Writers Tricks of the Trade Vol. 6 Issue 1 | Page 19

PRESS “CONTROL” THEN CLICK “BUY” TO PURCHASE ANY BOOK
Sometimes after a book is published, particularly with self-publishing, it is
determined that it still needs a revision. In the case of Jon D’Amore’s best-selling
book The Boss Always Sits in the Back, he decided to change the fictionalized
version of his story to what it actually was--a memoir.

SWITCHING TO A MEMOIR
JON D’AMORE
I started writing my true mob story, The Boss Always Sits In The Back, in
1998 when my oldest cousin and Godfather Jerry was diagnosed with terminal
cancer. I needed to know some of the details I was unaware of in order to tell my
story fully and honestly.
From conception to completion it took about fourteen months to get it all
into my laptop, dozens of printed pages so I could paper-edit what I had written
the day before, sending more than a dozen drafts to trusted literary industry and
hardcore book-reading friends, and last—but certainly not least—I made the
required edits, fixed the typos and presented a copy to my literary/
entertainment attorney whose opinion I trust above all.
When those copies came back with each person’s ecstatic reviews and
comments (especially those from my attorney) I decided to get the book
published, which meant entering a world I had no idea of.
The bigger publishing companies refused to deal with me. I didn’t have an
agent to send them the manuscript. The major literary agencies didn’t want to
know about me because I was an unknown writer in my fifties offering a true
story about the events in my life while living, playing and scamming with
members of my mob-connected family. They weren’t interested in reading it and
saw it as nothing more than a vanity project.
I was actually told by one agent that she didn’t see the logic of signing a
writer “with only one book in your catalog, because I don’t know if you’ll ever
write anything else,” and added, “my time and my future are valuable to me.”
The biggest laugh I ever got was when a literary manager in California and an
agent from one of the top New York agencies told me to me they’d handle me
after I sold 25,000 copies of The Boss in 6 months on my own.

BUY
This isn't "just another

mob story." It's a
suspenseful, exciting
and entertaining
account of one of the
greatest scams to hit
Las Vegas…a scam
that's never been
exposed before…one
that changed history
and gambling laws
across America
forever! Through the
eyes of the author who
grew up in that
world…and from the
words of his
Godfather, an
underboss who told his
story before he died

What made it even funnier was when I asked them (in my New Jersey accent
and attitude), “If I can sell 25,000 copies, why would I need you? What
publishing company would want me after I just took away twenty-five thousand
customers?” At that point, neither one of them wanted to deal with me and said I
was “already too difficult to work with.”
That’s where they made their first mistake. There’s a reason they make 15%
and we make the difference. It’s because they work for us…not with us.
So I put the manuscript aside and successfully worked as a script doctor
for a few years (until the dreaded Writers Strike) with several studios and
production companies in L.A.

WRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE

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JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2016