TO RETIREMENT
9104 Author 1 – Publishing
I have spent much of my life involved in the use of words. At a young age I just loved to read books and enjoy the wonderful word patterns they contained. By the time of my teens I also loved writing, and the main feature of taking my exams was the amount of material I wrote.
Throughout my working life, until I reached the Open University, the form of my writing generally was that of the business report. But, in that genre, I was very productive. It was while I was at IBM that I started to write factual material for publication; though in fact it was never widely published. The first of these popular reports was that prepared for the Molesey Residents Association called 'Towards 2000'. This, stimulated by the council structure plan, looked at the future of Molesey over the next 25 years. Stimulated by the emergence of the Lib Dems, breaking the mould of British politics and following my work with the London Business School, I produced a report in draft book form called 'Alliance'. This covered all aspects of future living; and you can find aspects of it scattered through this book as well as extracts from the report itself – which still, I believe, still are valid a quarter of a century later.
My published work only started when I was forced to leave IBM. Paradoxically it was, indeed, IBM's group personnel director, John Steele, who suggested I might consider writing a book about IBM; and thus, while I was unemployed, I poured my feelings into the first of my published books: 'IBM: how the world's most successful corporation is managed'. The title was thought up by the publisher, not me, but at the time it was a valid view of IBM's track record. It was, in many ways, a work of passion. I loved everything about IBM, despite the problems I had had there -- which forced me out. At that time of course, IBM was then at its peak. I always liked to say that IBM started to deteriorate the day I left, but the fact it was it had already started to decline long before that.
I was lucky with my publisher. Initially I went to Wiley, who were interested in it. However, after a while they tried to put pressure on me to dish the dirt on IBM. Despite everything that had happened, I didn't see that was what it should be about. Accordingly I hunted around and found another publisher: Kogan Page. I was very lucky in that Philip Kogan was very dynamic entrepreneur, and saw my book as being important for him and his publishing house.
It is worth reporting, at this stage, that the success of any book, at least in terms of significant sales, depends much more on the enthusiasm of the publishing team than it does on the author. Books of mine that succeeded have done so because the publishers got behind them -- and promoted them. Those that have been most successful have been pushed by the publisher where the others, albeit still of above average performance, were the ones where the publisher let them look after themselves. Philip Kogan put in a lot of effort behind my first book, including the UK launch at a business bookshop in the city. He was well supported in this by my best publishing editor, Richard Burton. The result was my most successful one-off book launch, selling something over 10,000 copies in the United Kingdom. Philip also sold it overseas, including in Japan; where I made something like 10,000 dollars on the advance royalties.
Unfortunately, although he sold it in the United States -- again for advanced royalties of something like 10,000 dollars coming to me (representing 50% of the overall advance royalties where Kohan Page took 50% for themselves) - the publishers there went into chapter 13 immediately after it was launched. This meant that, though it was going to be a big seller in the US and Business Week had already taken photographs of me for a full-page article, any possible sales immediately disappeared out of sight. Because it had already been launched we couldn't even sell it to another publisher. It also meant that, because the publisher was in bankruptcy, I didn't even get my share of the advance royalties.
I then wrote a popular book, or so I thought, called the 'Sales Professional'. This was a sales primer for new salesman. Philip, however, didn't get behind this to the same extent and it made only average sales – a few thousand copies.
Kogan Page was the only place where I was invited to their Christmas Party. I was expecting it to be very glamorous, but all the authors were as boring as me!
As I said, Richard Burton was best publishing editor I have ever had. When he left Kogan Page and went to Blackwell's he took me with. By this time I was at the University and had worked up a course, B823; which was meant to be the replacement marketing course for the new Diploma. Unfortunately, the shambles over the Certificate meant that this course was cancelled, just as we were going into the production stage. The end result of this cancellation was that I was left with a large amount of very good material on marketing. Accordingly, I persuaded Richard Burton to take it for Blackwell's.
I set out to produce a marketing textbook which, rather like Samuelson a generation earlier, was beautifully printed and illustrated -- and totally comprehensive. This was, in fact, my most successful book ever. Over a couple of editions, and a decade of sales, it must have sold the best part of 100,000 copies. Richard got very adventurous with it, and sold it into the United States - with two co-authors over there. They were paid something like 100,000 dollars to modify it for the US and Blackwell's total spend must have been best part of a quarter of a million pounds for the launch. Regrettably, almost immediately after it had been launched, it was decided to pull Blackwells out the United States. This left the two American authors to transfer it to another publisher in the US, so I probably only made about £10,000 in royalties on the book there.
I also persuaded Richard Burton to launch a dictionary version. I must admit one of my reasons for this was that I wanted to put on my passport, where in those days you had your employment details listed, that I was a lexicographer. By the time the book was published, however, this line had disappeared from the passport. The book, again, was not a particular success, so perhaps I should not publish for vanity!
At this stage the Richard Burton set up his own publishing house. On the other hand, with his own money on the line, this time he didn’t take me with him. He was best publishing editor I ever had.
Whilst I was with Blackwell's I also thought I had found the key to success, in that I managed to persuade Penguin to publish a book of mine -- 'Marketing Practice'. Again, it was only a mediocre success. The problem was that most people, having done their MBA, didn't ever again want to read about marketing. Perhaps the main problem, though, was that Penguin at the time was going through severe difficulties. I remember going in to see my publisher and him telling me that – just that morning - the managing director had been fired. It was not a good sign!
The focus of my life thereafter, was futurology and the book that emerged from this was 'Future Revolutions'. I was remarkably unsuccessful in pushing it until, out of blue, I was taken on by a very high-powered agent. I don't know why Sonia Land picked up my book, I suspect it was a mistake on her the part, but she did. She was very high-powered, being a partner in Sheil Land - one of the biggest literary agencies -- who personally handled Catherine Cookson, who was then the largest selling UK author. I had a few meetings over the next couple of years with Sonia. The meetings were wonderful. I used to a spend two to three hours with her, and we talked of everything under the sun. As I have said, she was very high powered. She used to have Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson round for dinner -- though I should explain that the reason for this was that her husband was the CEO of one of major consultancies.
With her I backing I managed to get the book published by Orion. Again, however, although the publisher was keen to my book, his marketing department didn't get behind it. In fact, they almost destroyed the launch which I had to organise myself. Accordingly, even though it went into paperback, this also sold an average number -- a few thousand. The same publisher also persuaded me to write a volume for a series of popular business paperbacks. My volume was 'Marketing for Managers'. The series was not a particular success, and the Orion was so sold off to another outfit, who discontinued my books.
While all this was going on I had a book published under the aegis of the Open University -- for which unfortunately I got no royalties whatsoever. It was a reader from the B885 course, called 'Managing the External Environment', which was published by Sage and probably sold a few a few thousand. The follow-up, actually the first block of the revised course, was 'Marketing Strategy’ -- again published by Sage. The main feature of this -- apart from my excellent writing, of course -- was that it had probably the best designed cover of any book I have had published.
Finally, out of the blue, Wiley's asked me to contribute to their series on the e-business. This was at the height of the dot.com boom. Accordingly I produced another slim book for them, called 'Expression', which was about marketing in the e-commerce age. They managed to sell this as a German edition as well, but it was not particularly successful, since they published it just as the dot.com boom ran out of steam. Sonia Land earned her money by actually selling this is as a two book deal -- with advanced royalties of nearly £10,000. In fact the second book was never published, although I wrote it (and the content is included in this collection), since the whole series was discontinued.
That was the end of my career as a published author. Thus, I have had a number of books published around the world - including in the US, Japan, Russia, Brazil and Germany - which were successful by normal standards. I even had two books published which were extraordinarily successful by any standards. All in all, I calculate I must have sold almost 100,000 copies of my books in total; earning me perhaps £200,000 in royalties. As it came in over time, however, I spent it without really noticing -- and never felt rich.
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