tellhimfred.com

Dave Copeland is a writer. His book, “Blood & Volume: Inside New York’s Israeli Mafia” on life inside New York’s Israeli mafia will be released in 2007 by Barricade Books. His freelance work has appeared in Reason, the Wall Street Journal online, Boston Common and dozens of national and regional newspapers and magazines. He’s been a staff writer for the the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Dow Jones, and the Old Colony Memorial in Plymouth.

He grew up in Melrose, and graduated from UMass in 1996. He is being a featured in an in-production documentary on releasing a book while working on a second book, which will chronicle his experience of training for the 2006 Dublin Marathon.

THF: I’m going to start with the question I’ve been thinking about since I discovered your blog. You write for a living. What’s that like?

DC: I think other people are more interested in what I do than I am. I love what I do, but it’s still just a job, and usually not a very well-paying one at that. And here’s a secret: I hate the actual act of sitting down to write. I love the research and reporting that goes into nonfiction writing and I love the little charge you get when something is finished, but sitting at a computer to type is kind of dull.

THF: Your first book, Blood and Volume is about the Israeli Mafia of the 1980s in New York City, but you arrived at this topic from a Craig’s List posting. How did that happen?

DC: At the time I was scouring 100’s of Craigslist ads from all over the country looking for freelance work. I found an ad that essentially said “My husband and I live in the witness protection program and we’re looking for a writer to tell our story to.” At the time I was fascinated by the Witness Protection Program and was toying with the idea of doing a book on it, but the more I talked to Ron and Honey, the more I realized it’s what you do to get into the program that’s interesting. What happens once you’re in the program is actually kind of dull.

THF: Since your subjects were in the federal witness protection program, were there confidentiality and trust issues?

DC: I think the bigger issue, for me at least, was verifying the information Ron gave me. You’re talking about someone who was a career criminal, someone who by nature is a narcissistic liar. So I spent a lot of time verifying what Ron told me and — much to my surprise — he didn’t lie and didn’t really exaggerate the truth.

But the Witness Protection situation did present some interesting issues — issues that, for Ron’s safety and his continued status in the program, I’m probably better off not talking about specifically.

THF: How do you get from the “wow, I have a great idea” moment to actually having a published book?

DC: I dunno…lots of luck? I always knew I wanted to write a book but I never thought it would be true crime. I was working on a master’s degree in creative nonfiction writing and this seemed like as good of topic as any to make sure I finished my degree on time. After a few months I pitched it to an agent, who picked it up and, in turn, pitched the proposal to all the top publishing houses in New York.

And they all said no. I had pretty much given up on this being my first book when, on a whim, I decided to pitch it to four small publishing houses on my own. Somehow B&V made it out of the slush pile at Barricade.

So I’m certainly not the expert — and already dreading the roller coaster ride that is the publishing business when it comes time to send out my next proposal — but if I did have any advice it would be writers need to be persistent and exhaust every possible opportunity before they give up on a book idea that they know, or even think, is good.

THF: Right now you’re in book promotion mode. You’ve got your blog, the book’s site, etc., but what else are you doing to get the word out about it? It just seems to me (a complete outsider when it comes to this) that when you finally get the book done, that’s just the beginning. With the thousands of book titles hitting the stores and internet, how do you break though all the noise?

DC: I’ve hired Melwood Global, a public relations firm, to supplement the publicity Barricade will be doing — and I would recommend any author do that, regardless of what your publisher says they are going to do to promote the book.

Meanwhile, a friend I have who works in the record industry has been exploiting all of his contacts to try to arrange radio interviews and get the book in front of decision makers who could possibly help sell the film rights. I’m personally annoying book store managers up and down the eastern seaboard in hopes of convincing them to schedule “meet the author” events. Since the start of the year I’ve spent, on average, 6-8 hours a day on book promotion. That could be doing stuff as fun as planning a book release party (on March 8 at the Living Room in Boston) to as mundane as stuffing envelopes.

My potential big break is that it looks like there will be a documentary on the process of releasing a book that will focus on me and some of the issues that were unique to this book. I suspect it will be something like Startup.com or Overnight, although I hope I don’t look like as big of a jerk as the guy in Overnight. It is a long-shot at this point but something like that, if it takes off, could be a huge publicity tool.

So my general philosophy has been to do everything and anything to promote this book — whether it’s drive to New York on a few hours notice to talk to someone about a documentary or say “yes” when some Boston blogger asks me if I’ll do an interview like this one.

THF: Do you see blogging as a separate activity from your writing?

DC: No way. Blogging is writing and if you were to go back through posts I have written over the past five years you’d see my blog is often a notebook or sounding board for ideas that become bigger projects. Plus it is pure self-promotion: if someone likes my blog, or even if they absolutely hate it, they may very well buy my book or hire me for a freelance job.

THF: I’ve got a practical question for you: Between writing the book, doing freelance work, blogging, and your other projects, you have to be VERY organized. How do you segment your time, and how do you stay disciplined?

DC: I’ve tried a bunch of different systems but have recently settled on the simple “to do” list. I pretty much put everything I have to do in a given day, or would like to do in a given day, into a Google documents file. That way I really don’t have an excuse to not be doing something. If “write 2,000 words on book proposal” seems a little too daunting I can work on “make copies of syllabus for Tuesday’s class” instead. If stuff on the list doesn’t get done, it gets moved to the top of the next day’s list. It’s simplistic but effective, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I find it oddly satisfying to check stuff off the list each day.

THF: Did you ever feel you needed to sell out on your writing interests to get a writing job?

DC: Given the right opportunity, I’ll gladly sell out. I guess I’m at an advantage because I see writing as a job and not as an art — if changing something makes it more commercially viable, it ultimately means I’ll have more of a financial cushion to spend time working on the projects I want to work on.

That said, I spent more than four years working for a paper in Pittsburgh that was owned by the notoriously conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. I wouldn’t say I’m a liberal — or a conservative, for that matter — but it was kind of a wretched place to work. And I’m not sure how much of my misery stemmed from the over-the-top politics of the place or from the piss-poor management, but I did learn that I never, ever, wanted to work in a job again where I was that unhappy and depressed with my situation.

THF: As if your writing, blogging, and promoting aren’t enough, you’re also working on TV and film projects. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

DC: I may be jinxing myself by saying too much about either project, but a friend and I have been working on a sitcom concept for the past two years. We’ve gotten interest from a rather major production company and we’re in the process of revising our pilot script, with hopes that they’ll sign on and start pitching it to networks within the next few months. My friend and I met when we were at 11 at summer camp, so if you think f a cross between the BBC version of “The Office” and “Meatballs” and “South Park,” you’ll have an idea of where we’re heading with it.

And there has been enough interest in the film rights to B&V that I’m encouraged and pursuing every possible angle with that project, but I think it’s still a little too premature to begin looking for real estate in L.A. In any case, between those projects and the book I think I have some interesting irons in the fire and one of them is bound to get hot.

THF: Now the obligatory “advice question”. Since you’ve already done it, what would you say to someone that thinks they’ve got a great idea for a book and want to get started?

DC: Unfortunately, great ideas aren’t always commercially viable, so a lot of it comes down to luck and timing. One of the rationales when B&V was originally getting rejected was that, after five seasons of The Sopranos America was burnt on gangster stories. Then the sixth season was a smash hit and, by coincidence or design, I had a contract.

So the key is to anticipate what the market will be looking for in a year or two. Self help and cookbooks are huge now, but I suspect if you have a good idea for one of those books you might be too late to catch that wave to success.

After that, it comes down to the basics: being a great or at least good writer helps, having a great story and interesting characters — whether you’re writing nonfiction or fiction — is crucial and knowing as much about the business as possible also helps. I wish I had known everything I know about promotion now when I started this process: knowing how to promote a book, for example, is a huge selling point and if you know how to do it, it should be included in your proposal.

But most importantly, if you have a great idea, do something with it. I meet a lot of people who tell me they have great ideas for a book and can’t understand why so many crappy books get published. The difference is the people who had the less-than-great ideas actually put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and got something done, instead of just talking about their great idea and how “someday I’ll write a book.”

Dave Copeland’s book, Blood and Volume is available for pre-orders at Amazon.com. His blog is DaveCopeland.com, and more information on the book (as well as an excerpt) is available here.