An at-home dad book I have been working on has finally been released. Those that I promised a copy to will get it by the first week of October. I have stories and quotes from many dads that have been in the At-Home Dad Newsletter, active in the playgroups and websites. Here is a list of those people. Thank you so much to those that contributed. Although it's billed as a "handbook" the several stories submitted by dads, some humorous some heartfelt, will distract you from the "handbook" implication. If you read a copy I hope you enjoy it, let me know what you think. If you would like to actually be an author of a profitable parenting book on fatherhood, it's pretty easy, you just have to be Bill Cosby. His book Fatherhood which according to slate.com started the round of huge advances for the big names. If you still want to try, here's a poor overview of what you need to know. The Proposal - Submitting the idea is easy, getting the publisher to say yes is not. You or your agent (if you have one) will peddle your idea to a bunch of publishing companies, in my case 30. I got back 29 vague rejection letters that went something like this: Although we felt that, Peter has a nitch audience we are discouraged by the past performance of fathering books but we do hope you find a home for it (read: we don't think it will make money). One of of the publishers may bite, which in my case was the Chicago Review Press of which I am grateful. The Advance - This is the fun part, on the strength of your proposal idea they actually give you money before you have even written the book. Of course you may have to settle for something less than the million dollar Bill Clinton-ish advances. Writing the book -That's easy, just write as you go. When your baby is doing something, like say, projectile vomiting, don't clean it up right away! Write down what you are seeing and feeling while the vomit is still fresh in your mind. That way the experience is written raw and is believable and funny. The editors love that stuff. The First Draft, The Second Draft, The Third Draft - After submitting your "final" copy (you will be asked to re-write it over and over until you are totally sick of your own book.) it is then the copy editor's job to edit out all the good parts you wrote about projectile vomiting. Naming the book - My title was picked out of a few choices. When I submitted the manuscript to my publisher I offered the title, Men who Change Diapers and the Women who Love them. I thought was it was pretty clever until they they started tossing around the four magic self explanatory "how-to" book title words like, manual, guidebook, survival guide and handbook. (Amazon has 144645 titles with "handbook" in it.) Thus we went from the Men who Change Diapers title to The At-Home Dad Survival Guide which lasted a week until it gave away to the final mainstreaming title: "The Stay at-Home Dad Handbook" which you will likely find in the book stores nestled between the Stay-At-Home Handbook and The Stay-at-Home Parent's Survival Guide. Promoting the Book - I've just started doing that now, I will keep you posted on my progress in future posts. If you still want to write a dad book, I'd be more than happy to help you out through the book process by e-mail or at the At-Home Dad Convention. -Pete
Updated: Sunday, 28 November 2004 12:43 PM EST
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BAAMMM!! I couldn't resist this 
I spoke today with an ABC staffer working on a new show titled "The Swap" And they would like one of the readers of the newsletter to get the first shot to do the show. (This is based on the show "Wife Swap" which has been hugely popular in 
