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  1. matwilson

    matwilson New Member

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    Why on this good earth would any publisher reject this masrepiece?

    Discussion in 'Traditional Publishing' started by matwilson, Feb 27, 2011.

    I have written the definitive biography of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, in the sense that I have exposed the genuine nature of their relationship and I
    have identified the people who are responsible for her murder. In a celebrity culture such as ours, this love story, which is as tragic and as dramatic as
    the rivalry between the Capulets and the Montague family, as it is portrayed in the greatest play ever written, is potentially the biggest and the most
    famous untold story in world history.

    So why hasn't any agent or publisher begged me to publish my work?

    Moreover, why hasn't any movie director begged me for the rights to this story. Can you imagine how lucrative it would have been if it was made into a movie? (Charlie Sheen, eat your heart out !)

    Can anybody please respond to these perplexing question as honestly as possible?

    People frequently google my name, Mat Wilson, and the title of my book, 'Preserving the Legacy' and I get some wonderful feedback that feeds my ego. For example, an extremely intelligent reader (a conclusion derived from reading his previous posts) who uses the handle "CK" to enlighten the world on the net wrote, "Mat, Just read your entire book and can't imagine why it's not sold for millions. It is a masterpiece. Suggest self-publishing and hand-selling it across the country. Whatever it takes!!!"

    Another who goes by the handle Smiling Curmugeon wrote: "Until I Googled 'Preserving the Legacy' and read a paragraph or two, I had no idea LBJ was
    responsible for Kennedy's assassination! Joe, I think Mat's an unrecognized genius. His writings will one day crack open all kinds of misunderstood history.
    Or, his writings will, um, just crack. Cur"

    My research is thoroughly documented and those who dispute it are generally ignorant or politically motivated.
     
  2. matwilson

    matwilson New Member

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    Due to my generally humble nature, I have failed to correctly key in the word, MASTERPIECE !
     
  3. Youniquee

    Youniquee (◡‿◡✿) Contributor

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    Lol...
    You're joking right?
    I smell sarcasm miles away...
     
  4. Ellipse

    Ellipse Contributor Contributor

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    Hm, have you tried mailing the manuscript to a publisher/agent yet? Gotta meet them halfway, you know. :D
     
  5. matwilson

    matwilson New Member

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    Last time I tried was in 1993 0r 1994, when it was HOT OFF THE PRESS !

    I don't think that the political climate is very conducive for those who seek to promote the truth.

    Just to give you one example, foreign policy in America is still dictated by the mentality of people like Richard Nixon.

    "What brings us together," Richard Nixon privately told Mao Zedong, "is a recognition on our part that what is important is not a nation's internal political philosophy...[It] is its policy toward the rest of the world and toward us."

    In that context, "our" as in the lives of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, are not supposed to matter.
     
  6. HeinleinFan

    HeinleinFan Banned

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    @Youniquee: He's probably serious, as in not joking. But yeah, it comes off as sounding a bit ... odd.

    @matwilson: There are agents and publishers who specialize in nonfiction, and those are the ones you should be trying to contact. Script writers and movie producers don't just walk up to largely-unknown writers and offer millions; most of the time, they won't show up at all, and if they do it will be after your book has reached a large audience.

    It's a great accomplishment to have finished a nonfiction manuscript. But in order to get it published, you'll probably have to do at least one pass-over to correct typos. A quick read of the first paragraphs of the online sample showed a fair number of errors. A read through -- or possibly getting a friend or family member to read through it, looking for errors -- would probably catch many of them.

    The section you have online is presumably not the whole book. However, if it is, then you don't really have enough of a book for many publishers to print. The online sample is only around 10,000 words long. That's an accomplishment, to be sure, but not long enough to be a book. (Short books are at least 45,000 words long; many books are more than 80,000 words long.)

    If you're interested in getting this published, you can either go the traditional route, in which you'd have to set up a nonfiction package of your work and send it to agents and editors, or you can self-publish electronically. I don't know what you're going for at this point, but before you make a major decision, you should definitely do some research on how to submit your work to a professional publisher.
     
  7. Terry D

    Terry D Active Member

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    They are probably waiting for your book about the Face On Mars, or Doomsday 2012, or maybe even the 9/11 Conspiracy.
     
  8. matwilson

    matwilson New Member

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    So thoughtful and helpful. Thank you very much.
     
  9. guamyankee

    guamyankee Active Member

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    1994? Time to move on, man. Tell me you've written other masterpieces since then.
     
  10. Youniquee

    Youniquee (◡‿◡✿) Contributor

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    Oh damn...
    He's not joking o_O
    Well, I'll be on my way...
    *Feels dumb*
     
  11. mammamaia

    mammamaia nit-picker-in-chief Contributor

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    reasons:

    1. since it's available to be read for free online, why would any publisher with half a brain want to pay you for it and spend a lot of money publishing it hoping people will pay to read it?... or any agent want to spend a penny trying to sell it to them?

    2.you have no credentials as a writer, or investigative reporter, or friend/confidante of either party, so who's going to believe anything you have to say in it, or even bother reading it?

    3.the book you mention is not a biography of monroe and dimaggio, but only one of many conspiracy theory works about the kennedy assassination that may or may not contain some theory in re monroe's place in his life and her own death...
     
  12. Mallory

    Mallory Contributor Contributor

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    Methinks I hear the thundering footsteps of a troll running through the forest?
     
  13. guamyankee

    guamyankee Active Member

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    I swear I've heard this Dimaggio/Monroe sob story thing before somewhere. Maybe I'm just losing my mind.
     
  14. Mallory

    Mallory Contributor Contributor

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    "Masterpiece" in the title is spelled wrong and that makes it all the more hilarious.
     
  15. matwilson

    matwilson New Member

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    I edited chapter 1, is it okay now?
     
  16. BlackScorpion

    BlackScorpion New Member

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    I always thought JFK was killed out collecting mushrooms with Frodo, but thanks for enlightening me.
     
  17. matwilson

    matwilson New Member

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    No problem. That's my job. I enlighten people through brilliant writing like the following:

    In 1970, two years after leaving the White House, Johnson returned to San Marcos where he and four of his former professors reminisced. Johnson's particular reflection concerned the San Marcos political exploits that he had orchestrated and according to the former President of the United States: "It was my first real big dictat -Hitlerized operation, and I broke their back good. And it stayed broke for a good long time."10

    Had a tape recorder not been running to inadvertently record the fact that San Marcos politicking was merely the first of a series of "big dictats", one would perhaps be more inclined to underestimate the profound ruthlessness that Johnson and his thirst to exercise power was capable of, but let there be no misunderstanding. In the light of his his constant propensity to operate on the level of what he called a "big dictat" or a "Hitlerized operation," one gets a very clear sense of his other "Hitlerized operations" -like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

    In his own words, Johnson's first "big dictat" was a "pretty vicious operation for a while. They lost everything I could have them lose."11 The recording obviously reflected a rare slip of Johnson's disciplined tongue, but the message is very loud and clear -Johnson's determination to exercise power was so absolutely relentless that he always found a way around normal democratic restraints, when he wanted to enforce his will.

    The rare, candid portrait of Lyndon Johnson cannot be dismissed because it is his own words, it describe his capacity to be ruthless, cruel, dictatorial and brutal, and it accords with the historical record that is unearthed when the truth behind deliberate lies is exposed. If it was difficult to make sense out of his political career because Johnson always imposed an obsessive degree of secrecy, the task has been made easy by the consistency of his character and the glaringly bold manipulations which have changed the course of history.

    The consistency of the identifiable patterns that defined Johnson's life is striking. In College, he secretively targeted political candidates like Medie Kyle. In Washington, it was the Kennedys who stood between him and his political ambitions and in 1964, when Robert Kennedy refused to withdraw his candidacy for the vice presidency, an impromptu regulation effectively disqualified every cabinet member, to obscure the simple fact the only real target of this sweeping decision was Robert F. Kennedy. The fact that Johnson manipulated the entire, vice-presidential selection process for the sake of disqualifying a single, potential candidate further betrays Johnson's routine tendency to deceive and to monopolize power through abusive tactics.

    It is not possible to understand the substance behind the power that Johnson exercised without a through examination of his routine propensity to deceive. Clearly, Johnson's entire life does not make any sense at all if we ignore the rules of his game. How, for example, does one explain the fact that Johnson was, at once, the most detested individual, as well as the most influential political force at San Marcos? In retrospect, the answer is clear. Lyndon Johnson was a master propagandist and manipulator who imposed a level of secrecy which was so absolute that he was able to use the framework of a political democracy to execute what he called "Hitlerized operations". In the end, he demonstrated the extraordinary capacity to promote the exact opposite of what a democracy (as opposed to a dictatorship) like the United States publicly tolerates.

    Unlike Kennedy who valued the spirit of Jeffersonian democracy; the idea of equality, freedom, and most of all, the conviction that the people's control over the government was supreme, Johnson valued the triumph of the "big dictat". Politically, Johnson survived because he enlisted "all his energy and all his cunning in a lifelong attempt to obscure not only the true facts of his rise to power and his use of power but even of his youth, he succeeded well."12

    Johnson carried his obsessive commitment to secrecy to Washington, where he was criticized for the huge credibility gap between his public declarations and his private dealings. When, for example, Johnson publicly claimed that the relationship between himself and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was strictly formal and professional, he deliberately misrepresented the simple fact that the reliance and alliance between Hoover and Johnson was inseparable. Indeed, Hoover and Johnson had been longtime Washington neighbours, close personal friends, and unindicted, criminal co-conspirators who evaded criminal prosecution through the capacity to impose secrecy and to evade censure for abusing power. The relationship was so vital that when Johnson left the White House, he told Nixon that Hoover was the only person that he could entirely trust and rely upon, and he was certainly not referring to the official duties of the Director of the FBI. Johnson used Hoover for unofficial tasks like spying on his political enemies and on those who opposed the Vietnam war. Their covert relationship had all the earmarks of the "police state" environment they created, developed and sustained, and it has never been adequately recognized.





    As you can see, I am an amazing researcher, and as Arthur chlesinger Jr. said, a man who spends time going through the archives is even more knowledgeable than the President of the United States.
     
  18. arron89

    arron89 Banned

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    It's very dry, very fact-based. I'd say your writing style is probably the main reason no one has picked it up, based on what you posted above. The best non-fiction writing, even exposes like this, are fueled by analogies, first-hand accounts, relatable narratives, things that appeal to readers' interest in stories, characters, drama. There's too much of you in the work, which is kinda an amateur mistake when it comes to non-fiction writing. 'You', as in your authorial voice and agenda, should be visible in what you include, how you structure it and where you lead the reader, but this is mostly just you taking a piece of information and telling the reader what it means and what conclusion to draw. It's boring to read. The reader should be allowed to share your discoveries, and the sense of discovery; they shouldn't be spoon-fed the results of your research.

    That aside, some of the sentences are poorly constructed, there's a lot of unnecessary repetition and uninteresting diction. It also comes across as 'just another conspiracy theory'--when what you're doing is challenging conventional knowledge or expose little-known facts, you need to be extra careful to show the reader that your sources are reliable and correct. You should also connect your new information to things they already know to overcome their scepticism. If everything you tell them is new/subversive/unproven, they're less likely to accept it.
     
  19. guamyankee

    guamyankee Active Member

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    You're already a self-professed genius, why bother with anyone else's opinion?

    -arron89, I couldn't have said it better. Couldn't have said it as well either.
     
  20. BlackScorpion

    BlackScorpion New Member

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    Thought this definition might help you in your work;

    egotistic: characteristic of those having an inflated idea of their own importance
     
    1 person likes this.
  21. matwilson

    matwilson New Member

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    I actually don't consider myself to be a writer, I'm more of a researcher, but I disagree on one account. You say that there is too much of me in this work but given the fact that it is tightly fact-based, as you indicate, the truth leaps out, it has nothing to do with me.

    This is the sort of work that is interesting despite me -i think.
     
  22. Terry D

    Terry D Active Member

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    Please don't feed the trolls!
     
  23. matwilson

    matwilson New Member

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    It has been said that history belongs to the ages and that we ignore it at our own peril.
     
  24. guamyankee

    guamyankee Active Member

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    It's not interesting.
    You are delusional.
    You're never really going to listen to anyone's advice, therefore, you will never improve as a writer.
     
  25. Terry D

    Terry D Active Member

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    It's also been said that if something smells like bull crap it probably is bull crap.
     
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