Author: SteveBernsteinAuthor.com

I got found. And I wasn’t even trying.
 
For two years, self-publishing on Amazon had been good enough. Stories from the Stoop was selling. Positive reviews plus, of course, a few stinkers. I was done trying to get an agent. I was done trying to get a publisher. I was content. 

Then in September 2019, an e-mail showed up in my inbox with the subject line: “Partnering with a traditional publisher for Stories from the Stoop.”  I read the e-mail three times to make sure I understood what this editor was offering me and that it wasn’t just another book deal scam.
 
The editor wrote, “We want to offer you a contract. My boss, the owner of Skyhorse Publishing, found your book on Amazon, read it and fell in love with it. You have such a rich story to tell and we want to see your book in Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Costco and beyond. Can you come down to the city to meet with us?”
 
Immediately I Googled Skyhorse Publishing. They were legit. Best-selling imprints. Not chopped liver. I was fighting the feeling that this was just too damned good to be true.
 
Two weeks later, I found myself on Amtrak train #471, the Valley Flyer, from Northampton, Massachusetts on my way to New York City. I was prepared and excited. I was even going to arrive on time. 
 
In my backpack, as usual, I had four paperback copies of my book and a fine tip Sharpie to inscribe the title page–you never know who you’re going to meet on Amtrak. In fact, I arrived at Penn Station with one less book plus a full-color pamphlet about a Baptist church conference to support LGBQT youth. It was given to me by a very nice woman who sat down next to me in Springfield. Once she was settled into her seat, she looked over, noticed that I was reading my book and asked, “Does that book say ‘stoop’ on the cover? I know all about stoops. I’m from Brooklyn.” We got to talking about stoops which, of course, led to sharing stories about our neighborhoods, our families and growing up in the city in the 1960’s. We talked for three hours and seventeen minutes, all the way from Springfield, Massachusetts to New York City.

For this special occasion of meeting my publisher, I also had with me a tin of Linzer cookies. My partner baked them and had insisted I bring them. So, the woman from Brooklyn not only got a copy of my book, she also got a home baked Linzer cookie.
 
As we approached the city, the train passed through all the familiar Bronx sights: public housing projects, tenements, graffiti, bodegas, abogados, parks, basketball courts, check cashing storefronts, used car lots and burnt out cars resting on cinder blocks. It was still the Bronx, my Bronx.
 
As a kid growing up in the Bronx fifty years ago, I never guessed that at the age of sixty-five I would be on an Amtrak train on my way to negotiate a contract with a major publisher for my memoir about growing up on these same streets in the 1960’s.
 
When I arrived at Penn Station, I walked the few blocks to West 36th Street and took the elevator up to the 11th floor. The elevator door opened to the entire floor filled with walls of books, nothing but books.
 
My new editor greeted me warmly and led me to a glass-walled conference room. By the time the boss arrived fifteen minutes later, there were only a few Linzer cookies left. He popped a cookie into his mouth as he picked up my book from the conference table. He thumbed through the book and held it up to me: “This book, your stories, brought me back to my childhood growing up in Manhattan.” 

He began to tell me about the street games he played as a kid, though they had slightly different names and rules. For example, in my Bronx neighborhood we had a bottle cap game called Skelly but in his neighborhood, they called it Skully.  I love when my stories spark other people to share their stories. With all the New York stories we swapped, we barely had time to talk shop. 
 
Two weeks later, I signed the contract and a few weeks after that I got a check in the mail. I sure liked looking at that check and holding it in my hand. After a month, I finally deposited it. Skyhorse will launch the book this August.
 
So, a kid from the 1960’s Bronx becomes a plumber; gets married three times; gets divorced twice; starts four businesses and loses a few of them; teaches disco dancing; runs a bingo hall; starts two non-profits and five animal rights groups; gets a bachelor’s and a master’s degree; becomes a special education teacher and a humane educator; and then, at the age of sixty-two, decides to write a memoir. Makes perfect sense, right?

What doesn’t make sense is the unexpected publishing contract. I got found.

Not yet giving up on agents, two years ago I signed up for a workshop with a panel of experienced agents who would share their approach to selecting, or not selecting, manuscripts to publish.

The room was full of writers and writers-to-be excited to learn more about how to get connected to a publisher via the agent process. I was particularly excited about this workshop because each writer attending had been invited to submit a “best line” to be evaluated, on the spot, by the panel of agents who would offer their hypothetical verdict, either “no thanks” or “send me more.” I was one of five writers whose best line had been chosen.

The workshop was introduced by a prolific writer who described her agent experience. She has six books published and a flourishing career. What caught my attention was that it took twenty years of knocking on agents’ doors and endless rejections before she finally got somebody to work with her. She’s about my age now and I’m thinking, at that rate, I’ll be eighty-four before I get an agent. If I ever do.

Following the introduction, each agent described which kinds of queries they paid attention to. I found all but one agent to be optimistic, encouraging, and open-minded.

So, about the “all but one.” She was a young woman, obviously impressed with all the requests she gets from hungry, humble writers looking to catch a break. I got the impression she felt powerful by being able to quickly and unemotionally discount a writer’s hard work and creativity with a mere “no thanks” response.

One of the “valuable pointers” she gave the participants was, “Don’t ever send me anything about a dog. No dogs allowed! I’ll quickly chuck it in the trash.”

The audience grew silent. I laughed. I laughed not only because of her utterly bizarre statement but also because I knew my best line had been chosen, and guess what? It was about a dog!

I had chosen my best line from “Wolf,” the first story of my memoir about my childhood, Stories from the Stoop. The dog-hating agent was the first on the panel to comment. She studied my slip of paper for nearly a minute of very serious concentration. With some hesitation she finally announced her verdict. “I want more,” she said. This time the audience laughed. I didn’t.

I was angry. This agent’s process was fickle and capricious.

After my first meeting with the “leaky ceiling” agent (see previous post), the writer with twenty years of rejections and now this agent who proclaimed herself to be anti-canine, but it turns out wasn’t or not always, I was rapidly losing hope and patience with this whole agent thing.

I realized at sixty-four, that I wasn’t cut out for this game. That’s when I decided to take a hard look at Amazon self-publishing. And pretty darn quick.

It took one year to write my manuscript, Stories from the Stoop. Next step: get an agent. Should be a cinch, I thought.

I got myself to a writer’s conference and signed up for fifteen minutes to pitch my book to an agent. A week before the conference, I sent the agent a short excerpt of my book and a brief overview. She loved it, she said. Can’t wait to meet you, she said. With that I was psyched. Slam dunk, I thought.

I arrived early for my appointment. I was optimistic. Why wouldn’t I be? She loved the manuscript. She couldn’t wait to meet me.

She was very nice, albeit she needed a little reminder about what my name was, what my book was, what it was about, details that I thought I sent her a week earlier. No prob, she’s a busy agent and maybe it slipped her mind.

Five minutes into my appointment, while I was basically reminding her who I was and what I wrote and what it’s about, her cell phone rang.

“Oh no, Jim. How much water? Gallons? From the ceiling?”

She looked over at me and mouthed, “Sorry, I’m so sorry….”

Four minutes later, nine minutes into my appointment, she said, “Jim, should you call the fire department?”

“Enough,” I said. I motioned to her to give me the phone. Perplexed, she did as I commanded.

“Hey Jim. Steve here. I’m sitting next to Helen. Okay, okay try to calm down. I’m a master plumber. Tell me what’s happening. . . . Got it. Jim, this is what I want you to do. Go downstairs to the basement to the front wall of the house. Look for a small copper pipe coming through the front wall. . . . No, no, not the big black one. It’s much smaller, and copper. . . . Found it? . . . Good. Follow that pipe a few feet and it will connect to a big brass round thing with a dial on it. . . . Good. You found the water meter. Okay, there’s a shut-off valve right next to the meter. . . . Exactly Jim, it has a round handle. Turn it clockwise. . . . The water stopped, right? . . . Glad I could help.”

I handed the phone back to Helen. Fourteen minutes in.

For the rest of the appointment, one whole minute, Helen both thanked me profusely and apologized. She told me that I saved the day, saved her house, saved her a ton of money. She promised to contact me next week for a new appointment.

“Least I could do,” she said. Never heard from her again.

I wasn’t done with agents, yet. But it was close.

I’m not kidding around no more. I’m jumpin back into literacy-math-academics-vocational education-mentoring–my way of practicalizing equality and ending inequality. Equal opportunity. Level the playing field. Period. Keep an eye on my signs and progress.

I’m happy to announce that I have been chosen as Author of the Month by the Northampton Senior Center where I will be doing a reading. I’ve attached an article introducing my memoir, Stories from the Stoop, and announcing the reading.

Saturday, Sept. 21^st, 2:00 to 4:00 PM, Write Angles Flash Memoir Reading, Forbes Library, 20 West Street, Northampton, MA I’ll be reading a flash excerpt of “Order on the Court,” from Stories from the Stoop. The story describes an early evening on April 4th, 1968. I was shooting hoops on a basketball court at a Bronx housing project when Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. As usual, I was the only white kid on the court.

Tuesday, Sept. 24^th, 1:00 to 2:00 PM, Author of the Month Reading, Northampton Senior Center, 67 Conz Street, Northampton, MA I’ll be reading “Wolf,” the opening story from Stories from the Stoop, about a dog who saved my life but I couldn’t save Wolf’s life.

Today is the day that for the last 18 years I slow down and remember my best friend Joe. I remember our childhood. I remember how he never gave up on me through all my twists and turns, even when I didn’t show up for our friendship like he always did. 

And then I remember Ground Zero. That night, a week after the planes, when I was allowed to go on the site because I was family.

The eerie desolation, the smoke, the building exo-skeletons leaning and just hanging on to themselves, the gas masks, the bright lights, the haze, the workers scurrying around, the giant equipment–cranes and bulldozers. Every time they chipped away at debris, balls of fire erupted. 

I remember his cop buddy pointing to where Joe was last seen. I climbed up the seven stories of smoky debris, stopped, looked around, panting through my gas mask. I felt like I was on a different planet. 

And then I prayed.