Mail: April 2002

Readers react to articles from recent issues of Inc magazine. Plus, an update on KaBloom, the "Starbucks of flowers."

Tweet

Entrepreneurs can build wildly successful companies, affect hundreds of lives, and make tons of money. And yet they often remain anonymous. Their desire to be heard and known -- to shape a legacy -- explains the hundreds of letters (and counting) we received in response to Paul B. Brown's February Inc Life article, " Re: How to Get Your Book Published."

Hard Day's Write
By suggesting that the publishing process boils down to a few easy steps, did Brown's article soft-pedal the thankless process budding authors go through to sell their work?

Paul B. Brown's advice about getting published is a baseless underestimation of competitive book publishing. It sets up Inc's readers for disappointment and for the erroneous belief that the rejection letters they're bound to collect are a reflection of their work.

Some of the things the article leaves out: a writer should get a copy of the 2002 Writer's Market (or a similar directory) to research the requirements of the publishers, target the right ones, and market the book hard. Take a writing class -- an engineer's grammar won't work here. And plan on getting almost as many rejection letters as Steinbeck got before he was discovered.

Peter Shikli
CEO
BusinessWare Inc.
San Clemente, Calif.

You won't make millions, adds this reader, but being a published author has its benefits.

Brown's version of becoming an author will intrigue readers, especially his example of a $100,000 advance. However, publishers hardly ever offer even $5,000, and if you're in a niche category, you're lucky to receive that. But, as he points out, there are perks. My book has established me as the ultimate industry expert, and the steady royalties have made it worth the time and tussle.

Shirley Frazier
President
Sweet Survival
Paterson, N.J.

This reader thinks that you'll get nowhere without the stinging yet curative scratch of an editor's red pencil.

I found Brown's advice to prospective authors to be of high merit, though he skims over some salient points. I work with tiny publishing houses, rejecting dozens of manuscripts every week on the basis of sheer unreadability. Large or small, few publishers will purchase rights to a manuscript that could require hundreds of hours of work. To push a proposal toward the top of the stack, hire an editor. No matter how fascinating the concepts, dubious prose will kill a project.

Anthony Ravenscroft
Acquisitions & Development
Crossquarter Publishing Group
Santa Fe, N. Mex.

Get-Rich-Quick Spam
In his February feature titled " Be Your Own Boss! Work at Home! Make Million$!" Joseph Rosenbloom tested out some too-good-to-be-true online job offers and came away none the richer.

My husband often reads Inc, and although I lean toward other magazines, like Interview and O, I found Rosenbloom's article so interesting and funny that I had to let you know.

I'm currently looking for a new job and have often seen those tempting offers to "Work at home and make big $$$$!!!!" Yes, I admit I've thought about trying one of those deals. Being out of work and without a paycheck to help with the bills will do that. But I was always too scared to try the offers for fear of losing money that we don't have. Your article made me happy not to have tried them. It also made me laugh about just how silly the whole process turned out to be.

Diana Konwin
Houston

Top-Line Tactics
In the February special report, " Selling 2002," Susan Greco canvassed a host of grizzled salespeople to find out how top performers are responding to tough selling conditions.

This article is the best piece that Inc has ever published. How accurately the story set the stage for what we are going through in our industry. I was shocked that you could be so intimately tuned in to what is going on out here on the battlefield of companies looking to grow revenues. Once I trusted that you understood our challenges so convincingly, you had my undivided attention. Rarely do I read such tangible recommendations that are so potent. I had not been actively following Inc for some time, as I found a lot of the articles were geared to start-up entrepreneurs. This one article has proved that position wrong, and I will be looking to follow Inc more closely in the future.

John Knab
CEO
Phonex Broadband Corp.
Midvale, Utah

It's Who You Know
Business magazines often concern themselves with big companies. Inc's proud distinction is its focus on little companies. Sometimes, however, we fail to mention how reliant little companies are on big-company contacts.

I enjoy the entrepreneur profiles presented in Inc magazine. In each of the past two issues, however, I have been struck by the nonchalance with which Inc noted the critical role that well-placed contacts have played in the success of some companies.

In December's " Putting Stock in Dr. Spock" we are informed that the budding business "raised $14 million." Not bad for an operation that still exists only on a cocktail napkin. That one of the partners is a former managing director of a health-care venture-capital fund explains the partners' ease in obtaining money.

Then the January 2002 issue upped the ante with this sentence in " Inside the Smartest Little Company in America," your profile of the creators of the game Cranium: "Fortuitously, [CEO Richard] Tait had recently scaled Mount Kilimanjaro with a friend of the man who was then the CEO of Starbucks." That coincidence ultimately opened the door for Cranium's critical product-placement innovation. Instant distribution at 1,500 Starbucks stores is more than just fortuitous; it's the impossible dream for most entrepreneurs. That is not to take anything away from the founders of Cranium Inc. However, all the smarts and creativity and effort that they employ are overshadowed by their contacts.

 1 | 2  NEXT 

Read more:

Sign-up for our Leadership and Managing Newsletter

Email Address: