Kenny Casanova Talks Self-Publishing (Part 2)
“Sabu: Scars, Silence & Superglue” is available to order now.
The suicidal, homicidal, genocidal, death defying Sabu is finally opening up to the world.
The ECW icon is releasing a tell-all book with co-author Kenny Casanova, a New England Pro Wrestling Hall of Famer who toured the indie circuit from the early 1990s until the late 2000s. In 2014, Casanova launched WOHW Publishing, an independent outlet for pro wrestlers to self-publish their autobiographies and distribute them through their own websites. His first project – “Kamala Speaks” – earned roughly $60,000 from book sales, Kickstarter and GoFundMe, with all proceeds going toward Kamala’s medical bills.
Since then, WOHW Publishing has released autobiographies of Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake and notorious WWE referee Danny Davis. Casanova is currently in the process of finishing up Vader’s autobiography.
Casanova graduated from SUNY Albany with a BA in English Literature and The College of Saint Rose with a Master’s in education. He currently teaches 12th grade English, having piloted an integrated program that lets vocational students gain English credit in their trade classes like auto, culinary and carpentry.
“Sabu: Scars, Silence & Superglue” gives you a no-holds-barred look at one of the most innovative and hardcore pioneers in wrestling. With 400 pages of ECW memories, lessons from his legendary uncle The Shiek, guest passages from Rob Van Dam, Taz and other extreme peers, this autobiography is sure to be the perfect addition to any wrestling fan’s bookshelf.
You can order the book here.
You can follow Casanova on Facebook and Twitter.
Casanova spoke with The Wrestling Estate in a lengthy interview last month. The following conversation has been edited and broken into parts for easier reading. To hear the full conversation, listen to Corrigan’s Corner on Monday night at Team LeftJab Radio.
Read Part 1 here.
You’re definitely onto something because when it comes to brands of wrestling books, the only one that I can think of is ECW Press. There is obviously room for competition, so it’s wise for you guys to target that market.
Kenny Casanova: “Let me tell you how this all came about. When Kamala was diagnosed with diabetes, I had done some appearances with him as Kim Chee in the Northeast. He lost both legs and I contacted him about getting him some money to help pay medical expenses. I contacted ECW Press and pitched his story, and they were like ‘I don’t know. He’s a name people know, but at the same time, he’s kind of old school and I’m not sure it would sell that well.’ They were pretty hesitant and then they said if we can make it work, he would only make so much in the advance and royalties and it was a very small amount.
I thought that can’t be the case. After they didn’t give a great deal, I sent it out to a number of people. I sent it to Triumph, Crowbar and other companies. Nobody was biting. Pardon the terrible pun, but I felt the book had legs. He was this pro wrestler who traveled the whole world and now he can’t go anywhere. He worked with Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan and now he has no legs and can only look out his kitchen window. There’s a story here, for sure. It transcends the typical wrestling biography. What if I could get it printed, edited, promoted and distributed by myself? I wanted to do it the cheapest way possible so Kamala would get more money at the end of it.
I did the Kickstarter and it made him somewhere in the avenue of 30 grand or more right away. Then Bleacher Report put the link on their site and helped us get another 30 grand for Kamala. I know other presses would give a bigger name than Kamala maybe $6,000 or $7,000 in royalties for the book. Whereas Kamala made $60,000 because there is no publisher getting their cut. Self-publishing is the way to go if you can figure out how to do it.”
For the Kamala book, how much did it cost for you to self-publish?
Kenny Casanova: “I can give you some ideas. If I were to go to a publisher and I wanted to sell the books myself, I might have to spend $12-$13 for a book that’s $20-$25. That’s just to buy my own book to sell it on a website or a merchandise table. If you self-publish, I can get the books printed, depending on how thick they are, for $2, $3 or $4 a book. The rest of the money is yours.
Typically we do a trade paperback. I print 1,500-2,000 at once. That’s how I can get the cheaper price. If you printed on demand, that costs at least $8 or $9 and you have no stock. They still take a cut, too. If you do it in bulk and through self-publishing, now the wrestlers have extra merchandise to sell and can have brand resurgence. People were more interested in Brutus Beefcake when they knew he had a book coming out. Same thing with Kamala. They read his story, learned about his plight and threw some money toward a fundraiser. The way I’m talking I sound pretty knowledgeable about all this stuff, but I’m only learning as I go along.”
I’m glad to be learning from you, as I’m sure other writers who read this will be as well. What you’re doing for these guys is tremendous and what you’re giving the fans is great, too. Especially working on Tito Santana’s book – we need your treatment for his career.
Kenny Casanova: “I want to do it. Going through these two books right now, having 800 pages and then working on Tito’s is haunting me. I want to work on his right now. So far it’s transcribed. It didn’t even exist transcribed. We got permission from the original author to use his book as the outline and then I’m going to flush the whole thing out and add a bunch of stories to it. I want to make it better than the old-school, WWF kids library-type book.
Beth Savage, a female wrestler, she sat and typed the whole damn thing. We couldn’t find a digital copy of the book because it’s so old. It was very kayfabe. ‘I wrestled this guy and he injured me.’ It was pretending wrestling was still real. It’s not up to today’s standard of people in on the joke.”
The whole idea of breaking kayfabe is the appeal to these books, especially with somebody like Sabu. The fact that you have a tell-all from Sabu is one of the most exciting things in wrestling this year. I learned of it from an article by Lansing State Journal, which attempted to interview Sabu, but he declined…saying he doesn’t like talking about himself.
Kenny Casanova: “It’s totally fucked up. (laughed) On top of that, to get some of the stories, I did the same thing I’ve done in the past. Most of these ghostwriters will hang out with a guy for a weekend and three months later, they have his book. These things take me over a year and this has over 10 guest passages where I get stories from other people. Then I get some parts from Sabu, and then I get parts from shoot interviews and put it all together. It’s a big puzzle. On top of Sabu’s probably 350 pages, I probably have 50 pages from guest passages, plus RVD and Taz’ forwards.
I didn’t even think I’d get Taz to write a forward. They’re not the best of friends – they were super competitive forever. Tommy Dreamer, Blue Meanie, Joel Gertner, Kevin Sullivan, Konnan, Mikey Whipwreck, Bill Alfonso, Raven, Justin Credible, Al Snow. On top of that, I’ve got original quotes for the story from the fake Sabu after he left ECW for a short time. Geez, I’ve got some stuff in here from Chris Candido, who did a shoot interview and told a story about Sabu. There are all kinds of Easter eggs. It’s crazy.”
Was it your idea to get Taz and RVD to do the forwards?
Kenny Casanova: “My idea was I really wanted RVD. He was tough to get a hold of because he does a lot of gigs and is all over the place. Eventually, Sabu called him up and he agreed. So I called up RVD and interviewed him the same way I interviewed the other guys. Then Mike Johnson, who works for PWInsider, used to run ECW’s website. He hooked me up with the ECW Magazine photographer who got me some great pictures. It makes Sabu’s book super crisp and neat.
Johnson said ‘I think I can get Taz to do it for you.’ I was like, ‘bullshit dude, Taz and Sabu hate each other.’ In fact, I had to take a couple lines out of the first draft of the book because Taz was so complementary and nice to Sabu that I’m like, ‘dude, we have to take out some of what you said about him. He just hooked you up.’ He was like, really? He couldn’t believe it. Taz put him over pretty hard.
We had to hunt Bill Alfonso down because he’s pretty much retired and went into hiding almost. He’s in Florida now.”
It seems like these books tend to end feuds. You mentioned Beefcake and Hogan and now Taz and Sabu.
Kenny Casanova: “I like that, man. It’s like I’m the peace bringer. (laughs) The same thing happened with Beefcake and DDP. They had a big falling out. I guess they did some WCW shit together. Beefcake had it written in his contract that he wasn’t supposed to take headshots. Doctors said not to. There was a match where Dennis Rodman and DDP ran down and were supposed to chair shot Mr. Perfect and the Disciple outside the ring. As DDP was running down, he tripped over one of the TV cables and fell, and in doing so, the chair actually hit Beefcake in the back of the head. He thought it was sloppy, and DDP said it was an accident.
Well, DDP wrote a passage for Beefcake’s book and Beefcake was happy there was some closure there. Now Beefcake supports the DDP Yoga stuff and they’re friendly again.”
Read Part 3 here.
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