After receiving what he described as a, “stereotypical” rejection letter, local youth basketball coach, motivational speaker and author Arnold Henry decided to turn to the community to get his children’s book Daddy’s Mini-Me published.
“I want to make awareness and to help end the stereotypes of fathers not being a part of their children’s lives, especially black fathers. I want to show the world that there are great dads,” said Henry.
He was inspired to write his book after the birth of his son in November 2014.
“I took a year off work so that I can experience the early moments in his life,” said Henry, “I just needed to be there for him and my wife and nothing else mattered to me.”
With the year off, Henry was there for all of his son’s firsts; first tooth, first crawl, first words.
After spending more than a year at home with his son, he was inspired to write.
“I was inspired to start writing and recreating these proud and special moments that I was cheering on my son’s milestones,” he said.
When he finished writing, Henry started to run into difficulty finding an agent or publisher to pick up his story.
For his previous book, Henry was able to work directly with his publisher but for Daddy’s Mini-Me he needed an agent.
Most of his query letters went out with no reply’s before he finally received a response.
“When I got the notification of a new email on my cell phone and I noticed it was a response to my query letter, I was shaking with excitement,” he said.
Unfortunately, that excitement didn’t last long. Rather it was a rejection letter that Henry found to be full of stereotypes.
“That was completely erased,” said Henry, “I was confused, disheartened and discouraged. I questioned myself if that was reality in the children’s book industry,” he said.
In the rejection letter, the agent wrote, “In today’s market, stories on African-American ‘fathers’ is such a tough sell.”
Those quotations around the word father was particularly disheartening and perplexing to Henry.
“I honestly don’t know, and I can’t tell what led to that agent’s remarks.
“I attempted to contact the agent on numerous occasions to discuss the reasoning for putting fathers in quotations,” he said.
So far, Henry has received no response.
After receiving this letter, Henry decided to post it to his personal social media accounts.
Henry received an outpouring of support from people near and far once the story went viral on social media.
It was here online that it was suggested he try Kickstarter to get the funding needed to self-publish his story.
“A Facebook friend, who is currently on Kickstarter with her own project had commented on my post and told me that I should do a Kickstarter,” he said.
After doing a bit of research, Henry decided to give it a try.
“I loved the idea of getting rewards for contributing to the funding goals of the books,” said Henry.
Although the letter led to discouragement and question to start, it has also motivated Henry to see this project through and publish his book.
“I want to [raise[ awareness and to help end the stereotypes of fathers not being a part of their children’s lives, especially black fathers,” he said, “I want to show the world that there are great dads.”
Henry has been successful in his Kickstarter campaign with $10,149 raised of his $10,000 goal as of March 22. The campaign will remain active until April 8.
He is planning to print a first run of 1000 copies of Daddy’s Mini-Me.
For more information on Daddy’s Mini-Me or to support Henry’s Kickstarter campaign go to www.daddysminime.com.
