Scruffy The Legend

Scruffy the Legend was published about 2 years ago.  It is nothing more than a simple true story about a dog and the man who loved him.  When Scruffy died, I felt compelled to write about what his death meant to me.  I had never planned to write any books – about Scruffy or anything else.  At first I was  writing only about his death, I guess as some sort of catharisis for me.  Eventually a short story about Srcuffy’s death and my reaction to it emerged.  I kept rewriting it, fine tuning it, if you will, until I felt that anyone reading it would have exactly the same emotional experience that I had.  It really was not meant to be read by anyone but me; I just wanted to be able to return to that experience years down the road, assuming that my memories of Scruffy would dim over many years.  When I had finished with all the rewriting and fine tuning, the story seemed so overwhelmingly sad, that I decided that, indeed, it should be only for my eyes, to perhaps be put away in a drawer for a much later time.

At some point, I began to get over the pain of losing Scruffy, and began to reflect more on the good times we experienced during our seven years together.  I also began to understand why I was so devastated by his loss.  It was the contrast between his presence in my life and his absence.  If the good times hadn’t been quite so good, perhaps the loss wouldn’t have been so difficult.  Now I felt compelled to start writing about the good times.  Again, this was really only for me – as a way to look back and better understand the basis for my feelings.

 As was true of the little story about Scruffy’s death, gradually an entire book emerged – relating Scruffy’s story from the day we adopted him until the day he died.  Once again, I kept rewriting and fine tuning the whole story – over and over again.

 My wife read most of what I had written and suggested that it should be published.  She said that, for her, it was much better than Marley and Me because it was only about the dog.  There was nothing in it about our personal trials and tribulations except as directly related to Scruffy.  We both liked this idea but knew that the book would never have such wide appeal as a Marley and Me for this very reason (and probably a bunch of others).  

 So Scruffy the Legend remained a very focused story.  I was fine tuning, even perhaps “engineering” a book in which every word had a purpose.  If the book were to be a success, the reader should be able to understand and identify with both the strength and the simplicity of one old man’s love for this dog.  Then, at the end of the story, feel the contrast between this simple but wonderful life and its sudden end.  The book was purposefully limited in length and meant to be a very rapid emotional rollercoaster – because, at the time of Scruffy’s death, that’s what my life felt like to me. 

 There is more to the book than the pet-loss theme.  The other major theme deals with what I call a “commitment” that should be made to a new pet, particularly an adopted one.  For me that meant a commitment to Scruffy to provide for him, at last, a permanent and forever loving family and home.  More importantly it was a commitment to make certain that he “understood” this fact.  There is a lot about dog psychology and a lot about dog-human communication, interaction, and understanding in this simple little book.

 The first person to read the entire book in its final version, just before publication, was my father.  He was 86 at the time.  He is, and always has been, the least emotional person on this planet.  He told me that the book was way too sad, and should not be unleashed on the public.  I was concerned that maybe it was too sad.  It seemed to me that many dog stories are tear jerkers, particularly at the end, since most dogs have relatively short life spans.  Is this what I really wanted – to become famous some day for having written the world’s saddest book?

 With some reservation, I went ahead anyway and published the book.  This  a self-published book.   I was going to see this book published and that was that.  It was never submitted to any literary agent or publisher for approval.

 We gave away about 50 copies to friends and acquaintances.  The book started selling on Amazon to total strangers.  I was amazed.  Over the next several months, I started googling the name of the book to see if anyone was talking about it.    I found that it was being auctioned by a Border Collie rescue organization for charitable purposes on ebay.  It sold for about four tmes the Amazon cover price.  This kept happening about once every two months.  I wondered where they got all these books from.  I looked at the Seller Feedback each time it sold at auction.  Most seller feedback rates the seller, but occasionally the product is also rated.  I noticed that for my book, several buyers commented on the book itself.  The first said “This book made me cry!!! but thank you from a Keeshond lover.”  Then I found a post by a gentleman on a dog forum where he asked if anyone had read a good dog story lately.  He said that he had loved dog stories since childhood, that his favorite of all time is Marley and Meand that “his saddest is called Scruffy the Legend.   So here is my book mentioned in the same breath with a best seller by a dog enthusiast.  It is not his favorite, but it is his something.  This is good, but now I begin to think that maybe my father was right.

 I continued googling.  I began to see the name of the book on Japanese-language blogs.  Using the online translator, I was able to figure out that one Japanese Keeshond lover was translating my book, page by page into Japanese.  For a second I was concerned.  Isn’t it my copyright?  But this was not a financial thing she was doing.  She liked the book so much that she thought her blog readership would also enjoy it.  I eventually contacted her and we have become friends who often communicate and share stories on our respective blogs.

 As the book continued selling on Amazon, book reviews from total strangers began to appear on my Amazon page.  Perhaps to my relief, each review was very upbeat; none mentioned anything about sadness.  All gave the book a 5-star rating, and all were from Keeshond lovers.   It has been two years now since it was published.  It did most of its selling in the first year and then sales rapidly declined to just about zero.  I have no idea why it ever sold in the first place; I have no idea why sales suddenly ceased. 

 The book, for me is a great success.  I made no profit on it, but Scruffy became known to many, and at least in small circles, is somewhat of a legend.  Not too long ago my wife and I decided to join an online Keeshond forum, since we adopted another Keeshond.  We told in our bio that we had a previous Keeshond named Scruffy.  Almost immediately, to our great astonishment and glee, we started receiving E-mails from forum members telling us that they knew who we were because they were familiar with Scruffy the Legend.  We were also informed of a Keeshond rescue organization that had been regularly auctioning the book to benefit that organization.  So in addition to the Amazon sales, my book was regularly, and quite successfully being auctioned by two charitable rescue organizations – one for Border Collies and one for Keeshonden.

 What more could I possibly ask for?

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