Welcome to Fatherhood: Writing a book for Dads on my iPad by C.K. Sample III

About this project

Welcome to Fatherhood (working title)

A book for guys by C.K. Sample III

When my wife Kristin and I first found out we would be having a child, we ran out to the bookstore to purchase landmark books like Dr. Spock's and What to Expect When You're Expecting. However, reading these books, I quickly found myself excluded from all their details. Every ounce of information, with the exception of a chapter dedicated to fathers here and there, was addressed specifically towards my wife and not to me. "This month your breasts may start swelling." No they won't and they didn't. That was a book written for my wife. I even looked for a book that was geared more towards the fathers out there, but the only ones I found were humorous (supposedly) remixes on What to Expect with a decidedly sexist spin to them (stereotyping both men and women into hard-coded gender specific stereotypes).

Some of this trend is undoubtedly due to the lack of involvement of many fathers in the past in the pregnancy and birth of their children, through no intentional neglect on their part. When I talk to my own father about things like being in the room for the birth, he noted that he wasn't in the room, adding, "I don't think I was allowed." But, I think--based on my own experiences and interests, the multitude of daddy bloggers on the internet, and the various shared fatherhood experiences I've been having with many of my friends online--that this long-standing tradition of fathers being less involved in the day to day of their children is changing.

This book, I hope, will be one of the first books to address this new audience of dads and be a useful and serious book for fathers written from the perspective of a recent first time father. I'm not an expert. I'm just a guy, like all the other guys out there, who suddenly finds himself to be a father and responsible for another life. You should take any advice that I give in this book as simple novice advice, and by all means check with your doctor about anything serious.

However, that's another reason I want to write this book: because the instructions you receive for taking care of your child do very little in the way of preparing you for the reality of it. Everything is cookie-cutter-templated for the most common denominator, and you can get lost comparing those generalities to the specifics of your child.

I'm no expert, but I'm learning.
-------

So starts this book which I've begun writing on Pages on my iPad.

Sponsors of this project will get to see my unedited rough copy of this book as it is in progress on Kickstarter, they will be able to comment, ask for revisions, and even contribute or suggest others who should contribute to the book. The last time I wrote a book, it was a technical one: PSP Hacks for O'Reilly Press, the bulk of which was written in 3 months in the rough for a respectable advance, and the last time I was writing regularly as a freelancer to various blogs, I was pulling in about $2000 per month doing so, so for this project, I'd like to set the funding goal to this project towards somewhere in the neighborhood of what I would like to see in an advance for this book to keep me dedicated and working on it. Ideally, I'd consider $10-$15K a decent advance, but I'm setting the goal at 3 months of my freelance pay from 5 years ago, in the hopes that we'll go past the goal.

Should I reach my funding goal, I'll give everyone who has funded me an electronic PDF copy of the book watermarked with their name / email address. I'll use some of the proceeds to attempt to self-publish the book to Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iBook stores (and should I have free copies to distribute of these books, I will give them away to project donors as well). I'll also try to get this book published, and should that happen, I will give anyone who donated over $50 towards this project a signed, autographed copy of the final published version.

Besides going to the production and attempted publication of the book, any money received for this project will go towards financing my child, the reason for the book: Jackson: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cksample3/sets/72157623370687271/ whose life I intend to document in pictures, daily--pictures which will most likely adorn the book.

Project location: Bronxville, NY

3
Backers

$60.00
pledged of $6,000 goal

0
seconds to go

Funding Unsuccessful

This project reached the deadline without achieving its funding goal on August 14.

Pledge $1 or more

Access to the roughs of the book as I write it, here on Kickstarter. And a watermarked PDF copy of the completed book should this project reach its funding-goal.

1 BACKER

Pledge $50 or more

Should the project successfully reach its funding goal and I manage to publish the book at the end of this project, I'll send all contributors who donated more than $50 to the project a signed autographed copy of the final book.

0 BACKERs