January 12, 2012
What defines success?
|
We live in a country where one of the measures of a person's success is money: how much did you make in a year? how many widgets did you sell? how expensive is the house you live in or the car you drive? Certainly all of those things could be true. But what about the teacher, the fireman, the nurse, the librarian who always knows just the book you should read, the auto repairman, your pastor or rabbi?
I don't know how we get away from the material world since it's everywhere. It seems to be starting even younger ... looking at my grandchildren. That stuns and scares me at the same time.
At the ripe old age of 66, I am in a new career in one of the most shark infested waters imaginable ... the writing and publishing arena. This is a place where only 20% of all books will break even or make money. Not a good business model. Of the over 3,000 books published every day ( over 1,000,000 in a year) that is a lot of disappointment. Not considering an advance, just the hard costs to bring a new book to market, most say that number is $25,000-35,000. Lots of money. So what does this say about my first book? Would it be considered a success?
In the pure sense of making back lots of dollars comparing my book to NY Times bestsellers or just making more dollars than I spent, no. My original intent was to pay tribute to my mother, who gave me guidance and an example to live by. The book came out when she and Peter were healthy. They enjoyed celebrity. People have embraced the story and sent me their own. All in all, the experience was priceless.
|
|
Posted by Nancy Rossman
on January 12, 2012 at 9:02 AM
in Success |
Permalink
|
Comments (0)
|
|
|
|