I remember the exact turning point in the meeting at my publisher’s office in New York. That slow grip of doom in my gut as I looked around the table at my agent, the editor and the assistant editor.
As I was excitedly telling the story of my next book The Widest Net, I noticed subtle shifts in body language, a lack of eye contact and a restless shuffling of papers.
I was losing the room. This book, the one that I believed in so much, that I had been working on and workshopping for 7 years, was slipping out of my hands.
I had traveled to 23 different cities meeting over 900 entrepreneurs workshopping ideas for this book. I had conducted research led by Susan Baier with over 2,000 business owners and partnered with 100 different organizations for this book. I had built a wildly successful community lab using the principles from this book. It was what every entrepreneur I worked with needed.
But I was not winning the room.
“I’m sorry, this just doesn’t feel like a big idea,” the editor said.
I pasted on a fake smile while trying as hard as I could to not cry in front of them. This was my publisher whom I had such a strong relationship with for my first two books. I had blurbed scores of their other author’s books. None of that mattered, I realized.
As my agent and I were exiting the building through the turnstile, she said “Maybe we can shop it at a lower tier publisher.” My head spun around. “No!” I said far too harshly. “I will not do that.”
As I crawled in the taxi to go back to my hotel, the tears started to flow. I realized that I had fucked up. I had relied on my belief that long-term personal relationships were enough to cement a deal in publishing. I thought they would “trust me” to deliver a great end product. I did not put the necessary rigor into the book positioning process, and had done what my friend the book expert David Moldawer told me to never do: I had taken a meeting with a publisher without a full proposal complete.
I felt deep shame and embarrassment that I was unable to sell something that I thought was in the bag. This idea that I had spent so much time developing felt dead in the water. My friend Michael Bungay Stanier talked me through the worst of the spin, and in his Coaching Habit wizardly ways, slowly got me to see the truth of the situation:
they were right.
I had not done the requisite work to fully bring the idea to life on paper.
It did not jump off the page screaming “I am the next big idea in marketing!”
I knew that it was the right idea, because I had been working with it in person and saw the results.
But to bring it it life in the form of a book, I owed the idea more time, energy and discernment.
And I could not blame expert arbiters of quality (the editor) for giving me accurate feedback.
BACK TO WORK.
I went back to the drawing board. I hired David to work with me on the proposal (he only said “I told you so!” once).
We took months longer than I anticipated to fully develop the idea. But we did it.
My agent (Joelle) and I finally sold the book to McGraw Hill (thanks Donya!).
And while my cheeks still burn when I recall that New York meeting, I don’t know if I would have ended up writing the same book had I not had the experience.
I think we need to shop around our ideas earlier. I think we need to get comfortable stumbling around as we articulate our models. I think we need to be brave and listen to what seasoned, experienced experts think about our work.
And then I think we need to trust ourselves to put in extra work on our craft when we know we have a good idea.
THE GOOD NEWS?
The Widest Net won Best Sales and Marketing Book of 2021 from Porchlight Books.
Forbes writer Henry DeVries called it “the best business development book I have read in two years.”
And while I may have had a flash of “I told you so!! I knew this was a big idea!,” in the end I thought:
Thank you telling me the truth. And for making me a better author.
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