A New Year’s Rant
1/1/2000
[This was inspired by a publisher named Liz who wrote saying she was
"stonewalled" by the fact that her books/gift items were not selling. Lots
of people gave her marketing suggestions (gift stores, catalogs, etc.) This
Rant takes a much different look at the issue of being "stuck" and being on
the brink of failure... and how to prevent it.]
IN THE ARENA
This is a hard business. A very hard business. Everyone and their dog
believes that there are huge riches to be made in book publishing. And
everyone with a few bucks in their jeans can afford to roll the dice and see
if lightening will strike on their particular book product. It is always
"spring training" in the book publishing industry. Indeed we are always
hearing about the "one book miracles" that happen… the woman who used her
social security check to publish her "story," which goes on to become a
huge bestseller. But what you don’t hear about are all those others who walk
away from the gambling tables with empty pockets and broken hearts.
Like I said above, this is a hard, competitive, high risk business. The
chances of you seeing a payback on your first book are not good. Why? No,
it’s not what you are thinking. Look, every business is difficult. Every
business has high risk. Opening a law office is hard. Starting a dental
practice is hard. Opening a dry cleaning store is difficult. Selling
computers is hard. And manufacturing anything and then getting it to market
is a daunting task. But look at ALL THE SUCCESS out there in other fields.
Most lawyers, dry cleaners, retailers, and other small businesses seem to
thrive and grow. Sure, maybe 30% of them limp along and fail, but I’ll bet
70% of them do OK.
So why the long face about book publishing? The answer my dear children is
simple, but you won’t want to hear it. Most publishers don’t know their ass
from their elbow about running a business. Most publishers are "field
dreamers,"…. if you publish it they will come (and buy it.). And most
publishers are not organized. The don’t plan their work or work their plan.
And if they do get successful, they don’t have the infrastructure (software,
equipment, processes, personnel, bank resources, etc.) to free them up to
develop another product. They end up on an 18 hour a day treadmill. They’ve
bought themselves a job.
But most importantly, most publishers have a "wrong" attitude. Let me
explain.
Now, I haven’t been doing this as long as Dan Poynter (I wouldn’t say Dan
has long-in-the-tooth but I believe he won the first PMA Ben Franklin
award…which was presented by Ben himself, right after he invented the post
office!). But I have been around this territory for a fair number of years
and time after time I see that those who succeed (i.e. don’t lose money) are
those who spend some time THINKING about a strategy and the tactics to
accomplish that strategy.
Those who succeed are not the ones with the "great" books, or the slickest
brochures, or with the "sales" personalities. It’s the Dan Poynters , the
Melisse Roses, the Goodman brothers, the Bill Warners, and similar folks of
the publishing world who spend the time to sit down, investigate all the
angles of a product, do some research, and MAKE A PLAN.
If you want to succeed, you need to approach book publishing much as you
would a general in WWII with limited resources against a huge, entrenched
enemy. You need a step-by-step campaign to accomplish your goals. And with
that plan, you need to put in place the back office infrastructure, the
financial infrastructure, and the marketing infrastructure to support your
plan.
But do publishers do this? No. Most of them write a book, get it to the
printer, help unload the truck, and then sit down and try to figure out what
to do next!
And what they DO do next is EVERYTHING.
And nothing could be more wrong than trying to do everything.
I’ve seen too many publishers rushing around… one day trying to get a
radio interview, the next day talking to a magazine editor, the next day goi
ng to a meeting with a store manager, the next day calling TV stations, the
next day trying to find a distributor, the next day talking to a banker, the
next day trying to figure out what software to run their office on. And on
and on and on and on… .
I don’t care what your genre is, how obscure it might be, how niche the
subject matter seems, or how huge your market might be (often more daunting
than a niche market). If you are organized and if you have a plan and if you
attack it logically, in order, with seriousness of intent, YOU WILL SELL
THAT BOOK.
It is so simple. But what do most of us do? We run around and around faster
than a chicken with the colonel behind him. What we need to do is to "focus
in"… to do one thing… to do it very well… and then move on.
What I suggest someone like Liz do is to spend a long weekend at a cabin in
the woods or a small house on the beach. Take nothing but a pad of paper and
a pen. No books, no TV, no radio, no husband/other, etc. She should spend
three days walking around THINKING. She should make a detailed list of WHAT
to do, and different ways to accomplish it. Then she has to prioritize it as
best she can, from the small and simple, up to the hard and difficult. For
example, the first thing she should do is make sure her "publishing house"
is in order… that she has the necessary infrastructure to succeed…
phones, computers, software (I can think of one in particular 
), etc. She
needs to prepare for success. Then she needs to add to her list the easy and
obvious things that can get her some sales. Finally, she needs to add to the
list the hard-to-accomplish things. She needs to flesh these out in great
detail so that when she returns "from the mountain" she has a game plan that
she can take into battle.
She needs a "killer" attitude.
She has to follow the plan relentlessly. She must leave no stone unturned.
If part of her plan is to have a Neiman Marcus buyer see her gift-book item,
then she has to call this buyer every &^%$ing day until the buyer agrees to
a meeting. Relentless pursuit. Zero tolerance for failure. And if she can’t
get to one buyer, then she needs to go over their head… right up to the
president of NM if necessary. This is zero-sum, can’t lose, desperation
marketing. Whatever it takes, baby. And no one is allowed to get in your
way. No one stops you. You are the MAN.
And folks, this is hard. This is very hard. It is the hardest work you will
ever do. It is not fun like writing a book or being interviewed on radio.
This is down and dirty, in your face, hard-scrabble marketing. It has a
million no’s and a million "not interested’s." But somewhere out there is
the "big break." There is some buyer somewhere who is about to lose her job
because she can’t come up with just the right "creation" for the fall
catalog, or the spring line, or the store promotion, or that special huge
client.
To put it as General Patton would, Liz has to "beat the crap out of the
goddamn market" until she finds that buyer. And then she has to do it again
to find the next. And the next. She has to be tough. She has to be hard. She
has to be determined. She has to be smart. She has to get down and dirty and
just DO IT. That’s right, DO IT, not think about it or talk about it, but
*&^%$ing DO IT!!!!!!
Letter after letter. Phone call after phone call. Meeting after meeting. No
after no. Maybe after maybe. Hang-up after hang-up, rejection after
rejection, she has to hang tough. She has to take no prisoners. She can
leave no stone unturned. She has to work, work, work, and work some more.
You know what it is? It’s attitude. That’s right… attitude. Sorry to put
it this way, but I believe that to survive in publishing you have to have an
"I don’t give a crap … I’m going to sell this &^%ing book… or die
trying" attitude. You show me a publisher who gets out of bed every single
day, gets into the office (which already functions well because she planned
it that way and invested in the infrastructure) and who does five,… just
five things a day to sell her books, and I’ll show you a successful
publisher. Yes, five things (calls, letters, meetings, mailings, interviews,
articles, etc) a day for 300 days a year (yes, you will have to work some
weekends) and I’ll show you someone who is a success.
You don’t hear much about the "hard work" from the seminar givers in the
how-to-publish conferences. Why is that? Well, Napoleon once said that "if
an army could THINK, it would run away." If people knew how hard it is for
MOST (like 90%) of us to be successful, they would never get into the
business in the first place (and would not buy the how-to books or attend
the seminars, or subscribe to the magazines, etc.)
So my message to you this New Year’s eve is to resolve in 2000 that you ARE
going to be successful. I urge you to abandon your "literary persona" and
think more like Bill Gates than Bill Shakespeare. I urge you to plan your
work and then work your plan. I urge you to let no obstacle get in your way
of accomplishing your plan. Either go around it, over it, or through it. But
don’t turn around and go back.
You do not retreat.
You do not quit.
You must follow one course (i.e. contacting gift store buyers) until there
are no more avenues to follow, and THEN move on to the next item on your
list. You can’t do everything well. But you can do a lot of similar things
well if you focus. If your goal is to get the print media to give you some
ink, than don’t spend any time doing radio interviews. Focus in on your goal
and stay the course.
This can be a great year. But you have to make it so. And it won’t come with
any of the positive mental attitude bullshit that so many others would have
you believe (and spend your money on via their tapes etc.) Your success will
come from within you. It will come if YOU decide that "damn it to hell, I’m
going to make this happen." Contrary to what many of my critics might say, I
believe that being Pollyanna won’t cut it. This is hard work. There are
others out there looking for the same break you are looking for. You have to
be better, or smarter than they are… or perhaps you just have to out work
them.
And I’ll be the first to say that this is NOT the fun part of publishing.
You’ve already had the fun. You wrote the book or you brought someone else’s
creation to life. You enjoyed the design process and you were thrilled to
open the first box of books and see, touch, and smell what you have wrought.
Now is the time to get to work. Now is the time to get tough. Now is the
time to be the boss, the bad-ass, the unstoppable force. Now is the time to
see what you are made of. Now is the time to see if you really, really "want
it." What are you made of? Will it be success or failure?
It’s a new year, a new chance, a new calendar, a new day. Get down on it,
get out there, run on the field and kick some butt. Failure is not an
option. You CAN do this. You SHOULD do this. If you want to be a success in
this business, you will HAVE to do this.
And when the phone does not ring or the orders do not come in, don’t quit.
Don’t quit. You cannot quit. No quitting allowed. Make more calls, write
more articles, give more speeches, see more store managers, think, think,
think, think, think!!! Goddamn it, if it were so %$#@ing easy, everyone
would be doing it.
So stop crying. Stop whining. Forget about your fear (you are going to die
someday anyway no matter how fearful you are, so get your ass into the arena
and play the game.) Pick up the phone and call/write/meet with someone who
needs your book or product. If you believe in yourself, and if you believe
in your product, and if you convey this with sincerity and integrity, the
world will beat down your doors wanting what you have.
You can make it as good as it gets.
And if you fail, so what. Big &^%$ing deal. No matter what, you are one of
the special ones. One of the few, one of the brave, one of those who did
something they truly believed in. It is to you the following was written.
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To The Man in The Arena
by Theodore Roosevelt (1910)
"It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong
man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The
credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred
with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes
short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions,
and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of
high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know
neither victory nor defeat."
Happy New Year… I love you all,
Alan N. Canton
Author, Publisher, Software Engineer
Adams-Blake Publishing
Fair Oaks, CA
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