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A controversial biography on the life and times of late gambler and Internet entrepreneur Ken "The Shrink" Weitzner continues to be written by Weitzner's step-son, Jerry Lee Donahue, but the project has hit a snag, Donahue tells Gambling911.com in an exclusive interview.
The problem?
A year into the project, the author still hasn't found a publisher to publish the book.
Weitzner, of Chesapeake, Virginia, USA, a failed student of psychiatric medicine, in the mid 1990s created one of the Internet's first portals devoted to online gambling, The Prescription (www.therx.com).
He later sold the website for over a million dollars and then created another similar portal, Eye on Gambling (www.eog.com).
But despite both portals being cash cows for brilliant businessman Weitzner, he was also a drunk, a drug addict and a degenerate gambler who eventually squandered his fortune.
Facing financial setbacks he felt he couldn't overcome, he killed himself last year over the Easter weekend using a deadly combination of sleeping pills and toxic carbon monoxide gas.
Even more tragicially, Weitzner somehow convinced his longtime wife, Jackie--Donahue's mother--to join him in the suicide, and she did.
Several months after the double-suicide, Donahue told Gambling911.com that he was writing a book about his late step-father and his controversial life and death.
The news sparked tremendous interest around the online gambling community, with many weighing in with comments on Internet posting forums devoted to gambling--one legendary forum thread even discussed at length who should play "The Shrink" should the book be turned into a movie.
But now, about a year into the project, Donahue tells Gambling911.com in another exclusive interview that despite the buzz generated by the news of the book, he still hasn't found a publisher who is interested in putting the book out.
"We are still working on the book," Donahue wrote during an e-mail interview last week with Gambling911.com. "It is not as easy as it sounds. The research alone takes a ton of time.
"We have focused mostly on the years before The Prescription," he continued. "We are have tons of info on his offshore history. It would have been ideal to have a book soon after his death, but realize I am writing this book for myself, because I want it to be good and not to make money.
"We do not have a signed deal, but we have had several inquiries and a ton of folks offering to help. Plus a few suggestions on how to go about writing the book or even who should write it from some people in the know.
"The pain and memories are with me every day and I guess they will be forever, but I am in a better state of mind now. I don’t know when we will finish."
Donahue, who remains highly visible in the online gambling community, posting as "Tony Montana" on various gambling-themed posting forums, needn't despair--there's a 21st-century solution to his age-old problem.
Desktop book publishing.
That's right, publish the book yourself.
You may have seen the TV ads about it: publish books, one at a time, on your home printer.
No need for a publisher to print the books, or a warehouse to store them, or stores to sell them.
Print them yourself, after they've been ordered and paid for, sell them yourself, never be overstocked, never print any books that haven't already been paid for.
You can't lose.
If it's too much work to publish the book yourself, then hire a good old-fashioned vanity press, the kind of publisher that cheaply prints low-print-run books that people write and give out to their friends and family, and sell the book yourself online.
Plenty of folks want to read about the Shrink and his demise--don't let the fact that Random House doesn't give a hoot get in the way of publishing a good story.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
