BESTSELLERS & BEST FRIENDS
My book publishing blog, with murder mysteries woven through it.
If this is your first visit, be sure to start with “1. Let’s do it!”
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As noted, I’ve known Teena for years, and was lucky to have her work on the development of my favorite “book” concept.
Think about it. Publishing is about putting content onto paper and distributing it to readers. And quotations are, by definition, among the best of content.
So let’s put quotations onto rolling papers.
That’s it.
It’s that simple.
As Ray Bradbury said, “There is more than one way to burn a book.”
Seriously, rolling papers are simply little pages. Just like pages in a book. But instead of pages bound to a book spine, rolling papers are pages in a pack.
There’s a Shakespeare Box Set of miniature books out there that sells like crazy.
Five packs of rolling papers fit into the box perfectly.
See? Nothing to invent. No new technology or die cuts. It’s all already there to be had.
I imagined a title: Quotes to Smoke.
Read an inspirational or funny quote on your rolling paper, then roll your joint, sit back, and enjoy. Could there be a better reading experience? It’s so simple; and simple is always good. And it’s a winner for publishers. Content-driven, easy to read and use, practical, fresh, unexpected, very gift-able, and nobody else is doing it.
The five packs of smokable quotations — they must be short — would be themed. Something like: The Thinker, Resistance, Spirituality, Laughter, The Reader.
The Thinker (sample quotes)
The beginning is always today.
- Mary Shelley
I hope, or I could not live.
- H. G. Wells
Resistance
If not us, who? If not now, when?
- various
Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.
- Susan B. Anthony
Spirituality
Dear God, help me be the person my dog thinks I am.
- various
Love in its essence is spiritual fire.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Laughter
If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the Up button.
- Sam Levenson
I used to jog but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass.
- David Lee Roth
The Reader
Let the wild rumpus start!
- Maurice Sendak
She was lost in her longing to understand.
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Good stuff, right?
Rolling papers are cut from large sheets of paper, some printed with designs, but to date, none are printed with words. For Quotes to Smoke, the quotes are arranged on similar large sheets so that wherever cuts are made (cuts are not exact with thin paper), a quote shows up.
Teena figured all this out. Ya gotta love her and think the world of her work.
Is there a market? Hell, yes! Legal marijuana sales in the U.S. are growing like crazy—$21 billion in 2021. And then there’s all of Canada. You’d think some publisher would want a chunk of that with the one book product conceived to exploit those distribution channels.
OK, sounds good. So here we go.
I pitched Quotes to Smoke to several publishers. They each called Barnes & Noble. And Barnes & Noble said they will NOT stock rolling papers because “we’re a good citizen company and respectful of our neighbors.”
And that was it.
Over.
Done.
No interest.
My Quotes to Smoke idea was dead on arrival. If B&N won’t stock it, no publisher will get near it.
Meanwhile, “good citizen/neighbor” Barnes & Noble does stock and sell at a profit, Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Don’t get me going!
Publishers continue to be led around on a Barnes & Noble leash (although, I suppose, it’s more the Amazon leash nowadays).
It’s not a good thing for the industry or literature (or getting high).
The endless bowing to Barnes & Noble is in great part, why publishes passed on the millions of dollars that would have come with owning online sales, e-books, and audio books.
Someday, somebody will do a Quotes to Smoke-ish product.
That somebody will be outside of publishing (just like Amazon and Audible). They’ll run with it, turn it into an entire line, establish trademark protection, take over shelves in both book and cannabis retailers, and make a fortune of sorts.
Good content on paper, smartly packaged, unlike anything else out there, in a market growing like crazy. It seemed so obvious. But then one ornery buyer at Barnes & Noble….
Tomorrow: Teena update