Talk2Tamara
Hosted by therapist and coach Tamara, Talk 2 Tamara creates space for the conversations that often go unspoken. Drawing from her life as a mother, wife, and member of the Orthodox Jewish community, Tamara explores real stories, complicated questions, and the moments that shape who we are. This podcast is about naming what’s beneath the surface and making room for deeper understanding, connection, and growth — because some things deserve to be said out loud.
Talk2Tamara
Rejected, Rewritten, Published | Isaac Rudansky
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This week on Talk2Tamara, Tamara sits down with Isaac Rudansky, author, entrepreneur, and lifelong creative, to talk about the nearly decade-long journey that eventually led him to a three-book deal with Penguin Random House.
Isaac’s story didn’t begin with a publishing deal. It began with hundreds of pages written in the early hours of the morning, an editor telling him his manuscript simply wasn’t ready, and a decision to put it away. He went on to build a successful advertising business, start a family, and spend nearly nine years away from the book. But the feeling that he had started something and never finished it never fully went away. When he finally returned to writing, the road wasn’t any easier. Isaac rewrote the manuscript, studied the craft, attended workshops, queried roughly 350 middle-grade literary agents, and faced rejection after rejection. Even the agent he wanted most turned him down multiple times. Instead of accepting the no, Isaac kept refining the book and trying again. Eventually, the same agent who had previously passed on his work read the new manuscript
and wanted to represent him. That journey ultimately led to something Isaac had spent years chasing: a three-book deal with Penguin Random House.
But this conversation goes far beyond becoming a published author.
Tamara and Isaac get candid about ambition, rejection, creativity, insecurity, growing up in a creative and religious home, the need for external validation, and why achieving the thing you thought would finally make you feel “enough” doesn’t necessarily stop you from searching for the next thing. They also explore the power of what Isaac calls “idiotic optimism”: believing in something
even when the odds are stacked against you, being willing to look a little crazy while chasing it, and using that chip on your shoulder as motivation to keep going.
This episode is about unfinished dreams, relentless persistence, and the complicated relationship between success and self-worth. Because sometimes the dream you put away is the exact one you’re supposed to come back to.
Follow Tamara on Instagram @Talk2Tamara, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform for new episodes on relationships and personal growth. Watch new episodes on Youtube and visit my website for coaching and 1:1 support.
Isn't failing means that you're engaged. Like you're taking swings. You're trying. And you're trying consistently. And you're doing it. And you're learning and you're taking it seriously. And you're you're like you're contending with all of the voices of the universe that are telling you to stop. And those are the voices in your own head. And they're often very loud voices not in your own head. And you're and like that, just just that energy, that posture, that squaring your shoulders and sitting down by the computer or by the easel or by wherever it is in business or any entrepreneurial idea or anything. It's not about how it's gonna turn out because it will not turn out the way you think. But just just taking a swing every day is guaranteed to deliver something in some unexpected, untold ripple somewhere down the road. And you'll look back at it and be like, that's that's incredible. How that turned out.
SPEAKER_05Hi, welcome back. Today I have a really special guest. His name is Isaac. He spent nine years when he walked away from a manuscript that he couldn't stop thinking about. Today he's got a three-book deal with Penguin, Random House, and he's here to tell us what happened in between. This is the story of what it costs to shelve a dream and what it takes to pick it back up. So thank you, Isaac, for being here. You are my first male guest on this on this podcast. So it's very exciting. Yeah. Um, okay, so let's just like dive right into it. So take me back to where you grew up in Huntington. How was creativity in your house growing up?
SPEAKER_01Um my parents were always very encouraging of creativity. I would say there was a lot of like there was a lot of passion, there's a lot of energy. My grandmother, my father's mother was like a really acclaimed artist, a concert pianist. Right. My father himself was like were like my parents weren't that obviously creative like when we were growing up. But now like my father got uh into saxophone and into photography. So he's that like he has a lot of creative creativity from his side. Um my mother is an editor. So she well, she she worked for a bunch of years as a uh chief editor of a of a um medical publisher. So there was a lot of like there there was a focus on the arts. I took music lessons, my my siblings and I took music lessons as kids. We were given art lessons. So it was fostered. Yeah. It was encouraged, it was fostered, it was there. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_05Did you gravitate to it like right away or there was like a pushback?
SPEAKER_01Um I enjoyed music. So I I grew up playing the drums, which I really liked. I took it seriously. Then I remember liking art. Um I went to a couple art schools. I don't think I ever really like stuck with the art at a young age. But then once I was in high school, around high school time, I was doing portraits, like pencil, like very lifelike pencil portraits, but a lot of self-study, like teaching myself how to do it, practicing, starting to sell them. So I I yeah, I gravitate to I gravitated towards it. Um it was always something that I was interested in, I wanted to do.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um the writing was a little bit later, I think. Um, but yeah.
SPEAKER_05Wow. And do your siblings are they also on the creative side?
SPEAKER_01Um they're gonna watch this, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05They are. I hope so.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No, they are creative. They really are. They're my they might not be as let's say, actualized or like focused on the creativity. I have a brother who's a professional chef. So he which is like a highly creative thing. He spent three years at the Culinary Institute of America.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um he and his his cooking's amazing. Like he he now runs a private chef business. Uh so I would consider that highly creative, highly artistic.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that is.
SPEAKER_01And I have three sisters and they're all they're all creative. Like they're all artistic.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Okay. So take us on your path. So you drew in high school, right? You um you sold you sold some stuff. And then what happened after that? You went to college.
SPEAKER_01Not quite.
SPEAKER_05Not quite. Let's say.
SPEAKER_01Um okay, so high school. So yeah. So high school, I was, I was drawing, I was painting. After high school, I stayed in yeshiva a little bit. Um then and I was I was like developing my artwork through those years. I wasn't doing anything with writing. I then had it in my mind, I would say like three years after high school, I did a year traveling. I did a year, I didn't go to Israel. Um, I spent some time in Vancouver, and then I came back to Long Island. That's in Vancouver. There was like a yeshiva there. It was like a small sort of startup. Um I was there for a little while, maybe half a year. Um, I was like, I wasn't dispassionate. Like I was into learning, I was into traveling. Like I was always pretty engaged with what I was doing. I was developing the artwork. I started painting a little bit, so going from pencil portraits to a little bit more abstract, acrylic oil colors, landscapes, also some portraits. And back, I want to say this is probably the year before I got married, maybe. Um so I don't know what year it was. 2011, 2010. I was 23, 22 at the time. I was like sort of burnt out from like the whole Yeshiva thing. I was not that interested in it anymore. And I would spend the afternoons in Starbucks, somewhere in Queens. And I was just writing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I wasn't writing a book, I was maybe more like writing scenes or maybe short like short stories.
SPEAKER_05For for like a movie or something?
SPEAKER_01No, like I wanted to write I wanted to write like I had it in my mind that I wanted to write a novel. Okay. Um I maybe had like the rough shape of an idea and I was putting scenes together, not particularly good and not very like story-formed. Okay. Just like, here's a scene, here's a scene, here's a scene. And I was just writing it. Um but I wasn't like I didn't have a clear destination in mind. Then I got married, and while I was engaged, so I hadn't gone to college yet.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01While I was engaged.
SPEAKER_05Were your parents more into you going to college? Like I'm saying, like how you grew up?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they were not thr they were not thrilled.
SPEAKER_05They thought you're gonna live this like artsy life, like live on the streets.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, not like overly concerned. It was more of a concern when I said I'm gonna start dating. Okay. And they're like, how the hell are you gonna date? Like you have like what do you have going for you? Like you like you have to take care of a family and a wife, like financially. Like, what are you like what are you doing? And I probably was going to start dating because my friends were dating and getting married. And like it's just I'm not gonna be left alone.
SPEAKER_05You didn't seem like you're the type to go on the beat and path, you know.
SPEAKER_01No, no, but I also didn't want like I didn't want to I didn't want to be in a situation where like all the friends that I had were getting married, and I was just like sort of the odd one out either. So I was doing my own thing, certainly. Um so I started dating, and I only dated one girl. Um and we're engaged, and she's like, look, like you have to get a you have to have a degree.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um or maybe she said this before we got engaged. So I enrolled, I applied to Hofstra for a master's in industrial organizational psychology. It's called IO psychology. Really? And they responded, yeah. So they responded saying, and I wrote like an essay and whatever, and and they responded saying, look, you have to have bachelors to to apply.
SPEAKER_05Can't have masters without a bachelor.
SPEAKER_01Right. And and I said, okay. And I didn't really want to go anyway. And then they called me and they're like, look, um, maybe you could just like take a statistics course at some point, and we'll let you come. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, okay, fine. Like, I know she was like, they were like, oh, well, what part of the what like what what what really draws you to Io psychology? Is it the in industrial part? Is it the organizational part? And I started like talking.
SPEAKER_05I don't know.
SPEAKER_01And she's like, wow, you don't really know what this is about. I said, no, but like I I'm really into this, and especially Hofstra. It's such an amazing school. Um and she said, Okay, we you will get you could come, but you have to take a stats course, like a remedial stats course, at some point before you graduate.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01I said, great. And I didn't do anything for a few days, and then I got another call from Hofstra, and they said, Look, we'll give you a scholarship for the city. Oh, they really wanted to do that. They really want to, yeah. I'm saying, like, so I enrolled, so I went to Hofstra. And then this is like around I would like throughout the first year or two we were married. I was in Hofstra, but I was painting. I was doing a lot of like exhibiting at art festivals around Long Island, Montauk, Southampton, West Hampton, like those areas. And you would join an art festival, you'd bring a tent, you'd have to set up the walls, bring your canvases, bring a credit card machine, and you just sit there all day trying to sell art, which I loved. I thought it was the coolest thing, especially when you sold artwork. But it's like you're not selling enough artwork to really get by. Just not enough. Um, but I was also in school, and um and around that time I decided to continue to write. So I would get up every morning at four o'clock or four thirty, and I'd write from like five to eight, five to eight thirty. And over the course of a year, year and a half, I had 500 pages written. And it wasn't complete. Like the story was sort of halfway done. I went online and I found an editor who was willing to take a look at the manuscript, provide feedback. Um, I sent it to him. He's like, Okay, I charge $2,500 for this. I was like, I don't have $2,500 to pay you. I'm like, I'm selling some artwork this this weekend, maybe. And he's like, okay, so let me know when you're done at the art festival. Um, and it turns out I did sell some artwork, use that money to pay him to give me editorial feedback. And then I met with him in the city a week later. He's like, Look, this is really bad. He's like, You're a good writer, but this is you have like this is nothing here that's publishable. It's notes for a book. You have to start over, you have to learn about writing, you have to learn about story. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, like makes sense. But it was just like at the time it's too disheartening.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I put it away. So I get home, I put the manuscript away. I tell myself that I'm, yeah, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna start over. But by then I had already started this advertising business. And that was it. Like I put the manuscript away and it never came back out for the better part of a decade. And I was working. I started this advertising business. It was round the clock, work.
SPEAKER_05Um how did you go from industrial organizational psychology to advertising? These are very different uh things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I'll tell you. So I never really I was never so engaged in the I.O. psych program. I was there, I was doing my thing. Um but a lot of people graduated and went into human resources.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or they sometimes went into internal consulting. But at that time, I was painting. And at some point, I made a website for my artwork. So like I the idea was like instead of having to schlep it from festival to festival, borrowing a car, and like it was a real like the setting of the tent and the walls in the summer, whatever. Let me have it. So I made a website.
SPEAKER_05And did you know how to make a web? Like you knew how to code and and and all that?
SPEAKER_01No, no. So I it was it was one day I was I had I was driving home from the Hamptons and it started raining, and my canvases were all like bungee corded to the roof of the car.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01The canvases are ruined. And I'm thinking to myself, I have to make a website, but I'm not a like I'm in a very, let's say, tech forward business with digital advertising, but I was very much not a tech savvy kid. Like I the first laptop I had was probably when I was 22.
SPEAKER_04Right. Wow.
SPEAKER_01So I figured I want to make a website, but I like I didn't know where to begin, like make a website. And at some point, a couple days after I heard an ad on the radio for Squarespace.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now Squarespace is a big business now. But back then it was like sort of a startup. It was like one of the first no-code website builders. And the promise was anybody can make a website. You don't have to know any code, just drag and drop. And I thought to myself that that's outrageous. It doesn't make any sense. But I sat down and I think I sat in this in a in my chair in my apartment for like a day and a half without getting up. And I just made a website with a checkout and an e-commerce store connected to the bank account. And it was like this really exhilarating thing. Like, wow, like I have a website. But then the question is, how do you get somebody to come to your website? Like, how do you get traffic to a website? And that that journey led me to discover a bunch of different forms of online advertising, mainly Google. Um, and to me, it was like this really huge revelation because Google, to me, was a search engine.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01Which it is, but it's also and primarily the world's most successful advertising company. Right. 95% of Google's revenue, and they have a lot of revenue, is is ad clicks, clicks on ads. Like that's and so I I learned everything I could about Google. Google advertising was running an ad campaign for my art somewhat successfully, but again, like it's hard to sell art. Um especially if the art's not very good. And was your art not very good? It was I don't know. Like it was it was fine. What were you painting? I was painting like the stuff that was selling was was abstract, impressionist musicians and landscapes. So not completely abstract, but more so more impressionistic, a lot of color, a lot of geometric shapes, things like that.
SPEAKER_05And you never went to school for it, right?
SPEAKER_01You just kind of like learned it on it. Yeah, I never really went to school. I did, I took art classes like here and there over the course of my childhood, but but nothing like formal.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_01So I find myself wondering how do you get people to the website? And I so started getting into Google. And then a few weeks later, I said, okay, I'm just gonna make a new website and I'll charge people to teach them how to run their Google Ads campaigns. And that didn't work. And I said, I'll make another website and I'll just charge you a fee and I'll handle it for you. And then that started working. But it wasn't like it just started working, it was it was I was probably working 18 to 20 hours a day. Right. I would sleep a little bit with my computer in bed, wake up, and that was just working all I was just doing this all day, like copying other people's websites, reaching out for clients, walking all over Long Island all seasons to every business, knocking on doors. Um, it was like a real hustle.
SPEAKER_05But this was so not your passion, right? It was so to like so what what gave you that hustle? Um that you needed to make money or part of it was needing to make money.
SPEAKER_01But there was just a natural excitement in doing my own thing. So like whatever it was that I was doing, like it was just my own thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And whether it succeeded or failed was on my shoulders. And I found that I found that exciting. And there's a there's a lot of like there is creativity to the advertising business. Um, so it definitely was getting me going from that sense. And it's also very immediate. What I liked, what really drew me to internet advertising was how immediate the results could be. So the idea of like invest in something today and it'll pay off in a year is very hard for me. Yeah. Even today it's hard for me.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I like I really like to see the results of something I'm doing as fast as possible.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which was why writing and getting back into the manuscript eventually was such a challenge.
SPEAKER_05Um It's interesting that you were interested in writing to begin with. If that's your most people who need instant gratification or they need something very fast are not really that into things that are a slower process. Right. Right. More into like writing a movie script or something like that. So it is interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. I started a business and then it got and I and I never really like took it so seriously. I was working long hours, but I never consciously said this is gonna be my career. Right. Or this is gonna be my business, or this is fell into your lap, yeah. Type of thing. And then at some point I hired an employee, we moved into an office, and then it's like, okay, so like this is what I'm doing, and I'm still doing it. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Do you enjoy it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. No, I do.
SPEAKER_05There's definitely there's let's let's try it again. Do you enjoy it?
SPEAKER_01I love it. Look, there's there's it's like anything. There's there's moments where no, not moments, weeks, months, whatever, like where you're just out of it, you're down, it's hard to like show up. It's hard like but I go through those cycles. Um, but most of it I enjoy.
SPEAKER_05And through this time, were you painting, were you writing? Not your book, but like just in general. Nothing. You just completely left it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I was so my my father-in-law, my in-laws have a clothing store on Central Avenue. Yeah. And there's a storage, there's like offices above the store, and one of the rooms was being used for storage. That was the room that I was painting in. My father-in-law was very kind still to this day. Let me paint there. And then that was also the room that I was working out of when I had when I started the business. Yeah. So I stopped painting. Painting is like an ordeal. You need canvases and you need paintbrushes, and it you need to be able to think it's messy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and it takes a lot of time. Yeah, so I stopped painting. I was very not into doing any of these things unless I could like commercialize it, which is its itself like I would say a very hot button argument I have with other creative people.
SPEAKER_05Meaning like not just doing it just for the sake of like you always had to monetize on it.
SPEAKER_01Or at least my intention was, even as a young, like as a little kid, I'd I remember third or fourth grade drawing things and selling them. Um people bought it?
SPEAKER_05If you do something?
SPEAKER_01Or like you trade it for lunch money or like a snack on the bus. Okay. I always wanted to get rid of it for something else, and I traded in.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um short stories I would try to write and sell. I ne it just is not I don't have that drive to do art for the sake of doing art. I play music, I play guitar, and I like that as an outlet.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Writing is very difficult. I don't enjoy writing. Painting was very difficult, portraits were very difficult, didn't enjoy it, still don't, right? Wouldn't do it therapeutically. I scribble, like everybody does, on the side of my pad for like just sort of a cathartic.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But the art that I took the like the art that I invested the most in was always meant that it should be a high enough quality that somebody else would pay for, and that was it the only metric of its value, in my view.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think and I would defend that. Yeah. Like I would defend that as be like you could it's easy to look at that as like that's just like a shallow um and let's say o overly commercial way of looking at things. Yeah. But I think it's also true that art or artists that don't have any eye towards it's it how it's received by others, it's also that's also a shallow I would say that's also a a shallow viewpoint.
SPEAKER_04Looking at it.
SPEAKER_01So there's some maybe there's some middle ground or there's some way, but like I've always like for when I got back into the writing nine years later, I certainly wasn't doing it as a passion project. By that time, I had three or four kids, I had a business to run. There was no reason for me to start writing again.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um and it's and it's interesting that that's the thing that you went back to. If that's the thing that you liked, it almost seems to me like that's the thing you liked the least.
SPEAKER_01I hate writing.
SPEAKER_05You hate writing. Yet you're you're having a book deal and you went and you started to write. Like nobody was telling you to write. I'm saying back back then when you sat in Starbucks and you said and you wrote those things. Like nobody was asking you to do that. So what so what drew you to that and not painting?
SPEAKER_01Like I don't know why the writing and not the painting. It could be just it was accessible. I needed just a laptop, and I just, you know, I didn't necessarily need I think I always had a little bit of a fantasy in my mind of like writing a book and publishing a book getting published. I under I understood maybe more like how that gets commercialized. Like, okay, like I didn't really understand what he like how does an artist do well enough in painting that it's like a it's it's legitimate and there's some stamp on it that's high quality. Um book books I understood that you have to write a book and then you have to get an agent. So just to just for anybody who's listening, um the way books work. Yeah. To sell a book to a publisher, you have to have an agent. Because a publisher will not buy a book from an author ever.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01There's basically five pub, there's like five publishing companies that control or that publish 99% of the books that you'll have on your shelf in the United States. It's Penguin, well, Penguin Random House is one, they're the largest. Hachette, um, Simon and Schuster, and HBG. Now, Scholastic and Bloomsbury will round out, like they're the they're they're considered mid-sized publishers. They're not small, but Harry Potter put both Bloomsbury in the UK and Scholastic in the US on the map and like quadruple them in size. They're they're not small, but they're like not considered the big four, the big five. And they they own most of the imprints. So Viking and Scribner, and you'll see a lot of these publishing companies, but they're owned by they're they're typically owned by the big five. They're they will not buy a manuscript from an author.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01They'll buy a manuscript from an agent that represents an author. But an agent's working on behalf of the author for free until the agent sells your material. Correct. And then he'll take 15%. Right. He or she will take fifteen percent. Now it's very hard to get an agent because you have a lot of people, because there's no barrier. To entry to query an agent. You just have to have a manuscript in the world of fiction. With nonfiction, you have to have a book proposal. With fiction, you have to have a final polished manuscript. Today, agents aren't really working, they're not really interested in working with you as an ed as an editor to polish and fix and refine your work. Agents want to receive a manuscript that they could turn around tomorrow and start selling to publishers. So an agent's working for free, so they have to really believe that not only is your book good, that they can sell it. So it's got to be a good, it's got to be written well. There also has to be a market for it in their mind. So my agent told me that he gets around eight to ten thousand queries a year.
SPEAKER_05How did you get your agent?
SPEAKER_01I'll tell you in a second.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um it's actually a pretty roundabout story, but you they my agent said that they get he gets eight to ten thousand queries a year and takes two or three clients a year.
SPEAKER_05Wow.
SPEAKER_01So like that it's really, really just statistically hard to get an agent.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So my So I finished, I I got through, I spent a year, year and a half, I got through the manuscript. It was finished, but too long for like the middle grade market. Middle grade is like the nine to twelve, nine to thirteen-year-old nine to twelve, nine to thirteen-year-old market. It was when I finished it, I don't know, like 160,000 words, which is about two times too long. Right? It's like your your middle grade book debut, you need to be around 80,000 words. Because more words is more pages, more printing cost, and a publisher is just much less likely to take a risk on a long middle grade book because every unit that they have to print is gonna cost them more. Also the attention spans and what's sort of expected in that middle grade market has to be like within a certain range.
SPEAKER_05Everything's now like the comics, I see.
SPEAKER_01Um so I finished the book and I started querying agents. And there's like probably 350 middle grade agents in America. And I queried every single one. Then and you wait. You wait a long time. And okay, so how does a query work? A query is an email, and you have to introduce yourself, one or two sentences about the book, why you wrote it, um, what the book is like, like comps, like what else is it like? And then every agent is going to want either the first 10 pages or the first chapter, something like that. Like the, you know, a little a little bit, a little chunk of the book. And if they want, they're gonna request the full, which means that they respond to you saying, We read your first 10 pages, we want to see the full manuscript. And that's like a huge deal. If an agent gets back and says, Give us the full, you're like, So I was rejected by almost every single one. Wow. Um, out of the 350 agents that I queried, I got, let's say, probably 50 or so, just never heard back from the rest rejections and a few of them, like maybe three, four requests for full, and then rejected at some uh over the course of this period. Did they give you feedback?
SPEAKER_05Like why?
SPEAKER_01So most of the rejections are just what we call in the in the industry form rejections, which is like the same copy and paste template. Oh, thank you so much. Well, we see that there is uh you know potential, it's not a fit for my list right now. And they really mean that, meaning they're going through thousands and thousands and thousands of these queries and they're just taking things that really jump out at them and that really fit their list. Meanwhile, during that time, I had queried uh an agent in the UK and that agent got back to me saying like not bad. It was not a form rejection. It was a rejection, but it was like there's something here. Uh, but it's not a fit for we don't have a middle grade thing, whatever, like it's UK's too hard, you're in the US, oh okay. So I responded saying, Is there anybody you could introduce me to stateside that you might have a relationship with? And they responded saying, Yes, I'll introduce you to Park and Fine. It's an agency, it's a big agency in New York City, um, and which is actually where I'm coming from now. And and I was like, amazing. So I felt like this is awesome. Like this UK agency is gonna introduce me to an agency in the city. It's done, deal, I'm good to go. I went out to dinner with my wife that night.
SPEAKER_05She's like, buy any anything.
SPEAKER_01She hates this stuff. She's like, stop doing this, we're not going for dinner, nothing happened. And I and I feel so differently. I was like, this is just of course, of course, I understand I understand the chances here are still unbelievably small.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But like, let's just still celebrate it. Yeah. Like, why the hell not? Anyways, fine. So then get home, and a week later, so then they they introduce to me to the to the the one of the like the main partners at Park and Fine. Park and Fine forwards the email to an agent called Pete Knapp. Pete Knapp is like the number one middle grade young adult agent in the United States. And I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm waiting. And three weeks later, I get a response back from the agent in the UK, the original agent, and he's forwarding me an email thread saying, Really sorry this turned out this way, but look, like everybody sort of feels that you're a good author and there's something here in the story. We wish you all the best and have much success. So I'm scrolling to the bottom of the email thread, and I see that the main partner forwards the email to this guy, Pete, who runs the Young Adult Middle Grade Division. Pete responds up back the chain saying, Thank you for sending this to me. Isaac has a, you know, clearly a good middle grade voice, and there's something here, but I'm I'm extremely busy. It's not a great fit for my list. Um, and I'm gonna step aside right now. Okay, but in that thread, I see Pete's email address. So I clip it and I and I send Pete a direct email. And I which is like absolutely like you you just don't do this. It's just not I would do that. Yeah. You have to do it. You have to do it. But like it just would so I email Pete saying, look, like I'm emailing you, I saw your thread. I was, you know, first I want to thank you. And I was always very kind, like I was always very gracious. You have to be gracious, you have to like sort of approach all of these situations as you're useless and you need somebody else's help. Yeah. Because the moment it's you the moment you have a sniff of arrogance or an expectation or you deserve something, nobody wants to interact with you. Um so I said, Yeah, look, thank you so much. The fact that you even read the book means the world to me. It was extremely exhilarating. I understand that the manuscript is might not be in the exact um uh you know, situation or position that you want, but and I just wanted to say thank you and maybe I could resubmit. And he r he responds to me saying, Yo, like, you know, like thanks for reaching out. Um, yeah, I I looked at it. It's not a fit for me right now. Fine. Then like three or six months later, I had done through I went through another revision, another rewrite. Um and I emailed him again. I said, This is I have rewritten it. This is 2021 around now. This is 2021. And he responds back like a week later saying, like, I read it, still, it's like it's not doing it for me. It's it's not where it needs to be. It's not tight. But like this was good feedback. Like he's like, Your thirty, your first 30 pages are not tight enough. Like, um, I think his words were I'm gonna stick with my initial gut instinct and step aside. Oh wow. Um, this is this now the third time I'm rejected by this agent who's like a big time big deal agent. He's done some like huge, huge books.
SPEAKER_05What makes you I just want to stop for a second, like keep pushing at it and not feeling that like maybe this is just not for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it it's a good question. And it's not just keep pushing at it, it's like dragging myself out of bed at 4 30, exhausted, with like no need to do it. Um and being told that I shouldn't I should stop doing it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um by lots of people. So I don't know. I think part of it was okay, so I think I part of it is like the challenge. I want to prove I wanted to prove to myself, to others that I could do this. That was one.
SPEAKER_05Why did you need to prove that?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I think like I think there's a part of me that's that's always insecure that whether it's I don't think that not that I'm not that I'm not serious or not capable, but I think there's like a part of me that's insecure that people will look at like what I've done in my career and the business and the advertising, they'll be like, okay, like yeah, you did it, but you're in at you're in advertising and you're a marketing, which itself is a little bit of like, okay, you're you could talk and you could sell, but that's not serious. Yeah. Like writing a book and getting a publishing deal is serious. Writing a book and when I wrote the book, and like I'll tell you the rest of the story, but I ended up basically using a hybrid press. And a hybrid press the first time around is like if you just pay a few thousand dollars, you could print the book and you could sell it. That I had no sense, there was no feeling of accomplishment in me when I did that at all. And I and like in my mind it was just a stepping stone to where I wanted to eventually get to. Um, I think a lot of people would feel good that they finished the project, they did the best that they could, and I think that's healthy. Like I part of me strives to be that type of being more normal.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, to be like okay with it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, to be okay with like doing your best and people enjoyed it and they gave you good feedback and just appreciate that. Like I I if you were to measure my feeling, like an emotional satisfaction on some scale, it would be registered at zero.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Until I got until I received a certain external extrinsic validation from a source that I, in my own brain, considered legitimate, it I felt like everything up until now has been an utter, complete waste of time. And I would have felt that way. Yeah. Which would and I would have been fine. Like I've done lots of things that have ended up being complete wastes of time, and you keep going, you move on. And that's okay.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01But I wouldn't be like fooling myself into thinking like, oh, you're amazing. You wrote a book and you paid a few thousand dollars to print copies, and people gave you such great feedback. Like that's not what it was. Like I needed to be a good one. And I don't know, yeah, I don't know. And I don't think that's healthy necessarily.
SPEAKER_05So you're telling people to not to not do that.
SPEAKER_01No. No. I admire people who don't need to do that.
SPEAKER_05Right. I think I have a similar view of like the podcast also. It's like if I'm not going to be the number one podcast in the world by like people, then like what am I? Right. No, so it's like the same, it's the same kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Like a lot of people will just do this in their home office. And like we're here in a beautiful studio, and that's because that's you want to do it right. Yeah. Um so where was where were we?
SPEAKER_05We were talking about how you got the agent. Oh, okay, right, right.
SPEAKER_01So this was so fine. So I'm at my third rejection with Pete. Time goes on, and I I st and I'm like, again, I'm not not taking like I'm not taking this in an unserious way. I've now while I'm running the advertising business, I've enrolled in in every possible writing workshop you could imagine. I've read every book on writing and reread them and wrote notes on them late at night. Um, and this is not my main career, but like studying stories, studying fiction, working with editors. I've rewritten the book a few times, and I'm really starting to realize, okay, now like I'm seeing that the book is taking a much more professional shape.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, with a lot more polish than the last time he saw it. And now that was, let's say that was 2021. Now we're 2024, let's say. Um I think until 2024, when I decided that if I could show, if I could show an agent or a publisher that I like, I felt that my biggest advantage over your typical debut author, especially in the middle grade space, was that I have a background in marketing. And the biggest thing that publishers what publishers fail to do for a debut author is sell a book. They could distribute and print, but today, as opposed to let's say 20, 30 years ago in publishing, where the publisher really handled all of the marketing and the publicity, they really rely on the authors to bring their platform and to to generate sales.
SPEAKER_05Oh, really? Like through their through LinkedIn or Yeah.
SPEAKER_01They're looking, so they look for authors that have a big following. They look for authors that that have a certain notoriety. Um and they'll they'll handle printing distribution, getting the book into stores and and like and packaging the book with a cover and art and typesetting. But they don't do that much in the form of advertising and marketing. Right. They'll do a little bit. So I wanted to sh like I felt like that was an advantage that I brought to the table. So I said, okay, I'm gonna I'll sort of self-publish it through a hybrid press. Um, I'll make it look, I'll make it a really professional looking package. Like it'll be a well-produced book. I'll sell a bunch of copies, I'll sell more copies than most middle-grade authors manage to sell, and then I'm gonna re-query. Um so How'd you think of that? I don't know. It was just like sort of the next natural stage. It was just like, okay, I I've been rejected by every single agent in America. I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep doing it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That was a good idea.
SPEAKER_01So I did that, and then the but before it even went on sale, I was using some influencers and I was advertising a little bit. I said, you know, like, oh, I'll tell you what happened. Um it was the night before the self-published version was gonna go on sale. And I had been working like really round the clock. Um messaging I let I f I have let's say 60,000 connections on LinkedIn. I individually messaged every one of the 60,000 asking them to buy a copy. Every s individually messaged 60,000 people over the course of a month, like through the night. Um, every possible influencer I can get my hands on, every advertising channel I could use, everything. Like it was just like full-blown prostitution for three months. And I could, and I could like, and that's what you have to do. Like you have to like really beg, borrow, and steal for every sale. It's not easy. Like I come, my career is is on is in online sales. We help clients sell their services and their products. And it's really hard to get people to buy something that you're selling. It's just a hard thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It takes a lot.
SPEAKER_05Well, first they have to trust you.
SPEAKER_01It's a lot of there's trust, there's the quality of the product, it's like a million other things to buy. Um every purchase decision you make is also like a decision against another hundred thousand products that are competing.
SPEAKER_05Right. So out of the 60,000 that you message on LinkedIn, how many bought?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I don't know how many bought, but I know we did around 15, 20,000 sales going into our opening week. Okay, which is for middle grade fiction, is very high.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um so I was gonna do I was gonna do like a a release party, and uh not because I was celebrating it, because I thought that that was just another opportunity to sell more books. Um I didn't feel that there was any cost or any celebration whatsoever. I wanted to- Nothing. Nothing. Really, I felt and that's and it might be if I were to reflect, and let's say if I was telling somebody else or my own children, I would feel like, no, like you did a good thing, you tried your hardest, you put a huge amount of effort into something, you learned a new discipline, you made every possible attempt you can. You, you, you ought to feel good and s satisfied. And I don't know, like maybe I think there's part of me that feels that that's a dangerous attitude because if I start feeling that way, then you lose your hustle, you lose your drive. Um and there's gotta be a balance there somewhere, which I didn't have or maybe don't have today that's much healthier.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, but anyway, I was gonna do this like release party and then make like everybody who came had to buy a book and then get it. Okay. A whole convoluted thing. And then I said at some point I was like, you know what? Like, I just have to let me just take Frady, my wife, out for dinner, and that's it. Like, just a moment of quiet. I've been working like just sort of round the clock on this. Yeah. Um, and another 500 sales, another 300, not gonna make a difference. Okay, let's just go out for dinner. So we went out for dinner to the same place we had gone out for dinner three and a half years prior.
SPEAKER_05When you celebrated.
SPEAKER_01When I celebrated prematurely, we're thinking that we had this deal with with this agent Pete.
SPEAKER_05And that's a bad like omen. I feel like you should go to a different restaurant.
SPEAKER_01No, it's like the same restaurant. Because in my brain, it was like, yeah, no, so Frady felt like this is a bad omen.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like this is bad juju. Like we gotta go somewhere else.
SPEAKER_05Somewhere else, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because like we went here and he and he rejected you. And I was like, no, I don't see any correlation. Like, yeah, I like we sort of knew he was good, like there wasn't whatever. Like, we're just just have a good time. So we go there, and then I get home, and it's like 11 o'clock PM, quiet, and I'm sort of just reflecting on the whole journey. Like the book's gonna come out. I said, you know what? Let me just cold email Pete. Let me email him again and tell him that I spent the last three years really working on the novel. It can't hurt. Yeah, he rejected me three times, but what does an email cost? Nothing.
SPEAKER_05What's another rejection?
SPEAKER_01What's another rejection? Rejection really never hurt, like it never phased me from a it like any emotionally was not hurtful to me. Like being rejected.
SPEAKER_05It didn't do anything to your self-worth. Like everyone thinks this is bad, this sucks. This when they tell you like this is really bad, when the first guy who you've you paid all that money to was like, this is awful. Yeah. It didn't do anything to you. You're just like Yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, I I just the opposite. I th I said I said like I think you're right. Like I think I I really felt that he was right. Like I felt that it was awful. And I saw and like with his feedback, I I tr I trusted him as a voice, as an expert. And like I've I I've never with writing is an there's an interesting paradox in writing where you have to, on one hand, be like you have to have a certain hubris or like confidence that you could put words to a paper that another person will enjoy reading. Yeah. And that takes a lot of arrogance to feel that way. Yeah. Because like what there's so many good things to read. Like, why why we read your drivel? But on the other hand, you have to be like sort of so insecure that you're driven to continue to refine and edit and listen to everybody else's feedback and take guidance and not have like sort of an ounce of arrogance in that editorial process and to keep going. Wow. Um, so it's like, yeah, I when when he told me that this was really bad, it was disheartening from just like, I can't put this work in again. Like I just spent like a year and a half doing this every morning. It's just, it's just but I thought he I felt 100% he was right. Like I didn't have an ounce of argument.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_01Um or like or feeling sensitive. I I felt like, wow, this is great to meet somebody who could actually who actually read your book and is willing to talk to you in a real mature way about the problems. Wow.
SPEAKER_05Um So you called email Pete at 11 o'clock.
SPEAKER_01So at 11 o'clock and and I said, Hey, like Pete, you might not remember me. Um we spoke three and a half, four years ago about this book, but like it's really gone through a number of revisions, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in taking a look. I said, I br I'm bringing it to market on my own. Um, but I and I said in the email, my end goal always was to have a traditional publisher who could because if you self-publish a book, you could do a lot with your own online sales, and you actually will earn a higher royalty per book. Really? The way the way traditional publishing will work, once the agent sells it to a publisher, they own the book. They own the rights. So they pay you in advance, they pay you a lump sum of money, which then counts against your royalties. So let's say, for example, on a $15 book, my through a traditional publisher, through Penguin, like I'd say uh my my my earnings per book is probably three or four dollars per book. But that's only once my advance is paid back.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01So depending on what your advance is, you have to you have to you have to earn back that advance, and then you can start earning royalties. With a self-published book, you could earn on a $15 book, let's say your cost of printing is $4, you could be earning $10 a book sold.
SPEAKER_05That's so interesting. So you so people just want it because it's like just fancier to be, or why do they want that? That's part of it. Bigger reach.
SPEAKER_01So so really if the book takes off, the you can't come you can't compare the reach a traditional publisher still has. Because one, the gatekeepers in the industry are solo librarians and booksellers and bookstores and indie bookstores, and they're buying from sales teams that work for these publishers. That's how they're stocking books. Yeah. International rights. So we've so so right after we sold to I'll tell you how the rights work in a moment. Um but international rights and celebrities rights like film, TV, radio. So I'll walk you through like a little bit of those components. Um But anyway, I email Pete and I say, like, my like don't be fooled by the fact that you'll see this on Amazon and that I'm bringing this to like to like myself. Like my my my goal all along was a publisher, but we are getting like a good amount of velocity with pre-orders. I was wondering if you wanted to take a look at it again, take a look at the manuscript. So he responds back 15 minutes later. Wow. Saying, of course, I remember you. Um really interested to see, really interested, really, I'm really interested to learn what you've learned about marketing and advertising, a book, because it's like publishers have a really hard time cracking the marketing picture with books. I'd love to know what you've done. Um send me your manuscript, I'll take another look at it. But in the meantime, this was on a Monday evening. He's like, could we talk Wednesday at noon? Just I'm I I'd like to hear about like your marketing and publishing journey. So, first of all, kudos to Pete, who is a huge agent, who is now getting a cold email from a schmuck, and he's willing, and he has the humility to be like, look, I can maybe learn something about advertising and marketing. Yeah. So I sent in the manuscript, again, really excited. And um Wednesday, 10 minutes before our call, he's like, I started reading the manuscript. I I'm almost finished with it. I really, really like it, and I'm really excited about our call, which is like a moment I'll never forget because this is like You're like, Freddy, this time it's real.
SPEAKER_05So I actually did like, let's not go for dinner.
SPEAKER_01So this time I didn't even call Freddy because like this time I really felt real. So it's like uh now I've started getting superstitious. Um so I get on the phone with him, and we talked very little about marketing and much more about like the book and the Park and Fine and Brower agency and how he wants to represent me. Um and he's gonna bring this book to the to the Bologna uh Book Fair for International Rights, and he's gonna have this on the desks of the the presidents of Simon Schuster and Penguin Random House this weekend. He's like, I'm telling you, like if I were if I were to quote the words he wrote to me in emails and said, like you like you'd think I'm exaggerating. Like that's how intuit he was.
SPEAKER_05You should print it and like frame it and put it somewhere.
SPEAKER_01So I got off the phone and like it was it was like a real culmination of years of like probably probably a lot of like pain that I that I just sort of or like I'm sure the rejection at some somewhere registered because this was like an extremely cathartic. Yeah, and like I I got like really emotional. I was like, that's crazy. I called for like I had to walk out of my office, I was like shaking because it was a really crazy thing. Um because I think it was always like a uh a pipe dream to be signed by an agent. The chances were too low. I think part of it was just the fun of the hustle and the trying and the throwing it out there, and the fact that I thank God was not like desperate for the money at that time, and I wasn't like I wasn't living the starving artist life where it was I was like ride or die on this manuscript. It was just like a side project, which again wasn't treated as a side project from the sense of like the time I put into it, but whatever.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um We never discussed, though, how you picked back, like what made you decide to start writing again. You were you had this marketing company, you had a couple of kids, you were kind of like just living life. Like what what made you be like, oh, you know, nine or ten years later, like now I'm gonna do this again.
SPEAKER_01So there was there was something nagging at me, which is like I started something and I didn't finish it. And I hate that. I hate the feeling.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Where because I I had started the book and I had characters and I had a stor a rough shape of a story, and I had put a lot of time into it. Um I spent every dollar I had at the time on my editor and I then I put it away. And yeah, I a business and the business was doing well, but like I had this constant low thrum in the back of my mind of like, you failed. Like you started something and you couldn't see it through. Like you're a loser. So that was a big part of it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and I think the other part of it was just again, like this need for the next challenge to prove I don't know if it's to myself only or to others, it's a mix for sure, that I could do something that's serious, and I could do something that's on my own, that isn't just like that isn't uh hawking uh baby products and women's pumps.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like online. Like I wanna I wanted to prove that like this is like a real thing, which is also why I didn't get any of that innate uh satisfaction from just like self-publishing it the first time.
SPEAKER_05I'm just curious, in school, like did they tell you did they not treat you as like a serious student? Were you always like the kid that's just you know in the clouds? That that's like what you needed your worth to be?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I don't know if I was not treated seriously in school. I went to various like small school, small environments. Um I don't know. I think I need I think I felt like certain like that it would be it would be fun to do this, it would be cool to do this, people will think it's cool, people will and I like that that was a really driving force. So I'm sure there were like certain insecurities that I had and where and and where they came from, I don't know, I don't know necessarily.
SPEAKER_05Oh, because you use this word a lot that you wanted people to take you seriously. Seriously, right.
SPEAKER_01I wasn't no, I wasn't a joke. I wasn't very f I go, I wasn't like I definitely wasn't like a class clown. Right. Um maybe it's not like maybe it's not so much I wanted people to take me seriously, but maybe I wanted people to like admire me or respect me or like think that you know and of course if that's what's driving you you'll never get there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um I'm you could tell me that as a therapist. And like if that's the goal, it's never enough, and you never and you always need the next step. And you know, there's probably some I don't know, you tell me. Is there a healthy balance between needing external validation and an intrinsic because I it's hard to imagine being purely that's a that's like a high level in my view. That's like you're totally okay alone, and like your own internal people need some degree of for sure.
SPEAKER_05We're as human beings, we need that that external validation from people, even if we say like we're independent, we don't need anybody, we don't, you know, you definitely need that to feel self-worth.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But is it kind of like that same thing that's going on for you now? It's like, okay, so now I got the publishing book, now I want a movie from it, or like it's the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, like it's never gonna be enough.
SPEAKER_01There's something like that. There's something like that, but it's not all I don't I don't know if it's all that like psychopathic. I think part of it is like this is also just a lot of fun. And like there, yeah, I like to challenge myself with the next new thing that I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_05But you said you hate writing. So how so how is that fun?
SPEAKER_01No, it's fun, it's fun to it's fun to I find it fun to have the product, like to to produce the thing that can now become the next thing and to aim and to strive for the next achievement. In in business, like I'll I'll get bored quickly. So okay, we have these clients, and the next interesting big client is interesting to me. But like just another ten of the same thing, I'll I'll do the work because I'm I'm a functioning semi-responsible adult. I'll get I can get things done. But what is what is really exciting when I feel like just that extra energy to get up early and to be fully locked in, fully engaged, really high energy, really optimistic, is when I could see that next achievement that is harder or bigger or more exciting or larger than the last thing I achieved. And like yeah, so now it's not like it's really exciting to see the UK rights being sold and Spanish rights being sold, and then and then if the first book comes out really well, they're gonna bring, you know, you'll have a TV agent and a film agent and see where that leads. And it's so cool. It's fun to yearn for like the next exciting thing, w whether or not it could happen. And I've never it's never bothered me no, just the opposite. Like there's something that really drives me when you could talk about something idealistic, difficult, unlikely to happen, and people just look at you like you are nuts. And then when you show it to them, yeah, no, it drives me, it's it makes it really gets me going. Like that sort of it's that a little bit of that negative energy that you can you can't do this. That's maybe what I mean when I say like unserious. But it's I think we would all naturally have that reaction when you hear of like r people crazy dreams. Yeah, want to do things that are really unlikely.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and I try to I try to to like when I you know I talk sometimes at high schools and and about careers and whatever, and not it's not like this just like happy crappy go out and achieve your dreams because everyone's gonna achieve their dreams. I think it's like if you have a certain optimistic attitude, I call it idiotic optimism, but it's from that, you know, where re a lot of re a lot of reality, there's a quote in there, I think it's that that the human brain is an inspiration machine and making the future is what it does best. And what I think that's William Blake. And his his point is that what actually happens, reality is not sort of like this fixed line between fact and fiction and what is and what isn't, but your own perspectives, your own attitudes, your own hopefulness has an enormous influence on what actually happens. Um so you see it, you see it all day. People who are optimistic, who believe in things who are wrong, who are more often wrong than they're right from an actual perspective. Or dreamers. They're happier, they're more successful, they live longer, they have better relationships. Um I think there's I think there's something to that.
SPEAKER_05Than people who never strive for anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, or people who are more realistic. Like I said, I have a lot I I think realists, realists and pessimists are the same person.
SPEAKER_05Oh yes. I definitely agree with that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I I think it what oh realists are just pessimists in disgust, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Wow. That is very, very interesting. But I I definitely hear I definitely hear what you're saying, and I think that people, regular people, right, they look at like you or even me, let's say, like, and like, oh sh she's crazy, or like that's never gonna happen. And it's almost it actually fuels the fire more, right? It's like it's like I'm gonna show you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I call it I call it proving the bastards wrong.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And there's like we we look at the chip on our shoulder often as a negative thing, but there's something about the chip on your shoulder which is like a very positive motivational force. Um, we all have bastards in our life that have told us we can't do it. And sometimes that sometimes you are your own worst bastard. And to me, like proving that voice wrong is very motivating. Yeah. Um and I don't know why. I don't know where exactly where it comes from from childhood and from school and being bullied, which I was like a little short kid.
SPEAKER_05Um really you're quite tall.
SPEAKER_01I was I'm tall now, but I only grew in like twelfth grade.
SPEAKER_05Oh, that's so interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was I was the shortest kid in my class too. End of high school.
SPEAKER_05I can't even imagine that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I was the shortest and probably like one of the fattest kids until the end of high school, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Oh wow. So you were bullied?
SPEAKER_01I was bullied a little bit, eighth and ninth grade. Not like nothing like you would see out of Matilda. Right. But like just probably f also probably feeling more so in my head than I than than actually was. Um, which I'm sure contributed to like these childhood experiences, contribute to how we feel and how we conduct ourselves and how we perceive the world. So I think it had like probably a po in a way a positive impact, which was I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna prove the bastard's wrong.
SPEAKER_05Right. Is that why you wrote a book in that age, right? You're you wrote a book in the middle age?
SPEAKER_01Middle age, yeah. No. No, I don't know if it's that. I think I wrote that because um adult fiction feels inaccessible to me. Like in terms of write- I'm I I would like to write adult fiction at some point. I think it's harder. I also think I have what to write about, but really the truth is it's it's like I'd be I don't I want to write things that I would be uncomfortable with my kids writing or my kids' schools seeing that I've written. Um I grew up reading Stephen King. Like he's my favorite author.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's it's dark, and not even from like a sexual perspective, just dark, violent, uh like the underbelly of of um humanity.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I thought about it.
SPEAKER_01I thought about it. You get found out eventually.
SPEAKER_05No, I I have kids will be out of school by that by that point.
SPEAKER_01But I'll do it. I I have I have I have some like ideas for books I want to write. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Wow, that's so interesting. So your parents became religious right around when you were born, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So what was that intensity like from The Inside Out? Like you talked a little bit about, you know, growing up um with your mother and your father, they were creatives and um, but how did the religious piece play into your life?
SPEAKER_01So my parents decided to become from around the time I was born. Um and they're passionate people. Yeah. And there's a there was a like a you know, all of us are sort of like pretty engaged, passionate people. So they're they pro I think they were driven by a certain idealistic view of what the nice Jewish boy would look like, behave like, and turn out like. And it was probably a j it was an adjustment over the course of 20 years um coming to terms with not that, not that picture. Yeah. Um so my my it was definitely intense. So like we were not allowed to go to the theater. We had no TV in the house. I grew up without a TV full stop, which I'm very grateful for.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Very grateful for.
SPEAKER_05Do you allow your kids to have any social media or anything like like that?
SPEAKER_01So my oldest kid is nine, so I don't have as much of that issue yet. Okay. But we don't have but like we don't have a we don't have a TV on the like in the house that's accessible. We have a screen so they could they could watch and they'll watch on the laptop Friday. We limit it. Um They're not deprived, they've seen all like the movies that like whatever. Um But I'm thankful that growing up, like I think I think it's the best thing you could do for a kid is just like throw the TV out the window. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um it probably made you much more creative, and like that's why you turn to painting and drawing. Yeah, I read.
SPEAKER_01I read a lot. Like I we read a lot, and that was entertainment. And like we were sort of in we were in Huntington, so like we uh we didn't have that many other like Jewish from friends that we were hanging out with, so like we didn't know what was what. And like um it w it was in a way, in a way it was isolated, but looking back on that I find it like very positive. Yeah. So yeah, the so like the rap like the rabbi had come out to Huntington to run this sort of like misfit nairduel group of Balchuvas. Okay. Um and like the rabbi's kids were allowed to watch movies on their laptops, but like not us. Because like, no, like you can't, like we're not gonna do that. So like there was a lot of like that type of intensity, um, which over the years toned down um and normalized as like my parents got a little bit older.
SPEAKER_05Did you like rebel against it?
SPEAKER_01I resented it, yeah. Yeah, I remember so I never really rebelled fully. Like I never I I had a lot of good supporting characters over the years. For sure, I would say like everything that I have from a creative perspective, from an attitude, like the positive things really came from my parents. Like they were extremely encouraging. They they made us all feel like we could do anything, yeah, that we were capable of doing it, doing anything, um, that we were loved, that we were like supported. It was intense. There were expectations.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01There were a lot of expectations, a lot of intensity, there were a lot of ups and downs, it was rocky. Um, and I had some I had some very good supporting characters over the course of, let's say middle school through high school. Like rabbis who I who I knew who like were very like easygoing, very supportive, very accepting. And it was like I had some very good friends once I got to high school. So it all sort of eased out where I never like full-on rebelled, but I resented the intensity of it. Um to this day. Like I like whether it's it was like I was it was very in like going to school was a big thing. And in Huntington, Minion was at 10 to 6 in the morning.
SPEAKER_03Oh that was it.
SPEAKER_01That was your only option. Right. And like being there on time to make the minion or whatever, like, you know, was was like, yeah, it wasn't a question. Yeah, it wasn't negotiable. So I resented a lot of that. Um, and I still do. I don't I mean, I'm not like upset about it, but like I could see it in my own behavior. Like, okay, so I I probably now have overcompensated a little bit. Um, and I think you see that with parenting, the pendulum swings. I'm probably a little bit too permissive with my kids. And I s and I cast myself and I'm like, wait, I'm being too permissive. I don't like I don't like what I'm doing. Yeah. Um there should be more structure or some expectations and some balance, but yeah, you sort of compensate.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's actually interesting though, because more like creatives, like you were an artist and all those stuff, they usually tend to like the non-religious side. So was there ever a time that you kind of you know um wanted to be not religious and be in that world? It's a very different world.
SPEAKER_01There was never a time. No, there was never a time I wanted to be like not religious in that world because I because it's funny, I was never so drawn to that world of like I never I did I was never gonna I never was drawn to like living in a loft in Greenwich Village painting. Um I wanted to sell woodmere and uh I wanted to be anywhere where I could sell my paintings. Okay. Like I didn't I didn't need to be like I th I could you know like when I imagined life with a bunch of other artists smoking pot, I was like, they're they're gonna be bad for me. I need to sell. I gotta sell my paintings.
SPEAKER_05It was all about like the money for you. It wasn't really about the passion, but like you don't even really think about it. But it wasn't the money. It wasn't it.
SPEAKER_01It wasn't the money. It was it was the validation.
SPEAKER_05It was the validation.
SPEAKER_01It was like you buying it. It was not about the money, because like you you bought it for this or negotiated, whatever, like I didn't care.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It was more about that you're willing to pay for it. But I need I needed that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_01Um Yeah, I definitely needed that. Yeah. And like if and if I didn't if I couldn't achieve that, it was like, what am I doing here? Like just put the pencils and pens and paints away.
SPEAKER_05Have you picked them back back up? The painting?
SPEAKER_01No. No, I would like or the drawing. No, I haven't done it. Um I would like to pick up some drawing again. Because now I have like a daughter who's like very artistic and I could teach her. I could, you know what she wants, but she's like Utah. Yeah. And um so I would like to I would like to pick it up again. And then I I think I would I think now at this point in my life, I could I could I could do portraits and some art just for the sake of doing it and enjoying it. Like I think I could I think I could do that.
SPEAKER_05Or you can do it as like a teaching skill for your daughter. Exactly. Right.
SPEAKER_01That would be very yeah, that would be very meaningful.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. So it would be like pass on to her.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That's that one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like when I when I could sit down and I teach her like shading and like how to look at light source and how to create a shadow and how to look at how to look at a face and measurements between and then she gets it and she's like interested, like that's that's excellent.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But that's also a form of validation. Right.
SPEAKER_05You know, so I'm just curious, and then we'll I'll ask you one more question, then we'll end. But um, have you gotten the validation that you've been seeking, or you think you're gonna continue seeking it?
SPEAKER_01On one hand, I've gotten validation from this whole process of the book, and it it's felt very good and very meaningful. But I I but if I'm really being totally brutally honest, like I see that I want like you still want, you need you want more, you're you're still searching for it, you still need it. Yeah it it wears off, right? Like there there I remember clearly, because it it's about a year and a half now, about maybe a year, year and a half ago, where we finally got I got the agent, we sold the Penguin Random House and the three-book deal. And the three book deal is really rare for middle grade like middle grade books, the middle grade industry is suffering the most out of any segment in publishing. Yeah. Because you're really competing with screens. Yeah, and kids are not reading as much.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um so to for a publisher to buy up front three books from an author who's never published anything before, yeah. It's like a big statement of like, and that and I remember walking I remember really feeling for like a couple weeks, maybe, maybe a week, like, oh, this is what it feels like to be healthy. Like this is what it feels this is what feeling like just good about yourself feels like.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01And then it wears off. It's like, okay, well I like you need I and again, I don't know exactly where that comes from, but it wasn't but of course something that's extrinsic that wasn't really that profound. It was like somebody else putting their stamp of approval on you could only get you so far. Right.
SPEAKER_05It could only drive you so far.
SPEAKER_01So I think I internalized some of it, and I think that's been helpful. Um But the truth is I've been trying to like the second book I've been expected to write, and I've been having a very hard time like getting through it because it's like it's now being I have deadlines, I'm late. I don't love writing. I never want like I don't I don't need to tell the story.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_01Um I'm not that all like I the a lot of authors will tell you like this is like really coming from the heart and yeah they need they need it, and like that is not how I feel.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_01There's nothing here from the heart. It's like I want to tell a good story that entertains, and that's fun.
SPEAKER_05Right. Um But that's also from the heart, kind of like that you just want something light and easy, not everything needs to be heavy and right.
SPEAKER_01It's true. You know, it's true.
SPEAKER_05Um maybe that goes plays back into your optimism, right? So you're just you want people to be optimistic and you want a happy book and you want a light book and you want to instill that into kids. Yeah. As opposed to Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it should be like psychoanalyze it, you know. No, I think a big part of it is like not taking yourself so seriously, and it could be fun and entertaining. Um, but like the first writing the first book was actually easier, and I got up every morning for years really early, consistently, and and put another paragraph down, another chapter down, and that was with zero expectation of ever having a publisher.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01And I did it. And now I have a publisher, I have the largest publisher in the world with a really strong three-book deal, and the put and I cannot bring myself to write. Like I I I finally got them a first draft of the second book, but I'm finding it so hard, and it's not as superficial as like, oh, now somebody's telling you what to do, you can't do it. It's not that's maybe a little bit of it. It's not the main thing. I think the deeper thing is like it's no longer it's no longer the crazy thing to try.
SPEAKER_05It's no longer the chase.
SPEAKER_01It's no longer the chase.
SPEAKER_05Like you Because you have it already. They gave it to you. Right. So it's not like again, it's not like you have to prove it to them.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And it's it's not even you don't have the opportunity to prove it because you've just proven it. Right. You've proven it already. And now writing the second book, everyone expects you to write it. Like you're supposed to write it. This is normal now. Now it's normal to get up and write the second book because you have a contract to deliver them a manuscript to get in order to get paid. And this is amazing. And they want to take this book and they're they're making influencer boxes and they're making a whole package and they're doing they just need you to keep doing your work. But you signed on to do. And I cannot bring myself to do it.
SPEAKER_05I hope they're not listening. I'm sure I'm sure they are not. You will do it.
SPEAKER_01I'll do it. Yeah, I'll do it. You'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it because I have to do it. Yeah. But it's like a it's a really it's much it's even though now I have editorial support. I have a whole team. I have people reaching out and want to send me a chapter.
SPEAKER_05It's crazy how you have more support, more everything, even more money than you had when you first started, that you don't have to worry about that part. And it's harder. It's like much harder.
SPEAKER_01So it's not a little harder. Yeah, not a little harder. Right. Orders of magnitude harder. And I've procrastinated and I've and I've I've made excuses. My agent called me and I'm and they're like, what are you doing? And I'm like, oh, I just I just I threw out a hundred pages because I cannot get it right. And I'm like just straight out lying to him. Like I have not started. And it's really and like it's crazy. And like when I was doing the first book, I wouldn't miss a day. Like I was if I was sick with the flu or I had drunk the drank the night before, I was up at 4 30 out of bed, no matter what, bleary eyed, writing the next sentence. Because that's what I had to do. Because that was what drew what was what was like really exhilarating was I'm doing something on the fringe that has very little chance of succeeding, that other people would look at and be like, that's unbelievably strange. There's something wacko. And there was a lot of fun in that. There's a lot of like and now it's like, well, you were paid, you have a contract, you should deliver. I have like 16 different editors who I could reach out to, and I I will find every possible excuse not to write the next sentence.
SPEAKER_05Is it gonna be like the night the night before you know things are due?
SPEAKER_01So you're gonna stay up all night and just uh three months ago I got called, I got a call from the agent saying, like you have, you know, they really need like like and I was telling him, I'm like, oh no, it's it's I'm like I'm trying and it's it's you can't really rush this creative thing. I have so many different and he's like Isaac. He's like, I like you have to start. Like he's just off sort of through my BS. He's like, you need to start. And you got and like they're like they really are operating on a timeline. Yeah. I'm like, okay, okay, Pete, I'll start tonight. And I and I did. I so I I got back into it where like over the course of three months I really pushed myself to write a certain amount of words every day. Yeah. Like no matter what. And I got I got them a draft of the second book. Okay, so they have a draft and now they're asking now they asked me today's it's what's today? So they asked me for an almost final version of the second book August 1st, which is in three days. Okay. And that was like I haven't that was six weeks ago when I sent them the draft. I haven't I haven't started yet.
SPEAKER_05All right. So you'll be going home and uh pulling an all-nighter.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna ask them for an extension.
SPEAKER_05They're gonna be like, oh yeah. Right. Okay. So if someone listening has shelved something of their own, like they kind of like put it on the side, what would you tell them to do? What would you want them to know actually?
SPEAKER_01I would say that there's a zero percent chance that the project's gonna wind up the way they anticipate. But there is a 100% chance that something that something will happen from it. It's not gonna be what you think, it's not gonna be how you played it on your mind. Um but the uh like the optimistic view is if I if I if I engage it's not it's not as it's not as simple as like, oh, we learn from our failures. No. Like failing isn't failing means that you're engaged. Like you're taking swings. You're trying. And you're trying consistently, and you're doing it, and you're learning, and you're taking it seriously, and you're uh you're like you're contending with all of the voices of the universe that are telling you to stop. And those are the voices in your own head, and they're often very loud voices not in your own head. And you're and like that just just that energy, that posture, that squaring your shoulders and sitting down by the computer or by the easel or by wherever it is in business or any entrepreneurial idea or anything, it's not about how it's gonna turn out because it will not turn out uh the way you think. But just just taking a swing every day is guaranteed to deliver something in some unexpected, untold ripple somewhere down the road. And you'll look back at it and be like, that's that's incredible how that turned out. And it will take it. And there's in there's infinite uh different forms of that for everybody. Um so being engaged and taking the swings and just showing up and failing and getting doors slammed in your face is a good thing.
SPEAKER_05Also, I think just like kind of what we talked about of like just do it, right? Like don't think about it too much. Just like take it out and do it. Because the more you think about it, the more chances your mind will tell you to not do not do that thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just do it.
SPEAKER_05Just do it. And then the from action comes clarity and all that's and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then like you have to like it's cool. It's cool to do something that has like almost no chance of succeeding. Yeah. Like that's cool. It is. Most people like just attempting that type of thing that is almost certain to fail, that's cool. Because most people aren't doing that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. True. Thank you so much, Isaac. This was amazing. Thank you for being my first male guest on the show, with many more, many more to come. Um, do you want to tell people where to find you?
SPEAKER_01Um, you could look me up on Google. Um, our website is adventuremedia.ai. Georgie Summers and the Scribes of Scatterplot is the title of the first book that's gonna be reprinted by Penguin coming November. So look out for it.
SPEAKER_05Exciting at um Thanksgiving time and stuff, or are they doing like a whole pre-order for the holiday season, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Around that, yeah. Like post-Halloween, pre-Christmas, Hanukkah.
SPEAKER_05Are you gonna have like a Barnes and Noble signing? Yes, I will be coming. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01There'll be a book tour. There'll be a book tour. We'll probably do something at the Fifth Avenue Barnes and Noble.
SPEAKER_05Nice.
SPEAKER_01Um, and yeah, we'll we'll keep it, we'll keep everybody posted.
SPEAKER_05Okay, okay, awesome. Are you on Instagram or anything? Yeah, but you're not you're not heavy there. Not no. Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_01But just if you just search my name on on Google, you'll find the where we are. But I'll be on Instagram posting about the book and yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much.