Page 51 - The Bootstrapper Bible

ChangeThis suade you from taking the bootstrapper journey. So many opportunities to fail, so few to succeed, it seems. But when it clicks, the magic that takes over is intoxicating. Your work, embraced by a stranger. Itʼs a rush. It’s so easy to extrapolate from our own experience and multiply it by 250,000,000. Don’t. Back in 1986, when I was first starting out, I sent a direct mail letter (by Federal Express) to forty different companies. Each firm was offered the chance to buy advertising in a book I was doing—for $1,000 a page, two pages minimum. I had figured in a huge profit margin, so all I needed were a few positive responses to make it worth the effort. Within 48 hours, the phone started ringing. Within thirty days, I had sold more than $60,000 in advertising. Itʼs the thrill that comes from this kind of success that keeps you going. Iʼm not sure that the idea behind the advertising book was the most insightful or profitable Iʼd ever had. But by persevering, by putting concepts in front of people in a solid, benefits-oriented way, I had succeeded. Another time, I had the idea to create SAT prep books. The proposal went to about a dozen publishers. Most of them were a bit interested, some called for face-to-face meetings, and one or two seemed on the verge of making an offer. We proposed to the publishers that we would auction off the right to publish these books, a common practice in the publishing world. The publisher who paid the most money at the auction would get the right to be our partner in bringing the books to market. Then an editor from Doubleday called. “Cancel the auction,” she said. “What will it take to buy it right now?” | iss. 6.01 | i | U | X | + | h 51/103 f