Review Tales
Book Magazine – Publishing – Editing
Let’s Ask Billy Johnson
You ask, “Billy Johnson, whatever possessed an old guy like you to write THE CASSEROLE LADIES?” Reasonable question. I mean after all it’s about five unmarried older Southern women looking for postmortem romance. That topic doesn’t even come close to appealing to the coveted 18-to-34-year-olds marketeers lust after. You could ask a more important question, “Who’d want to publish a book that doesn’t appeal the ideal age demographic?”
The answer is simple: NO ONE!
Yep, I couldn’t find a single literary agent brave enough to take on THE CASSEROLE LADIES. Sometimes, late at night when the meds wear off, I console myself by thinking that the book probably isn’t woke enough.
The best I got back from dozens of nimrods was:
“I’m sorry, but your project does not sound like a fit for me at this time, and so I will have to pass. I love the premise, but not the first page. I recommend you give a little context before the dialogue and don’t break the 3rd wall with questions.”
and this:
“Unfortunately, we are going to pass on this project. The story sounds interesting with a strong hook. However, we found the sample pages didn’t draw us in as much as we hoped, and that is why we ultimately decided to pass.”
How could anyone not be drawn into three old ladies performing a voodoo love ritual at midnight in a creepy cemetery while their two friends (also old women) wind up at an alternative lifestyle nudist club after pissing off their Mercedes’ GPS. Yep, that’s the same GPS the geniuses at Mercedes engineered with the latest in German artificial intelligence technology. You tell me why anyone could not resist sample pages full of that kind of stuff, and we’ll both know. All I know right now is that’s why I decided to self-publish. So here I am.
I only hope my readers laugh reading THE CASSEROLE LADIES as much as I did writing it. Or I might just have to write a sequel. How about THE CASSEROLE LADIES GO TO VEGAS? Or THE CASSEROLE LADIES DO DALLAS? Maybe THE CASSEROLE LADIES GONE WILD? What about THE FAST AND FURIOUS CASSEROLE LADIES: TOKYO DRIFT? By the way, the answer to the introductory question is you’ll have to read the first book to find out.
Billy Johnson is an aspiring fiction writer living in Florence, Alabama. His previous writing experience was limited to professional articles published in IT and healthcare journals as well as a Naval Warfare Publication on Fleet Hospitals. He somehow managed to trick his wife Linda into co-authoring THE CASSEROLE LADIES, his first published work of fiction. Billy is currently working on publishing a collection of his short stories and finding beta readers for a fiction novel about two Cuban brothers on opposite sides of the Cuba-United States conflict during the Cold War. He plans on a sequel to THE CASSEROLE LADIES (ISBN: 9798728499862) which is available on Amazon in eBook or paperback. You can visit Billy’s Facebook page at https://fb.me/Billy4GoodBooks. You can also send him messages at https://m.me/Billy4GoodBooks now that he finally got the stupid Facebook Messenger app on his iPhone. (Forgive me if frustration colors my last sentence.)
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You ask, “Billy Johnson, whatever possessed an old guy like you to write THE CASSEROLE LADIES?” Reasonable question. I mean after all it’s about five unmarried older Southern women looking for postmortem romance. That topic doesn’t even come close to appealing to the coveted 18-to-34-year-olds marketeers lust after. You could ask a more important question, “Who’d want to publish a book that doesn’t appeal the ideal age demographic?”
The answer is simple: NO ONE!
Yep, I couldn’t find a single literary agent brave enough to take on THE CASSEROLE LADIES. Sometimes, late at night when the meds wear off, I console myself by thinking that the book probably isn’t woke enough.
The best I got back from dozens of nimrods was:
“I’m sorry, but your project does not sound like a fit for me at this time, and so I will have to pass. I love the premise, but not the first page. I recommend you give a little context before the dialogue and don’t break the 3rd wall with questions.”
and this:
“Unfortunately, we are going to pass on this project. The story sounds interesting with a strong hook. However, we found the sample pages didn’t draw us in as much as we hoped, and that is why we ultimately decided to pass.”
How could anyone not be drawn into three old ladies performing a voodoo love ritual at midnight in a creepy cemetery while their two friends (also old women) wind up at an alternative lifestyle nudist club after pissing off their Mercedes’ GPS. Yep, that’s the same GPS the geniuses at Mercedes engineered with the latest in German artificial intelligence technology. You tell me why anyone could not resist sample pages full of that kind of stuff, and we’ll both know. All I know right now is that’s why I decided to self-publish. So here I am.
I only hope my readers laugh reading THE CASSEROLE LADIES as much as I did writing it. Or I might just have to write a sequel. How about THE CASSEROLE LADIES GO TO VEGAS? Or THE CASSEROLE LADIES DO DALLAS? Maybe THE CASSEROLE LADIES GONE WILD? What about THE FAST AND FURIOUS CASSEROLE LADIES: TOKYO DRIFT? By the way, the answer to the introductory question is you’ll have to read the first book to find out.
Author Bio:
Billy Johnson is an aspiring fiction writer living in Florence, Alabama. His previous writing experience was limited to professional articles published in IT and healthcare journals as well as a Naval Warfare Publication on Fleet Hospitals. He somehow managed to trick his wife Linda into co-authoring THE CASSEROLE LADIES, his first published work of fiction. Billy is currently working on publishing a collection of his short stories and finding beta readers for a fiction novel about two Cuban brothers on opposite sides of the Cuba-United States conflict during the Cold War. He plans on a sequel to THE CASSEROLE LADIES (ISBN: 9798728499862) which is available on Amazon in eBook or paperback. You can visit Billy’s Facebook page at https://fb.me/Billy4GoodBooks. You can also send him messages at https://m.me/Billy4GoodBooks now that he finally got the Facebook Messenger app on his iPhone.
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