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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1991 was an awful year! Until August.
We (wife/Sally, son/Max, and me) relocated to Pittsburgh so that I could launch a regional publishing company. I was so frustrated by the large bookstore chains (bullies) that were key to successfully publishing nationally.
So instead of going wide with book distribution, I liked the idea of going deep into a local market like Pittsburgh. I’d publish local sports, local cookbooks, local calendars, local history, local biographies, local travel guides, etc. Then distribute and sell deep into retailers of all sorts, not just bookstores.
But I never really stepped up to the intent.
We pulled Max from his good buddies in Cambridge (MA), my wife didn’t give a damn about Pittsburgh (good lord, she hates football!), she had a miscarriage, I wasn’t making any money, I had health issues, my nearby brother was going through a divorce, then Sally got pregnant, at last, again, but then the pregnancy immediately went critical and Sally had to do full bed rest for four months.
Every second of those four months she just laid there, no friends, no extended family, no Internet, no podcasts, just frightened she’d lose another child. And, of course, her income was also now gone.
I had to care for my son, care for my bedridden wife, and pay the mortgage. I tried to get a housekeeping job on the night shift at a local hospital, figuring I could do that while my son slept. The hospital didn’t want me. Yep, 1991 was awful.
My divorcing brother bitched about lawyers and told nasty lawyer jokes. Oh boy, I wish there was a book to give him. A small gift book, filled with anti-lawyer quotes, jokes, anecdotes—
Holy shit! There’s an idea. I could do that!
This is all pre-Internet, but I had stacks of quotation and anecdote books, including those we published at Little Brown. And Carnegie Library had a surprisingly good collection of joke books.
I put together a manuscript, titled it Lawyers & Other Reptiles, and at some point, submitted it to Contemporary Books in Chicago (Contemporary was later sold to McGraw Hill after which Contemporary disappeared). They offered me $5,000 for it. Holy shit! Hell, I would have sold it for $100 to buy that week’s groceries. I signed the contract immediately.
Meanwhile, supportive colleagues (like gentleman George Gibson and sales guru David Goehring) helped me get the Director of Marketing position at Addison-Wesley, outside of Boston, and phew, we were on our way back. I started the Addison-Wesley job, working from Pittsburgh, on August 1, 1991.
Our beautiful—and healthy—daughter was born on August 12. And in October, we moved back to Boston, where we would be for the next 25 years.
(I did two trips to Addison-Wesley between August and October. I had to find a house. Again, this is all pre-Internet. I met a real estate broker one morning at 8:30 a.m. I said, “Let’s hurry, I have a marketing meeting at 11, I got to find a house by 10:30.” I bought the third one she showed me and made it to the marketing meeting with minutes to spare.)
So, I was at Addison-Wesley when Lawyers & Other Reptiles published. And holy hell, it took off! Actually, the book’s not really that “mean” to lawyers. It’s more tongue-in-cheek. Contemporary did a perfect job on the trim size, interior design, and cover. And lawyers loved it!
Sample pages, Lawyers & Other Reptiles
Firms bought it by the case, to have copies in their waiting room and on the shelf of every office in the firm. They gave it to new partners and clients. The book hit the Boston Globe, Denver Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Ingram bestseller lists.
I was a bestselling author!
Tomorrow: I’m thinking