 2008, and Small Crimes and Pariah (2009) were both picked by the Washington Post as best books of the year. His recent The Caretaker of Lorne Field received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, calling it a 'superb mix of humor and horror', and has been shortlisted by ALA for best horror novel of 2010. Outsourced (2011) has already been called 'a small gem of crime fiction' by Booklist and has been optioned by Impact Pictures and Constantin Film. His latest book is Dying Memories (StoneGate Ink). You can visit Dave’s website at www.davezeltserman.com. Connect with him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/people/Dave-Zeltserman/1434849193.

About Dying Memories

When you can't trust your memories. A woman shoots a man to death on a crowded street in Boston, claiming that he raped and murdered her eleven-year old daughter. Except he didn't, because this woman never had a daughter. Another man stabs an MIT professor to death in front of a crowd in Harvard Square, saying that he witnessed the professor running down his wife in the street. Except the MIT professor was three thousand miles away when the man's wife was killed. Reporter Bill Conway discovers that these victims are connected to ViGen Corporation, a shadowy pharmaceutical company. When he tries to investigate ViGen Corporation and their role in these deaths, he soon finds himself framed for murder. And that turns out to be the least of his problems...

Visit Dave's official tour page at www.pumpupyourbook.com/2011/04/09/dying-memories-virtual-book-tour-may-2011/ to see which blogs and websites he’ll be stopping off at during his Dying Memories Virtual Book Tour 2011!

How to Get Published by 'The Treasure Hunters Club' Sean McCartney

How to Get Published is a continuing feature at The Book Bin where we ask authors to tell us their publishing stories.  Was it a rocky road or did it come easy for them?  Did they start with an agent and get a NY publisher interested in their book or did they self-publish?  What words of wisdom do they have for all of us who would like to be published one day? 

Today’s guest is Sean McCartney, author of the YA novel, The Treasure Hunters Club: The Secrets of the Magical Medallions .  

Let me first thank The Book Bin for allowing me to talk with all of you today.

 

My name is Sean McCartney and I am the author of the new young adult action adventure series entitled THE TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB: SECRETS OF THE MAGICAL MEDALLIONS.

 

The book was released July 6, 2010 and is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, www.mountainlandpublishing.com  and my web site www.treasurehuntersclubbook.com.

 

My road to publication is probably like many others. I started getting serious about writing novels in 2001. I wrote my first, THE 65^th TEAM in the summer of 2001 and sent it out waiting for all the offers to come in. The only thing that came through the mail was…

 

REJECTION! And lots of it.

I was stunned. Didn’t these publishers know that every word I put down was gold? That every thought must be perfect because I took the time? So I wrote another novel and another and the same thing kept happening.

 

REJECTION! What I didn’t understand at the time and after years of working on novels I see now was that I did not respect the words, the sentences or the paragraphs. I left story lines hanging. I assumed the reader would get it. The truth was I didn’t get it.

 

A friend of mine pointed out something that Mark Twain said and I have used as my guideline for the rest of my novels. “The difference between the right word and the wrong word is like the difference between lightening and a lightening bug.”

 

With that idea in mind I wrote a fantasy novel called BLACK KNIGHT CHRONICLES: RISE OF EVIL and sent it out. I was able to land an agent with that book and we embarked on looking for a publisher.

 

My agent sent the manuscript to all the big time publishers and some took a look but nothing came of it. They seemed to like the idea but I was told the market was saturated with fantasy books about knights and dragons and another wasn’t needed.

 

This was frustrating because during this time I mapped out a five book series and even wrote the second book to BLACK KNIGHT CHRONICLES called SHADOW WARS.

 

Finally after eight years I decided to write something I would have found myself reading as a kid. I wanted to combine the mystery of the Hardy Boys with the action and adventure of Indiana Jones and national Treasure and thus THE TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB was born.

 

I really liked it. Of course I liked the other ones too but I decided to take a new approach with sending the book out for publication. I only queried small publishers. No agent this time, just me.

 

The rejections still came but there was a different tone to what came back. The publishers liked the ideas and the story but with the economy tanking at the time they didn’t feel they could do TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB justice.

 

Then on July 17, 2011 I received the e-mail from Mountainland Publishing wanting to publish my book I felt like I’d won the lottery.

 

Over the next year I went through the ups and downs of working with a small, relatively new publisher, but that is another story entirely.

 

I encourage you, because begging is undignified, to get yourself a copy of THE TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB: SECRETS OF THE MAGICAL MEDALLIONS and kick back and enjoy a fun, fast paced and exciting adventure.

 

Thanks again for the opportunity and I hope to hear from all of you.

 

Sean Paul McCartney (he’s not related to the Beatle) was born in 1971. He graduated from Alfred University in upstate New York with a Bachelor’s in Communications in 1993. From there he played two exciting season traveling around the world with the Washington Generals playing against the world famous Harlem Globetrotters. In 1996 Sean earned his Masters in Education and embarked on a career as a teacher. He is employed by Plain Local Schools in Canton , OH . The first book in the series The Treasure Hunters Club: Secrets of the Magical Medallions introduces the four teens Tommy Reed, Jackson Miller, Shannon McDougal and Chris Henderson. The series is a cross between The Hardy Boys and Indiana Jones with a touch of National Treasure. You can visit Sean’s web site at www.treasurehuntersclubbook.com or e-mail him at seancoach@juno.com.  Visit his The Treasure Hunters Club: Secrets of the Magic Medallions Facebook Fan Page by clicking here!

 

Interview with 'Chasing Zebras' Barbara Barnett

Barbara Barnett is Co-Executive Editor of Blogcritics, an Internet magazine of pop culture, politics and more owned by Technorati Media. Always a pop-culture geek, Barbara was raised on a steady diet of TV (and TV dinners), but she always found her way to TV’s antiheroes and misunderstood champions, whether on TV, in the movies or in literature. Barnett’s regular column, “Welcome to the End of the Thought Process: An Introspective Look at House, M.D.” features insightful episode commentaries and interviews with the House cast and creative team. It is the place for intelligent discussion of the hit television series starring Hugh Laurie. Barbara has had an eclectic career. With an undergraduate degree in biology and minors in chemistry and English, she pursued a PhD in Public Policy Analysis after spending a few years working in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Her first professional writing gig was with a food industry trade magazine, and although it wasn’t exactly like writing for The New Yorker, it completely hooked her on the profession of writing. She also writes lots of other things, including technology (from a non-geek perspective), the movies, politics and all things Jewish. Based in the north shore suburbs of Chicago, Barnett is married with two brilliant children and a dog. Chasing Zebras: The Unofficial Guide to House, M.D. is her first (commercial) book. She hopes it’s not her last. Visit Barbara’s website at www.barbarabarnett.com.

Q: Thank you for this interview, Barbara. Can you tell us what your latest book, Chasing Zebras: The Unofficial Guide to House, M.D. is all about?

CZ is a comprehensive exploration of the hit television series House, M.D. It’s written in two parts. In the first, I take apart the show’s storylines, character histories, bits of social commentary and more. My aim is to understand the series narrative, central character Dr. Gregory House and all in his orbit. I look at everything from the series connections to Sherlock Holmes to the music, sets, etc. I also look the often provocative social commentary: what does the series say about ethics, religion and God, patient rights and more. The second part of the book is an episode by episode dissection. It summarizes each episode, but also hones in on the highlights: how was House a jerk, what was the episode’s ethical dilemma? What was House’s eureka moment? What was the most important relationship moment? But even in this section, I delve deeply into many of the episodes with “Closer Look” essays.

Q: How did you come up with the idea?

I’ve written a very widely read blog called “Welcome to the End of the Thought Process” for Blogcritics Magazine since 2007 (I recently became the magazine’s co-executive editor). I wanted to find a way to dig even deeper into the episodes, story arcs and characters than was possible within the scope of a blog.

Q: What kind of research did you do before and during the writing of your book?

In addition to watching every episode numerous times, I also consulted with psychologists (House suffers from an entire constellation of emotional issues), Holmes bloggers, medical texts to understand the diseases encountered in the series, as well as pain management sites to understand better the nature of House’s chronic pain/drug issues.

Q: If a reader can come away from reading your book with one valuable message, what would that be?

Not everything is as it seems: a jerk is not necessarily a jerk; the “ethical thing” is not necessarily the “right thing,” and perhaps also come away getting to know this fascinating fictional character a little better.

Q: Can you give us a short excerpt?

From the Introduction to Chasing Zebras: Dr. Gregory House is an unrepentant jerk. He’s rude, brusque, and harsh — suffering no fools and taking no prisoners. He’s not conventionally pretty; he’s not young. In addition, he’s crippled, limping along with a cane. Yet, he’s the central character on the hit television series, House, M.D. (just House, for short). It’s a completely unlikely proposition. How do you sell the network on a series created around such an irredeemable bastard? Who would even want to watch it? Millions do. House is one of the highest-rated television series on American television. More than that, it’s a hit around the world — from the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Eastern Europe to the Middle East, and in lands as far flung as Australia and Hong Kong. In Canada, House has even outranked American Idol! Eurodata TV Worldwide, which tracks and ranks television across the globe, reported in June 2009 that House was the most-watched television show worldwide, with nearly 82 million viewers tuning in from 66 countries. Why would more than 80 million viewers tune in week after week to see Dr. Gregory House verbally spar with his patients, staff, and colleagues at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital? There has to be something more to it (and to him) than just a brilliant jerk packing a stethoscope and a toxic tongue. Is it the bizarre medical cases? That’s probably one reason, and the starting point for most episodes. Inspired by physician Lisa Sanders’ New York Times feature “Diagnosis,” the House writing team, with creator David Shore at the helm, conjure the most unusual of cases, fitting for an elite Department of Diagnostic Medicine. Perhaps the series owes its success to the snappy dialogue: the quick wit and rapid-fire pace of the writing. The show’s scripts are certainly dense and swiftly paced: a stark counterpoint to the physically disabled and slow-of-foot Gregory House. And the humor, with its one-liner “House-isms” and snarky banter, supplies balance to the intensity of the weekly medical and character stories. Or do people simply live vicariously through House’s unfiltered voice? He is certainly capable of saying things the likes of which we normal, well-adjusted worker bees can only dream. Some may be intrigued by House’s uniquely personal code of ethics. Or perhaps House’s personal struggles resonate with us. Much credit in making House compelling television goes to the nuanced and genuine performance of Hugh Laurie, who stars as the genius diagnostician with serious personality issues. Through his expressive eyes and masterful acting, Laurie’s flawless interpretation of House’s frustrations, fears, hopes, and hurts guides us through House’s morass of bullshit and elaborate game playing and deep into his heart and soul. It’s ironic that executive producer Bryan Singer, the director of the House pilot, had difficulty casting the role of the quintessentially American Gregory House with an American actor. It was not until Laurie, legendary British comedian (and novelist, musician, and actor), sent in an audition tape, complete with perfect American accent, that Singer found an “American” actor capable of handling the complex role. But perhaps that’s because Dr. Gregory House has more in common with a particular English literary hero than he has with any American television character. Take a classic British literary hero, bring him into 21st century American medicine with a vengeance, and create a modern television phenomenon. The parallels to House’s literary grandfather — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 19th century detective Sherlock Holmes — are many and intentional. House . . . Holmes; Wilson . . . Watson. Holmes fiddled with his fiddle; House plays piano and guitar. Both House and Holmes reside at 221B. Holmes solved cases with associative leaps — a combination of genius and deductive reasoning, superheroic observational skills and deep intuition about the human psyche. So does House. Like his Victorian ancestor, House applies logic, reasoning, an encyclopedic knowledge (of everything), plus his intuition to solve medical mysteries and save lives. Holmes uses cocaine to forestall boredom; House uses Vicodin for more than just the pain in his leg. Unlike the British Sherlock Holmes, House is very much American. Yet, the Eton- and Cambridge-educated Laurie — a quintessentially British actor —completely captures the character. It’s no accident that Holmes fans have often suggested Laurie as the heir apparent to the role of Holmes. But Sherlock Holmes isn’t House’s only literary or pop culture ancestor. House’s heritage includes a long history of literary and cinematic heroes and antiheroes. Part Byron, part Sherlock, a bit of Quincy, M.E., perhaps a hint of Dr. Kildare’s mentor Gillespie, some of the The Dark Knight’s Batman, and a generous dollop of truth-seeking antihero Fox Mulder (The X-Files), House joins the ranks of classic dark angels and iconoclast

Q: In your own experience, is it hard to get a nonfiction book published today? How did you do it?

The publishing industry is very tough these days and very much in transition. I was incredibly fortunate to connect with a wonderful agent who found the perfect home for the book.

Q: What’s a typical day like for you?

I’m up by 6:30 a.m. and at the “day job” usually by 8:30. My hours at work are fairly long, but I usually take a two-hour stretch mid-day to write and tend to Blogcritics editing responsibilities. When I get home (usually about 8:00 p.m.) I write/edit till about 11:00 p.m.

Q: What’s next for you?

I have a project in proposal stage right now with my agent. I don’t want to talk much about it (bad luck), but it’s a pop culture treatment.

Q: Thank you so much for this interview, Barbara. We wish you much success!

Thanks so much!

How to Get Published by 'Adventures in Nowhere' John Ames

How to Get Published is a continuing feature at The Book Bin where we ask authors to tell us their publishing stories.  Was it a rocky road or did it come easy for them?  Did they start with an agent and get a NY publisher interested in their book or did they self-publish?  What words of wisdom do they have for all of us who would like to be published one day? 

Today’s guest is John Ames, author of the coming of age novel, Adventures in Nowhere.   

After my first publication, I was offered a small fee to speak at a couple of writers’ workshops. The woman who put them together told me she was sure it would be exciting for the workshop writers to hear me, a published author, discuss writing. So, I went to these workshops and gave an amusing talk. As I was preparing to make my getaway after the second one, a workshop attendee approached me and said in a pleasant but plaintive way, “I was hoping you were going to give us some tips on getting published.”

Getting published is the biggest hurdle for any writer, published or not. By comparison, the writing itself is a breeze. How could I tell that writers’ group that my way of getting published was to meet a famous transsexual who needed a coauthor?

 Here’s what happened. Renée Richards was training in my home town, Gainesville, Florida, when she met a friend of mine who is famously enthusiastic about most everything. He knew that I was writing, and he also knew that I had published nothing since I placed a feature story in the college newspaper ten years before. This technicality meant nothing to him, so when Renée mentioned she was having trouble writing her autobiography, he said, “I have a friend who writes.”

 Renée had tried to collaborate with several high-profile coauthors and somehow could not make it work. I had little hope that Renée Richards, then one of the most famous people in the world, would choose me, an unpublished nonentity, to coauthor her autobiography. However, when she agreed to come over for a sauna to talk about the project, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see a famous transsexual in the altogether. Even if no writing job was likely to come out of the visit, I would be amply rewarded with a look into the world of transsexualism, which at that time was a mystery to me and most everyone else in American society.

 On the evening appointed, Renée came over accompanied by her attractive personal manager, and we all tumbled into the sauna. When it got too hot to bear, we threw ourselves into a cattle trough full of cold water, then back into the sauna, and so on for several revolutions until we were thoroughly light-headed. Oh, as to seeing Renée in the altogether, I must say that everything in the areas of interest looked in good order. I was prepared to be happy with this learning experience alone, but when, with the hot sauna air crackling around us, Renée broached the subject of her autobiography, I trotted out my English Lit lecture on dramatic structure and applied it to her life. To my surprise, she made me her coauthor on the spot.

 What I did not know at the time was that she had a potent deadline looming and was pretty much desperate to find anyone who could put a series of sentences together. Her plan was to turn over a big pile of dictated remembrances to me, and then go off to train for the women’s tennis tour, which she did. The next thing I knew, I was talking to high-profile agents and editors. That happenstance is the foundation of my literary career, such as it is.

 However, I could hardly stand at a podium and advise my writers’ workshop audience to go hunting for a tennis-playing transsexual eye surgeon with a problem autobiography. Like so many beginning writers, I stumbled into an opportunity, but I had to be ready to grasp it even though the job was a little intimidating. And that is about all I can offer as publication advice for aspiring writers, let people know you are writing and be ready. It’s pathetic, I know, but it’s all I got.

 John Ames has a master’s degree in English from the University of Florida, where he was a Ford Fellow. After graduation, he built a rustic house and lived for several years on the edge of a spiritual community located near Gainesville, Florida. John’s search for enlightenment ended when he decided that he was too far from a movie theater. He moved inside the Gainesville city limits and taught English and film for thirty years at Santa Fe College.

He has produced and acted in numerous short films and videos, including the cable TV series the “Tub Interviews,” wherein all the interviewees were required to be in a bathtub. For ten years he reviewed movies for PBS radio station WUFT.  He has appeared as a standup comedian and has designed and marketed Florida-themed lamps.  He coauthored Second Serve: The Renée Richards Story (Stein and Day, 1983) and its sequel No Way Renée: The Second Half of My Notorious Life (Simon & Schuster, 2007), and Speaking of Florida (University Presses of Florida, 1993).

His recent book is a coming-of-age novel titled Adventures in Nowhere.

You can visit his website at www.johnamesauthor.com.

 

Interview with Ghost Hunter Susan Kronick: 'Hauntings are not all about the Exorcist and the Catholic Church'

Susan Kronick’s background is the perfect backdrop leading up to her latest paranormal novel, Sarah, They’re Coming for You.  She has a Master of Science in Psychology from Nova Southeastern University and a Ph.D. in Paranormal Studies/Psychology from Union Institute and Graduate School, as well as being an adjunct psychology professor at Barry University and Palm Beach State College.  A psychic and a medium, she has the gift of seeing the dead since she was a child.  She also has taught parapsychology classes through the Palm Beach County School Board, as well as at Palm Beach State College.  Susan has extensive experience in the area of investigations of haunting and the paranormal.  She lives with her husband and her four spoiled rescue dogs in south Florida.  You can visit her website at www.susankronick.webs.com. “Like” her page at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/susan-kronick/156870670886.

Thank you for this interview, Susan.  Let’s start with having you tell us what your new book, Sarah, They’re Coming for You, is all about?

Susan: Hauntings are not all about the Exorcist and the Catholic Church.  My book is a hair-raising ghost story whose main character has been tormented by nasty spirits throughout her life.  Her great great grandfather has always interceded on her behalf reaching out from the other side, to protect her from the evil ghosts, who wish to claim her soul for eternity. The only way she can end her haunting is to travel to her family’s ancestral castle in the tiny Alpine town of Meiningen, Austria .With the help of a mysterious stranger along with the discovery of her great great great great grandfather’s diary, she heads to the old country to face her  ghostly tormenters head on.

You based your main character, Sarah, on your own life, am I right?

Susan: Yes, that is correct. I am Sarah!  The book is inspired by actual events from my own life!  I didn’t initially set out to write an autobiography.  The experts say always write about what you are familiar with.  Rereading the first few chapters of the initial draft, it quickly became quite apparent that I was writing my story.  Like Sarah, I am an average, married, middle aged psychology professor with the not so average ability to see ghosts. All of Sarah's ancestors in the book are in fact my own relatives!                   

At what point did you say I’ve got to write this stuff down?  And why did you fictionalize it instead of writing a memoir?

Susan: I had no intention of penning a novel.  The point at which I decided to write everything down was the winter of 2008. Weary after going through three hurricanes here in Florida, we moved to upstate New York. The dreary winter days lent the perfect backdrop to writing a ghost story. Who needs fiction! My own life IS a ghost story!  At that point the idea to write it all down fell into place. Fortunately I did have two unfinished manuscripts I tapped into into when writing "Sarah."  One actually was a memoir of my genealogy research at the Family History Center, the many months corresponding with the various agencies in Austria for information on my mother's family, and the 1990 trip to Austria with my mom.It's a good thing I had kept that information, I would never have total recall of those details after twenty some odd years.The second book was a non-fiction text I had written for my parapsychology classes which I had taught over the years. I chose to write this book as fiction and not a memoir because even changing one fact makes a work fiction, and I changed a couple of facts to make the story more interesting.  Fact: My ancestral home in Meiningen was not really a castle, it was a very modest house. Fact: Although I have been plagued by nasty spirits my entire life, I did not have to travel to Austria to end my haunting.  Fact: My mom did have several cousins all named Josef, but they never spiritually tormented me in any way. Fact: We did move from our two story house into a ranch style, as Sarah and her husband did, but we were not forced out my nasty ghosts, we moved back to Florida in Dec. 2008 and our first house had sold before we decided to returnto the sunshine state.

Can you give us some similarities in the book that happened to you in real life?

Susan: The similarities between my life and Sarah's is uncanny. A few examples are: The opening scene where Sarah is lecturing a womens club at her sister's house actually did take place, at my sister's house; There was a scene where Sarah felt a presence and looked down to find a scrap of paper containing the initial's of her great grandfather.  That actually happened to me, and I still have that piece of paper with the initials; My great great grandfather Hermann is in fact my guardian angel; Just as Sarah does in the book, I do wear my great grandmother's wedding rings.

You were told you were the reincarnation of your great great great grandmother.  How did you learn this?

Susan: Years before I had done the research on my family, a psychic took my hand and told me I was the reincarnation of my great great great grandmother.  She told me her name was "Dora" and her last name had a long "i" sound. I didn't think much of it until years later while studying my genealogy.  I retrieved a copy of the death certificate for my great great grandmother, and on the document was the name of the decedent's parents.  I was shocked!  The name of my great great great grandmother was "DORA TOBIAS!" This story is in the book!

One of your passions is ghost hunting!  Would you like to tell us about one of your real ghost hunting expeditions?

Susan: Some years ago I appeared as a guest, on the Good Day Show, a morning program broadcast on WCVB-TV out of Boston, Massachusetts.  Halloween was just around the corner, and I was scheduled to investigate a haunted house in the nearby suburb of Newton. The program staff completed some preliminary research on the paranormal phenomena, as reported to them by the homeowner.   The ghostly occurrences included a child’s Glo Worm toy, which stood up and shined by itself in mid-air, as well as the proverbial footsteps walking across the floor, mirrors shattering to the floor, and several small household items being misplaced and moved around the house. The assumption being the ghost was the previous owner of the residence, who died in the home, shortly before the present owners purchased the property.

With a camera crew in tow, I spent considerable time in the house, in my dual role as parapsychologist and medium, a paranormal investigator with the ability to see spirits!  I “saw” the ghost clearly and relayed a detailed description along with a name, indicating the spirit was very friendly and loving, definitely not someone hell bent on reclaiming their house!  The homeowner in disbelief showed me some photographs. I identified the ghost, who turned out to be the homeowner’s own grandmother.  She had passed away shortly after her granddaughter’s wedding, and never lived to see her great grandchildren. I explained that Grandma was just trying to get their attention, with the strange phenomenon that had occurred.

The original plan had been to cross over the spirit, when it was assumed the ghost was the earth bound previous owner.  With the discovery that their spectral guest was their beloved grandma, the family chose not to have granny banished from the premises!

Sounds exciting!  I thank you for your time and wish you much success with your novel, Sarah, They’re Coming for You.  Do you have any final words?

Susan: My website is www.susankronick.webs.com. Readers can find out outmore about me!  "Sarah, They're coming for You" may be purchased at www.amazon.com/kindle, www.wildchildpublishing.com, www.omnilit.com, www.bookstrand.com, and www.mobipocket.com

 

How Marley and Dewey Kicked Our Butts by Annie Greer and Tim Vandehey

Today we welcome Annie Greer and Tim Vandehey, authors of the hilariously funny book, The Chimp Who Loved Me.  Annie and Tim are here to tell us all about how they got published.  Visit their website at www.thechimpwholovedme.com or "like" them at Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheChimpWhoLovedMe.  Enjoy!

How Marley and Dewey Kicked Our Butts

By Annie Greer and Tim Vandehey

We had to start our own publishing company, Diva Publishing and Broadcasting, in order to bring The Chimp Who Loved Me to life.  Not for lack of trying.  After we had a good idea of what the book was going to contain—humorous essays about Annie’s strange, wonderful and bizarre life among animals—we wrote a book proposal and sent it off to various literary agencies.  Three wound up vying for our affections, and we chose Kate Epstein out of Boston to represent the book, which at that time was called A Special Needs Turkey and a Sex-Crazed Chimp.

Unfortunately, as Kate submitted the book around to publishers, there was no interest.  It didn’t take us long to figure out why.  Our book violated the one rule of success in the animal books genre: whatever you do, for the love of God, make your animal story warm, fuzzy, and tear-jerky. 

Well, bother.  Everybody loved the book, and the loved the idea that Annie had her own growing radio call-in show.  But all they had to do was look at Marley and Me and Dewey to see that sad, sentimental animal books were practically guaranteed to hit numero uno on the New York Times bestseller list.  Our book was (and is) largely about sex, poop, pee and death. They don’t even make a list for books like that.  By the time we realized maybe we should have repositioned the book as a humor book, we’d burned our bridges.  No editor looks at the same book proposal again after saying no.

Undaunted, we pressed on.  If the publishing world was too blind to see our book’s potential, we would put it out ourselves!  If you’ve ever self-published, you know what fun that is.  But there was no way we were going to let our collection of hysterically funny stories about slutty goats, kidnapped flying squirrels, chicken-killing veterinary school professors and amorous chimpanzees go gently into that good night.  So we launched our own small press, pursued bulk purchase deals with veterinary companies (still in negotiations as you read this), built a killer website and dove into the publishing world.

At some point, we’ll tire of it all and go after another book deal.  After all, Annie has a farm and three veterinary clinics to run and Tim has a thriving career as a ghostwriter to attend to.  But that’s not to say it hasn’t been as much fun as a barrel of…you know.

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