Little Green Houses: Florida Grow Houses and Rise of Home-Grown Organized Crime
Non-fiction current events
circa 300 pages with photos
Copyright David Anthony Kearns
Kearnspalmbay@Netzero.net
1. "Might a book about grow houses be out of date when it comes out? Maybe something massive will break like World War III?"
Yes WWIII could happen, and I have no control over that. For my own part, I can't see how grow houses WON'T be a part of the urban landscape in 1 year, even with something massive breaking.
2. "Maybe the economy will improve enough that people won't be interested in grow houses anymore? So why bother?"
About the economy; this stagnation is going nowhere fast (That's mine by accident channeling Yogi Beara). It took us a year and then some to get here. This is THE perfect book for the times. It's timely in that it looks at legalization from all sides. Uhm, gangs, guns, grow houses, police raids? Not being interesting a year from now? Hell, I'm also starting a movie script because I am convinced these elements remain interesting no matter what's happening.
3. "What qualifies YOU SPECIFICALLY TO WRITE THIS?"
This was actually a REALLY GOOD QUESTION! One that editors in committees will surely ask. Here's what I sent back to her!
What qualifies? (No I don't smoke it or grow it or deal it! LOL) What qualifies me to write this is more than seven years working as newspaper reporter covering crime and more drug photo ops for cops literally than I can count, in both Brevard and Indian River Counties. Papers were Florida Today/Gannett and Sebastian Sun a division of Indian River County Press Journal/Scripps Howard. With that comes a career speaking to cops AND criminals! In researching an early novel while living in Miami, I sat in on a good portion of the Manuel Noriega trial while writing my first book, Walker's Grave, about Honduras and the drug trade during the 1980s. So far, no takers on that one.
I am now living in Palm Bay Florida, which is Central Florida; the new epicenter of the grow houses. As I point out in the proposal I have one or possibly three within walking distance.
I am familiar with marijuana from college. I didn't deal it but I had roommates who did. I was surrounded by pot, literally. As an athlete I rarely ever used it, but when I did, I did inhale! I was never arrested for it. FIT My alma mater, took a blithe, almost look the other way stance on pot in the 1980s. As a former Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras, we were witness to the corrupting aspect of the drug trade. How many cabbage trucks did I ride on that had either pot or coke in burlap bags beneath all that cabbage? Must have been ten or more.
But, for the record, I usually talk about my agriculture experience in connection with Peace Corps, working with small-scale farmers. I worked with fish farmers mostly, yet you couldn't help becoming familiar with all aspects of farming from animal husbandry to soil conservation. In writing about budding and hybrids, and so forth, I speak not only as someone who has planted crops but, someone with an FIT education in the life and earth sciences. This was an excellent school and remains such. Today they have a zero tolerance for druggies on campus, in fact. Back then, well, it was a different time and place.
4. "Who do you imagine would purchase this book? What is your market?" Also a good question!
Anyone interested in marijuana. Let me say that again. Anyone interested in marijuana, or eradicating it. Double the first total. Anyone with a teenager. Anyone interested in politics. Those curious about the inner workings of law enforcement. Those merely curious about crime and how easy it is to make a grow house. As I say later in this proposal, having a senator or a congressman hold up your book to either lambaste it, or praise it on C-SPAN is pretty much a great marketing plan in itself. The tone and style is easy enough for an eighth grader, yet readable for everyone in the young adult to adult market. Profanity is nill; I even have an dictionary of slang, and strains of marijuana.
5."You shouldn't really go into this deal without an agent, should you?"
Of course not, but, as with my first book Where Hell Freezes Over, I must be prepared to do exactly that. This time I will hire a lawyer to read the contract on the fine points, of course. Not having an agency absolutely is not the way to go. But, in this market, one must keep moving. An agent can run interference for a writer, get into those finer contractual points that can leave one pantless, for sure, and they have the skill to badger the publisher for money. I certainly don't. But agents are so incredibly gun shy anymore. All I am saying is; here is this slam-dunk waiting to happen. If at the end of the day, I have only shoppers and no takers, I will go directly to publishers with this. Because now is the time.
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