by Monica Sweeney
This time last year, editorial assistant Seth Adam Smith wrote a post on his personal blog called “Marriage Isn’t For You.” The purposefully misleading title is later explained by his father’s advice just before Smith got married: “Marriage isn’t for you. You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to make someone else happy.” Smith’s post is short and simple: do your best to make others happy, and the rest will follow. Smith’s post went on to snatch 30 million views, television and online interviews, and not one, but three book deals.
Shadow Mountain Press released Smith’s first book based on the blog post called, Marriage Isn’t for You: It’s for the One You Love, in May 2014. After seeing just near 3,000 in sales since its release, Smith’s former employer, B-K Publishing, signed him on for a two-book deal. The first, Your Life Isn’t for You: A Selfish Person’s Guide to Being Selfless was just published this September, and the second You, Unstuck: You Are the Solution to Your Greatest Problem is in the works. Smith has plans to do book tours, a video series, and even a TED Talk called “The Not For You Movement.”
Smith is not the only writer to have earned a book deal from a viral article. The author of the post, “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” Liza Long recently published The Price of Silence: A Mom’s Perspective on Mental Illness that has sold just over 1,200 copies since August, according to Bookscan. These writers’ initial posts could not be more different, but they both draw in the reader with shocking titles and deal with emotional subjects. What separate Smith and Long from most published authors is that their pathway to signing a book deal is a relatively new one. Publishers habitually vet potential authors based on their online fan bases, authority over the topic, or celebrity status, yes, but investing time and money in an author with just one successful post is a new approach, and one that could be very risky.
While Smith’s career has skyrocketed in just a year, the long-term success of his efforts remains to be seen. 3,000 in initial sales is a great start for a small publisher, but is a single online success stemming from a click bait article a catalyst for true publishing success? Only the next months and years will tell, and this information will help publishers decide how powerful—or insignificant—a viral article can be in forging new authors in the business.
Shadow Mountain Press released Smith’s first book based on the blog post called, Marriage Isn’t for You: It’s for the One You Love, in May 2014. After seeing just near 3,000 in sales since its release, Smith’s former employer, B-K Publishing, signed him on for a two-book deal. The first, Your Life Isn’t for You: A Selfish Person’s Guide to Being Selfless was just published this September, and the second You, Unstuck: You Are the Solution to Your Greatest Problem is in the works. Smith has plans to do book tours, a video series, and even a TED Talk called “The Not For You Movement.”
Smith is not the only writer to have earned a book deal from a viral article. The author of the post, “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” Liza Long recently published The Price of Silence: A Mom’s Perspective on Mental Illness that has sold just over 1,200 copies since August, according to Bookscan. These writers’ initial posts could not be more different, but they both draw in the reader with shocking titles and deal with emotional subjects. What separate Smith and Long from most published authors is that their pathway to signing a book deal is a relatively new one. Publishers habitually vet potential authors based on their online fan bases, authority over the topic, or celebrity status, yes, but investing time and money in an author with just one successful post is a new approach, and one that could be very risky.
While Smith’s career has skyrocketed in just a year, the long-term success of his efforts remains to be seen. 3,000 in initial sales is a great start for a small publisher, but is a single online success stemming from a click bait article a catalyst for true publishing success? Only the next months and years will tell, and this information will help publishers decide how powerful—or insignificant—a viral article can be in forging new authors in the business.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/64448-editorial-assistant-turns-blog-post-into-multibook-deal.html
http://sethadamsmith.com/2013/11/02/marriage-isnt-for-you/
http://www.amazon.com/The-Price-Silence-Perspective-Illness/dp/159463257X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413829057&sr=8-1&keywords=the+price+of+silence
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/new-titles/adult-announcements/article/62983-fall-2014-announcements-social-sciences-life-and-death.html