By Dana Kaye
Last week, I picked up a copy of OUTLIERS by Malcolm Gladwell. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, Gladwell studies groups of people who have achieved great success - professional athletes, Bill Gates, Oprah, etc. – and finds their commonalities to reach some conclusion about what set these people apart. There are plenty of smart and talented people in the world, but they’re not all making eight-figure salaries.
Though this wasn’t the focus of the book, there are plenty of Outlier authors: James Patterson, Stephen King, Sandra Brown Clive Cussler, Dan Brown, etc.
Are there hundreds of authors with greater talent? Of course. So why do these books consistently hit the bestseller list?
One of my favorite chapters was titled “The 10,000 Hour Rule.” After looking at professional musicians, professional athletes, computer guys like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the most successful people in any industry had dedicated over 10,000 hours to their practice. Musicians and athletes practice regularly, Gates spent hours, even days, in the computer room at school, even Mozart (who is considered a late developer) didn’t compose his greatest work for 20 years (which is when he reached that 10,000 hour rule).
Have Patterson, King, Cussler and the Browns all completed their 10,000 hours? Definitely. Have you? Probably not. The moral? Through all the marketing, promotion, conferences and workshops, there’s no substitution for putting your ass in the chair and writing.
Another study Gladwell did – which for newbie authors is more interesting than it is helpful – was with hockey players at a junior league in Canada. All the top tier players were born in January, February or March. Why? Because January is the cut off for age groups, meaning, that if you were born in January or February, you’d be the oldest on the team. At that age, it most likely meant that you’d also be the biggest, strongest, and most mature.
Bringing it back to publishing, take a look when most of these big authors are published. Most of them will have either May releases or September. Why? May is just in time for BEA and is before people head out on vacation (where they’ll need a good read). In September, people are back from vacation and will soon be gearing up for the holiday gift buying season. Books that come out in January can have a disadvantage because people are sick of shopping and authors that are promoting a book in August have to fight with readers’ vacation schedules. September and May are also fairly soft media months, so there is more space for authors to get media attention.
Timing matters.
Even if Gladwell just seems like a curious journalist, many of his theories can be applied to publishing. Check out OUTLIERS or his first book, THE TIPPING POINT, you may look at the industry, even the world, a little differently.
