The Latest in Martin Bodek Publishing News

 Table of Contents

1. Zaidy's War

2. The Shakespeare Haggadah

3. The Festivus Haggadah

  a. Happening Now

  b. Going Forward

4. The Israel Library

5. Onward with Your Day

Zaidy's War

I found a publisher for Zaidy's War! I have signed my 3rd publishing contract! Amsterdam Publishers, the largest publisher of holocaust memoirs in Europe, showered me with compliments and with interest, and a release date of October 2022 has already been slotted in.

This is what it took:

I reached out to 36 publishers.

25 ignored me.

5 declined immediately because it wasn't the genre they work in, wasn't part of their publishing plans, or in 1 instance the publisher now only publishes his own books. That 1 was interesting.

1 rejected me due to my inability to front an exorbitant amount of capital.

1 asked for the manuscript and is still reviewing.

1 promised to be in touch with me soon.

1 asked me to fill out their official proposal form, which I did. They followed up asking about my marketing plans, which I provided. They're mulling things over.

1 promised to send it to internal editors for consideration.

1 shop, Amsterdam Publishers (https://amsterdampublishers.com/), were immediately interested, had nothing but praise, set up a call toot suite, worked out a contract real fast, set me on a great and reasonable timeline, gave me solid pointers for improvement, and signed on the bottom line with me.

And that's what it takes.

One publisher, one publisher.

P.S. As a vote of confidence for the quality of my work, Amsterdam Publishers has already put up the book on their publishing roster on their wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Publishers?). The ink wasn't even yet dry on our contract. Scroll down to October 2022, and check out the exemplary work along the way.

The Shakespeare Haggadah

Behold! This is what I worked on for November as my NaNoWriMo project (https://nanowrimo.org/) while I was convalescing from my hip replacement surgery (still am!; getting better!)

I'm comfortable declassifying the title because I'm now about done, and it's too late to steal my idea before I'll be done with the project.

I didn't make it to 50,000 words, but the point was making headway with the project, which won't be more than 12,000 words. I know this because I counted the words (yes, I did that) of the haggadah: 5,759. My Shakespearean translation will be roughly double that.

If I'm going to be the Ba'al Hahaggadot, then I need to put my money where my mouth is.

My major target market for The Emoji Haggadah was 8-12 year old girls. With this, I'm targeting the next age bracket.

If you'd like to see a sample, and advise if I'm pointing the project in the right direction, please holler back.

The Festivus Haggadah

It's a bit strange that I'm near #1 for haggadot sales on Amazon when it's not quite Pesach season. But it isn't strange at all because 'tis the Festivus season, and this haggadah is selling like hotcakes (what would things sell like if we didn't have hotcakes?).

Also, I was told by a handful of folks that they haven't purchased The Festivus Haggadah because it isn't a functional haggadah, but a parody. So tell me, if I add the actual haggadah text on a facing page (which is what I'm doing with The Shakespeare Haggadah), will you spring for it? Will it be worth my time? Hm?

So you're aware, I'm offering the Kindle version for free for the next few days on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Festivus-Haggadah-Martin-Bodek-ebook/dp/B08514Z56J/). Now why would I do that? Easy, so you have grievances to air once you have to pay for it again.

The Israel Library

Somebody in The Israel Library likes me, really likes me. 6 of my 9 books are housed there (https://merhav.nli.org.il/primo-explore/search?query=any,contains,martin%20bodek&sortby=rank&vid=NLI&lang=en_US). The real, physical versions. I must be on Santa's Nice List to have made it. I never campaigned there, and I did campaign other local libraries with varying degrees of success, but this repository in The Holy Land did so without asking, and I'm rather grateful. Wish I knew who was responsible.

So, by the end of 2022, I'll be back on track with publishing 1 book per year, which has been my goal since 2010. And yes, it is most definitely my goal to publish more haggadot than anyone else. I've wanted a Guinness Record since I was a kid, and if that's my way in, so be it.

Drop by my store anytime. I now have more books than there are days in any single Jewish Holiday, and before long, I'll have even more than the Days of Christmas: https://www.amazon.com/Martin-Bodek/e/B004GAVBZ8?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1639158345&sr=8-1

Thanks for reading!

-Martin (Mordechi) Bodek