Five Easy Pieces

I got a reply from a publishing friend (and PUB123 customer) after sending him a note asking how his books were doing. He sells young-adult fiction and one of his books won a Ben Franklin award last year. Here is his letter followed by my reply. I think there are some lessons here for ALL publishers. You make the call. (I've edited out the title(s) to maintain confidentiality.)

Dear XXX:

I feel your pain (but I did inhale!)

Look. If it were easy, everyone and their dog would be doing it. Indeed, people DO think it is easy which is why there ARE so many publishers in the first place.

What separates the real publishers from the "almost" publishers is that they follow a simple rule that I came across years ago that will ensure long-run success (however, remember that in the long run, we are all dead!!)

You need to do FIVE things a day to PROMOTE your list or part of it. Whether it is writing and sending a press release to different media sources, or making some phone calls, or doing radio shows, or a signing, etc. you need to do five things each day, six days a week to promote. The point is to come up with five things to do each day. They don't have to be "great ideas." They can be million-to-one shots. But just do five. If you do 5 things a day, six days a week, for 52 weeks, that is 1560 things. Most will not pay off. But some of them will, and maybe one or two of the will pay off BIG.

After you have followed this paradigm for a year and if you are not successful THEN you can cry on my shoulder and I will try to comfort you. But until then, get off your butt and make it happen. Keep your ego out of it. Don't think of success or failure. Just do it. It's a job. You will hate it. But you need to do it. Try to get all 5 things done before lunch if you can. But do them. No matter how silly sounding. Go ahead. Write the state superintendent of schools with an idea relating to your book. Send a short press piece to the Wall Street Journal relating your book to Harry Potter. Just do stuff. Any stuff. Just do it. Five things a day. And do it everyday. Five easy pieces.... (and hold the chicken salad!)

I have never known a publisher who had a quality book, and who believed in it, and who followed the Five Easy Pieces rule to have ever failed. Not one. Yes, I've known some who beat the hell out of a terrible novel, or a badly written "political" book who went nowhere, but never someone who had something that had received rave (or just good) reviews by third parties.

Most people fail because the just get discouraged and give up. It's not the ones who have the best products that win. It's the ones who work the hardest.

Take the Chicken Soup books. There is nothing special with these. Most of them are borderline terrible. But the authors decided on day-one that they would dedicate their lives to making an empire out of their work or die in the attempt. And for years that's all they did... radio, press, travel... anything to "brand" the Chicken Soup theme and make an "industry" out of what was nothing special in the first place.

If you want it to happen, you have to make it happen. Others have. You can to. And if you have quality (and I've seen your Ben Franklin Award winning book and I know it is quality) and you dedicate all of your waking hours, or at least ALL your free time, to "doing it" you will achieve the success you want.

I like to tell people to take a warrior mentality. Let nothing and no one stand in your way. If Oprah's producer does not answer your first phone call, call again, and again, and again and again until you get two minutes to pitch. And it that pitch doesn't work, come up with a new one and call again and again.

People talk about pain and fear. If you want to be a success you have to get past these. It's this simple. If you can't pick up the phone and cold-call an editor or store owner or reporter because you are terrified they will say "no" then get out of this business. It's not for you. And if rejection causes you to be depressed and have an upset stomach, then this is not the biz for you either.

Get your own ego out of the way. Put up a shield around yourself and convince yourself that all bad things bounce right off of it.

You want a trick to "fool" the pain? Adopt a second persona and do all your marketing using that name. Call yourself Cindy Jones or Jack Smith. If someone rejects you or does not take your call, it is not "you" that is being rejected but your alter-ego.

You need to pitch, pitch, pitch and pitch some more. Do not accept rejection. Keep on shooting at the same target and sooner or later you will hit it.

Look at it this way. Say you are a writer for the Wall Street Journal. You get tons of press releases and story pitches a day. But 98% of them are one-shot deals from people you never heard of before and never hear of again. So what if you get a different release a week from the same publishing company about the same book. After a few weeks, you are going to start thinking "These guys are really serious about what they have... maybe I should take a closer look." It's just human nature.

The big secret is that 90% of publishing is just ^%$#ing hard work. It is not glamorous, not fun, and not exciting. It's writing, phoning, talking, and greeting. And more of the same... until you are blue in the face... and the "you-know-what" is coming out your ears. But if you do it long enough, loud enough, and often enough, sooner or later you will break through all the clutter and will become the success you desire.

Get Kremer's "1001 Ways" book and that will get you started.

Someone has to become a success. Why can't it be you?

It can... if you just do it.

It all begins with Five Easy Pieces.

Alan N. Canton
Adams-Blake Publishing

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