Opportunity for Handicapper who can write.

[craigbraddick]

Hi There!

My agent and publisher has asked me to post on here as he is looking for an author to write a book on handicapping and wagering.

He is looking for a new, unpublished author.

When the book is ready, he will pay for the publishing costs and distribution of the book. The book will be sold online in a hard copy, will have an ISBN number and be available as a downloadable e-book. There will also be a website dedicated to the book. You will receive between 12-18% of sales.

I will be the editor of this publication.

If you would like to write a book on handicapping and wagering and are an experienced handicapper, please email me britishracecaller@gmail.com telling me a little more about yourself.

I will then ask you to produce a brief outline of the book and five or six pages of one chapter (which I will be able to help edit and polish) for consideration to be published.

Many thanks,

Craig Braddick

[windoor]

I just happen to be writing such a book. I had planned on leaving it for my kids when I’m gone, as they don’t seem to have much interest in the sport at this time.

You must realize that anyone who is actually making money at the track with their method is not going to give up their secrets for a possible gain in book sales.

Although you could point someone in the right direction, and if they are willing to take some advise and work hard, they just might become successful at it.

I have gone as far to post some of the contents to help fellow members understand what is needed to be successful at this game.

Here is a copy of a post I made on another forum.


How to win at horse racing

Let me start with the proverbial “All in my humble opinion” and get that out of the way. My flame suit is back from the cleaners, but is much to heavy to wear all the time and it still has some burn holes in it.

So, you want to earn a living betting on the ponies.
Sit home at your computer, push a few buttons, click the mouse and earn thousands of dollars a month, all from the comfort of your home.

Can it be done? Yes. Can you do it? Probably not, but lets see.

You must have: Patience, discipline, a proper sized bank, the ability to keep good records, and a willingness to learn. Of course you will also need a method of picking winners at the proper win/odd ratio. Easy to say you do, but most of you are lying to yourselves. I could give step-by-step instructions on what I do, and most of you would still fail, do to the lack of patience and discipline. See below.

Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on annoyance/anger in a negative way; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one's character can take before negativity. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast.


Discipline: Self-discipline refers to the training that one gives oneself to accomplish a certain task or to adopt a particular pattern of behavior, even if one would rather be doing something else. Self-discipline is to some extent a substitute for motivation, when one uses reason to determine a best course of action that opposes one's desires. Virtuous behavior is when one's motivations are aligned with one's reasoned aims: to do what one knows is best and to do it gladly.



A little back round:

I have been handicapping races off and on for forty years. I have spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours pouring over racing forms trying to find a winning method that would accomplish the above. Have I succeeded? Yes. It would have come a lot sooner if I had the above advise and followed it.

Why am I doing this? A hard question to answer. I suppose it has something to do with getting old, and no one I know takes an interest in what I have accomplished. Oh, a few wanted me to take their money and place wagers for them, but did not want to learn for themselves. Maybe I just want a little respect from my peers before I die. Who knows? Can’t see spending the money on a shrink to find out.

Let me start with a couple of statements.

“If you are presently playing and losing, STOP!!!” Playing on paper only costs about $30 per month per track. If you can’t win on paper (long term), you won’t win at the track. The only exception to this is if you play for entertainment with money you can afford to lose. There is nothing wrong with that.

If you absolutely need some action, a $200 bank will properly support a $2 win wager and return, on average $100 to $200 a month. Given a few months of successful wagering you can double the wager every month or so, until you get to the level you want. That is, up to the point were your wager starts to affect the odds adversely.

I consider a 100-unit bank to be the minimum amount needed to play safely. I keep two such banks available, one as a back up. Remember this: If you can’t make a profit with a small wager, you won’t be able to do it with a large wager. Greed kills! Lack of discipline kills! Lack of patience kills! You must have the proper sized bank to support your wager. Everything here comes down to hit rate and average odd. Some can get by with less, some will need more depending on win or hit percent.

“If you can presently establish a win/hit percentage of 15% or higher at a reasonable odd, you probably already have a winning system”. You just need to find out which races to play and which one’s to pass. There is plenty of information out there that can teach you how to get a hit rate of 15 percent or more.

Take any 100 races were you have a 15% hit rate or higher and simply eliminate 50 of the losing races. You instantly have doubled your hit rate and now only need an average odd of 2.5 to make it profitable. A small profit to be sure, but still a profit. An average odd of 4 to 1 would return a 50% profit with a 30% hit rate. Good enough to earn a nice living at the track.

How to do it. I call it the “Seven Prime factors”. That is, seven factors that must be observed to see if what you are presently doing can be profitable.

No matter what you are doing, it will not work at all tracks and all conditions. You need to find out were it works and were it does not. Not very hard to do, but it does take quite a bit of time and effort, unless you have the database and the right software to let your computer do it for you. Something I have been looking for since I’ve been using a PC and Microsoft Excel for record keeping.

Find your 15 or so winners over the 100 races (150 over 1000 would be a better sample size, but this will do to start) and separate them into these seven categories.

1) Track: Some tracks favor speed, some favor closers, some have a bias of some sort or another. Anyone who takes an angle or spot play, and runs it through a large database covering all tracks and conditions will never find out if it makes for a viable play. Nothing works all the time and with all types of races.
2) Distance: Most of the time a different handicapping method is needed to cover the distance being run today, especially if your using speed and pace numbers. A route race being run over a slow track is going to favor the horse with stamina and class over the obvious speed horse in the race. Makes for a nice spot play.
3) Class: Same as above. I treat a 5K claimer much different than a 25K and up horse. Maiden races require a much different look also.
4) Surface: Same as above. Dirt, Turf, synthetics, sloppy, firm etc. A favorite spot play of mine is a horse coming off the turf, racing on dirt today. Of course other qualifiers are needed, but if you know what to look for, its easy money.
5) Sex: F&M require special consideration. Some factors are much more important here than with the boys.
6) Age: A horse under 4 yrs old has not matured enough for you to know how well it can run and at what class level. Maidens or not, younger horses have a completely different set of priorities for me. Pace and speed numbers do not work well at all for me here, except as an indicator for current form.
7) Conditions for today’s race. As in restricted races. Horse that must meet certain conditions in order to race in this company today. This is very important when considering which races to play. Non-winners of two can be very challenging but often offer boxcar odds. Yes I have a very good spot play here also.

So there you have it. Separate all winning horses by the above guidelines and see how many fall into which categories. Then you will find were your strengths are, and can now stop playing races were your method is not working. Or do as I did and find another set of rules for the races you were failing at. Ultimately you would check your results over a two-year period for each track you are considering. This will show you how much of a bank roll is needed (I would double the results) and know in advance what kind of losing streaks can be expected.

If there is enough interest, I would like to discuss the seven in more detail.

Then we can move to the next chapter on form and form cycles. This could very well increase you win percent by 10 points or more.

It does not matter how you select your play, if the horse is not ready to give a good effort, you will lose, unless the horse in question is still much the better on his/her worst day. A very rare opportunity to be sure.

Regards,

Windoor

[Kelso]

If there is enough interest, I would like to discuss the seven in more detail.

Then we can move to the next chapter on form and form cycles. This could very well increase you win percent by 10 points or more.

Windoor,

Please accept this as an indication of keen interest in reading more of what you've learned over the past 40 years.
I hope you will continue the lessons, perhaps starting a seperate thread for the purpose.

I'm particularly intrigued by the very small test samples (150 out of 1000 ... or fewer) from which you are able to draw profitable conclusions. In your 7-Step outline, how many - or what percentage - of your winners must wind up in any given bucket for you to consider that bucket to be worthwhile?

[Dave Schwartz]

Windoor,

I, too, am interested in what you have to say.

My experience is that one can never overlook an opportunity to learn something - either something new or a new twist on something old.


Regards,
Dave Schwartz

[windoor]

Windoor,

Please accept this as an indication of keen interest in reading more of what you've learned over the past 40 years.
I hope you will continue the lessons, perhaps starting a seperate thread for the purpose.

I'm particularly intrigued by the very small test samples (150 out of 1000 ... or fewer) from which you are able to draw profitable conclusions. In your 7-Step outline, how many - or what percentage - of your winners must wind up in any given bucket for you to consider that bucket to be worthwhile?

Starting to feel like a thread hijack. Sorry about that, and this will be the last of it.

Only your research can tell you were you have to look for profitable plays. Once you separate the winners as outlined, it will become clear to you were you need to be.

Hint: If you only use pace and speed numbers as many here do, (there is so much more) try looking at only 4 year old and up, and nothing below a 25K claimer to start.

The one hundred races (to Start) is a constant number. That is, once you find a track you want to take a good look at, your job is to find 100 consecutive playable races. The key word being “playable” as your research will define for you. Then, as you find were your strengths are, you move forward to find similar races to play, while keeping track of your hit rate.

Remember, the goal here is to eliminate losing plays. Though analyzing losing races can often open your eyes to new methods of handicapping when you ask yourself why the other horse won, while keeping a keen eye on what “type” of race your looking at.

Make tweaks to your method along the way if needed, but know that whenever you make a change in you selection method, you have to start over to see what the change did to your hit rate and average odd.

If you’re a pencil and paper guy like me, this will test your patience too. If you have a PC and database that will do it for you, then your in luck.

On a per track basis, I have found that I have much less than 1000 plays per year, and that is using three separate methods of handicapping depending on the type of race I’m looking at. My home track is Parx, and they run most of the year, so I have lots to choose from. This is why patience plays such a key role. You have to wait for them.

Regards,

Windoor

[windoor]

I started another thread in the general handicapping section. If a mod would like to move the responses from here to there, it might help those who are interested in the discussion.

Regards,

Windoor.

[Pell Mell]

From Windoor; You must realize that anyone who is actually making money at the track with their method is not going to give up their secrets for a possible gain in book sales.

Case Closed! :ThmbDown:

[thaskalos]

Windoor,

You state that a $200 bankroll would support a $2 betting unit...and it would return a profit of $100 to $200 a month. That's a profit of 50 to 100 betting units a month!

Does that mean that, if our bankroll is $40,000, and our betting unit is $400...we can look forward to a profit of $20,000 to $40,000 a month?

[Overlay]

You must realize that anyone who is actually making money at the track with their method is not going to give up their secrets for a possible gain in book sales.

Wider dissemination doesn't necessarily have to adversely affect profitability. It all depends on how the method is structured. With respect to angle-based or single-factor, elimination-type selection methods that pay no attention to the winning probability, odds, or wagering value of each horse in the field, I would agree with you.

[windoor]

Windoor,

You state that a $200 bankroll would support a $2 betting unit...and it would return a profit of $100 to $200 a month. That's a profit of 50 to 100 betting units a month!

Does that mean that, if our bankroll is $40,000, and our betting unit is $400...we can look forward to a profit of $20,000 to $40,000 a month?

I am making some assumptions based on my own plays. 100 plays (or more) per month (100 played = -$200) and a 30% hit rate at 4 to 1 (30 x 10.00=300) or $100 profit. It depends entirely on how many plays you can find, hit rate and average odd. If multiple tracks are used and enough plays can be found then there are many possibilities.

I routinely average about 7 to 1 at 28% over time, but I'm pretty sure this is above the norm and I can’t get 100 plays a month without using multiple tracks. 16 x 28 = $448 –$200 wagered for 100 races = $448 profit. Of course this varies from month to month, but has held true for the past 18 months. What the future brings is anybody’s guess.

I would think a $400 win bet in most pools would adversely affect the odds unless you are on the top two favorites. (Not much value there) Even then, the pool size will have the final say.

And by the way, I am not trying to sell anything here, just passing on some information that some may fine useful. It certainly helped my game.

Regards,

Windoor

[Kelso]

I started another thread in the general handicapping section.

Looking forward to reading more there, Windoor. Thanks for sharing.

[Coleman]

Out of curiosity, why is he looking for a new unpublished author? Because that goes against S.O.P. for publishers.

[clore1030]

Only your research can tell you were you have to look for profitable plays. Once you separate the winners as outlined, it will become clear to you were you need to be.

Hint: If you only use pace and speed numbers as many here do, (there is so much more) try looking at only 4 year old and up, and nothing below a 25K claimer to start.

My home track is Parx, and they run most of the year, so I have lots to choose from. This is why patience plays such a key role. You have to wait for them.

Regards,

Windoor

Some of the best advice I've seen. I used to post picks in a forum where I was chided more than once because I drew the line at 20-25K claimers.

I'd hear "But Doc says horses don't discuss their claiming prices, why are you so hung up on class?"

I'm also hung up on consistency, and I know where my own success rate is best. It's my money on the line, not that of Doc or anyone else.

[craigbraddick]

Out of curiosity, why is he looking for a new unpublished author? Because that goes against S.O.P. for publishers.

Coleman:

I do not mind authors who are published. But the publisher is not big enough at the moment to pay advances to established authors who may be able to demand such for their writing work.

Craig

[GameTheory]

Coleman:

I do not mind authors who are published. But the publisher is not big enough at the moment to pay advances to established authors who may be able to demand such for their writing work.

CraigDon't want to rain on your publisher's parade, but can't see any advantage of using any publisher that isn't big enough to get your book stocked in actual brick & mortar bookstores (Barnes & Noble) and do marketing for your book (ad buys in DRF maybe). Otherwise, self-publishing is so easy now and you can take more of the sales revenue for yourself (assuming that sales would be about equal either way with no promotion). What exactly is the publisher offering here that a writer couldn't get himself just as easily?

[cj]

DWhat exactly is the publisher offering here that a writer couldn't get himself just as easily?

I was wondering the same thing myself. Why not just write what you want, create a site if you don't have one already, and keep 100%?

[Tom]

What is a brick & mortar bookstore? :rolleyes:

[dylbert]

What is a brick & mortar bookstore? :rolleyes:Answer --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_and_mortar_business

[garyscpa]

I was wondering the same thing myself. Why not just write what you want, create a site if you don't have one already, and keep 100%?

Only way this works out better for the author is if the book is a failure. He gets 12-18% of sales, instead of a loss. So if you're planning for failure, jump on this. ;)

[rrpic6]

Only way this works out better for the author is if the book is a failure. He gets 12-18% of sales, instead of a loss. So if you're planning for failure, jump on this. ;)

I like your thinking! I'm a true amateur writer, but was thinking this would be a great opportunity, especially with no chance of losing anything valuable....my reputation does not really matter!

RR

[thaskalos]

I like your thinking! I'm a true amateur writer, but was thinking this would be a great opportunity, especially with no chance of losing anything valuable....my reputation does not really matter!

RRSpoken like a true handicapping author...

Who cares about reputation? :)

[andicap]

One key question:

Will the publisher spend ANY money or time on marketing the book? If the publisher has no funds for marketing will he try to be inventure and do some cross-promotions with tracks and other entities to drum up publicity?

If not, how will people find out about it other than word of mouth and web sites such as this one?

[craigbraddick]

One key question:

Will the publisher spend ANY money or time on marketing the book? If the publisher has no funds for marketing will he try to be inventure and do some cross-promotions with tracks and other entities to drum up publicity?

If not, how will people find out about it other than word of mouth and web sites such as this one?

He certainly has in the past.

[John]

Dick Mitchel, Said," He never knew a Handicapping book that went over $25.000 in sales and Mr.Mitchel published his own books and were purchased by many Handicappers. At 12%, is only about #3.000

[thaskalos]

Dick Mitchel, Said," He never knew a Handicapping book that went over $25.000 in sales and Mr.Mitchel published his own books and were purchased by many Handicappers. At 12%, is only about #3.000What Mitchell actually said was that if a horse racing book sells 10,000 copies, it's considered a best seller.

[andicap]

Certainly no one is going to do this project for the money. By an hourly wage, you'd probably be better off working at McDonalds.

It would have to be a labor of love, from someone who likes to write and teach, someone who has always wanted to be published. There would have to be some ego involved.

Dave Schwartz has it right, making videos instead of writing books is a far quicker process with less capital investment and a faster return. You still have to work your butt off for what is probably not a great profit, but it's less time consuming to make videos -- even the excellent ones that Dave produces -- than write good books. (Of course anyone can pump out a badly written/poorly edited hack job in a couple of weeks.)

Being a journalist/writer most of my life I have always wanted to write a handicapping book: There has been the annoying hitch, however, of lacking anything cogent to say.

[Dave Schwartz]

Just today I had a conversation with an aspiring writer. He said that he wanted to write a book - in fact had been working on it for years. I asked him what his expectation was and he said that he hoped to sell 10,000 books on Amazon at $25 each.

I asked him how much he expected to pay for each book and he said that he'd use "print-on-demand" which, from the description of his book (size) would probably cost him about $15 per book to print.

I estimated that after Amazon's cut, he might only lose $2-3 per book.


Dave

[bigmack]

There's a reason Gamblers Book Store and other outlets don't carry much in the way of handicapping literature anymore; they don't move.

Read this today, fwiw:

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u70/macktime/writer.png

[Actor]

(Of course anyone can pump out a badly written/poorly edited hack job in a couple of weeks.)Not just anyone. You have to be a fast typist. Takes me a couple of months and I have to chain myself to the keyboard and work 12 hour days, after which I only have a first draft that's badly in need of editing.

[Dave Schwartz]

I have been using Dragon Naturally Speaking. It helps a non-typist like me quite a bit.

But you must go back and read for content because sometimes you wind up with pure gibberish.

Also, if you look at the screen while you type you get no speed.

[pktruckdriver]

Sounds like something right up my alley, we all know I can right long winded stuff and go on and on.

Heck just look at my past posts.

what do y'all think


patrick

[Red Knave]

what do y'all think

Send them your resume Patrick. Who knows? :)

[Dave Schwartz]

...I can right long winded stuff ...


Perfect!
:ThmbUp:

[andicap]

So this is what Veronica Lake would do if she were alive today -- dye her hair red and write cheap pop novels?

;)
There's a reason Gamblers Book Store and other outlets don't carry much in the way of handicapping literature anymore; they don't move.

Read this today, fwiw:

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u70/macktime/writer.png

[windoor]

I have been using Dragon Naturally Speaking. It helps a non-typist like me quite a bit.

But you must go back and read for content because sometimes you wind up with pure gibberish.

Also, if you look at the screen while you type you get no speed.

I purchased the software back in 98 or 99. Never could get it to work well for me, even after reading all of the material into the program.

It worked pretty good for my wife though. She articulates very well, as I tend to mumble.

I assume they have made some progress over the years. Does it really work?

Regards,

Windoor.

[pktruckdriver]

...I can right long winded stuff ...

Perfect!
:ThmbUp:


Great catch Dave, that was on purpose. Man, can't get nothing by this guy. Video's do work well, better than talking books.

Patrick

[Dave Schwartz]

PK, I honestly thought you did it on purpose.

It's not like I haven't done stuff like that.

[Cratos]

Good or bad Andrew Beyer books years ago revolutionize handicapping when they were first published and that kind of impact is needed today.

Therefore, if someone would write a book linking today’s technology with handicapping in a way that it would revolutionize the sport, the book would sell well beyond 25,000 copies.

Most books which are published today are just a re-hash of what has been published many times in the past.

[Irish Boy]

Good or bad Andrew Beyer books years ago revolutionize handicapping when they were first published and that kind of impact is needed today.

Therefore, if someone would write a book linking today’s technology with handicapping in a way that it would revolutionize the sport, the book would sell well beyond 25,000 copies.

Most books which are published today are just a re-hash of what has been published many times in the past.
25,000 books is way, way more than you probably realize.

[Cratos]

25,000 books is way, way more than you probably realize.

Not so, it is the business model that I use and the assumptions made which supports my assertion of 25,000 books.