The Sustaining Force of A Powerful Idea
By most accounts, the stirrup was first implemented by the Chinese around 400 BCE, an idea born of trying to solve the problem of how to keep a warrior firmly astride his horse. It was a brilliant idea that literally changed the history of the world.
I had a conversation with a former client concerning a book idea we’d worked on together about a year and a half ago. It was a very, very good idea, but like many perceptive and intelligent businesspeople, he was a little ahead of the times. Again and again, both in my own writing and in working with our author-clients, I’ve seen agents and publishers issue their summarily abrupt decrees that a book is “not for us,” as if the reading public would not be interested, when it’s really a failure of their vision in seeing its potential.
My author-client, undaunted by early rejection, decided to take another approach. He began writing blogs, white papers, and print and online articles in business publications. He stepped up his speaking engagements. He hired a publicist. He tracked his SEO marketing efforts to see what drew interest from readers, and continued to refocus his writing topics toward what was of most interest to his reading public.
He synthesized the feedback and analysis in revising his initial book proposal. The core concept didn’t change, but it was significantly reinforced by what his reading audience was telling him. The result is a book proposal that’s garnering a lot of attention from publishers. A year and a half ago, he was just another author [one whom, I might add, had already written three successful books] with another idea.
Now he is a sustainable intellectual presence. People know who he is from his various writings and have respect for his ideas. He has a sustainable, and perhaps more importantly a provable, idea for a book.
He has both feet firmly in his stirrups. There is no doubt in my mind that he will get a contract for this fascinating, idea-driven book, and it will be a game-changer for businesspeople.
