Book deal?
By Joe Ferry on Feb 10, 2008 in Editorial Services
Earlier this week, my buddy Mark “Froggy” Carfagno and I had a meeting with a book agent. For those of you not familiar with the Frog, he was a groundskeeper for the Philadelphia Phillies for 33 years. His career came to an ugly end, which included an age discriminaiton suit, a couple of courtroom battles and an eventual settlement. Along the way, Frog suffered from some serious mental and physical problems related to his termination.
Anyway, Frog and I ran into each other about a year ago at a funeral. He told me he wanted to write a book but didn’t know where to start. He said he had started putting some thoughts down on paper and asked if I would take a look at it.
Turns out “Frog’s Bio” was about 10,000 words. It was all over the place, but it seemed like he had an interesting story to tell.
Since then, we’ve met about every two weeks. He would hand-write another chapter each time, and I would sit there while he translated his chicken scratch into something I could undertand. I figure he’s up to about 50,000 words by now.
At the same time he was writing, I was trying to line up a publisher. We made a list of all the publishers who had done sports-related books over the last few years and sent letters to each one, explaining what we had in mind and offering a proposed Table of Contents.
For the most part, our letters were ignored. A few publishers politely sent back form letters, saying our proposal didn’t fit their needs. One guy called and said he would look at the finished manuscript.
One day in January I was listening to WIP and heard host Glen Macnow talking about a book he was writing with Ray Didinger. He said their agent was looking for a publisher. A light went off in my head…if well-known guys like Macnow and Didinger, who have already published successful books, had an agent shopping their manuscript, what made me think two unknowns like Frog and I could do this alone.
Anyway, I told Frog about my revelation and he started asking around about agents. We finally stumbled on John Cappello, who recently got a book on the Mummers published. Did I mention Frog is a 46-year year Mummer vet?
We met with John last week at the Border’s in Bryn Mawr. Very nice guy, very optimistic that he would find a deal for us. Now we’re waiting to hear back from him.
So, my question is this: if anyone has had a book published, how did you go about it. Agent or no agent?
Thanks.
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On Feb 13, 2008, Hal Marcovitz said:
Have you thought of interviewing Froggy? As eloquent as he may be, that may be a better way of extracting the story from him than by trying to interpret his notes.
On Feb 13, 2008, Hal Marcovitz said:
As for finding a publisher, you are going to have to put together one or two sample chapters and an outline that is fairly extensive. They’ll want to see everything you are going to cover. If Froggy has some insider dirt on the Phils (drug use, carousing, steroids, that sort of thing), they are really going to want to know about that.
On Mar 18, 2008, Hal Marcovitz said:
How are things going with the Frog?
On Mar 20, 2008, Joe Ferry said:
Frog signed with Cappello but he hasn’t lined up a deal yet. He continues to be optimistic that one is out there for him.
Meanwhile, we continue to plug away on the manuscript. We have three chapters in various stages of completion. Cappello has seen the first one, plus our outline.
On Apr 4, 2008, Hal Marcovitz said:
I guess he’s pretty limited to Philadelphia area publishers, of which there are few. I think it’s going to be a hard sell if he has to approach a publisher in another city and tell them he’s got the bio of a guy named Froggy, the legendary assistant groundskeeper for the Phillies. I’m sure Froggy’s legend doesn’t extend too far beyond Bucks County.
If Froggy is so chummy with Richie Allen, can’t Richie put in a good word for him with his publisher? Richie’s published a biography. I know, because I own it.