Fame is a difficult burden to bear. I know.
Several times I’ve been asked to be interviewed for videos InterVarsity Press has done to highlight new books. Most recently, I have a starring role for the piece on John Stott’s fiftieth anniversary edition of Basic Christianity.
It had over 250 views on youtube.com in its first month, until I told my extended family about it and it rocketed up to over 260. So you can see the kind of load I am under.
By comparison JibJab’s “Time for Some Campaignin'” has over 1,250,000 views in two months. Now you know why the paparazzi are after me the way they are.
After we showed the Stott video at an all-office meeting, exactly zero people came up to me and told me what a great job I did. And zero told me I had room for improvement. How am I to cope with such an overwhelming response?
I also make a cameo appearance in the video Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. That one isn’t even on youtube. A good thing too! Who knows what invasions of privacy I might suffer if it were!
Fame, however, is fleeting. I am prepared to deal with that too.
You did a great job, however, you have room for improvement. / I enjoyed both videos–yours and jibjab. A few weeks ago, I encountered a Stott book at a friend’s house. His kinds of books sound right up my alley, and I look forward to reading them, and bolstering your profits. Good job. / Regarding room for improvement, you mentioned somewhere in your blog that publishers could benefit from unconventional approaches (like sharing profits). Could you explain to me how partnerships work (e.g. Youth Specialties with Zondervan, and Willow Creek with Zondervan)?
Well, not being an employee of Zondervan, I don’t know how those partnerships work. But anything is negotiable. It could involve higher royalty rates in exchange for advertising or the like. There are lots of creative people in publishing (authors, agents and publishers) cooking up all kinds of contract terms. The key, to me, is that all parties end up with a true win-win agreement. It does not good in the long run for an author or agent to press for unreasonable terms that force a publisher into a loss. Likewise it is not good for a publisher to unfairly take advantage of an author.
The problem, of course, is that no one knows ahead of time exactly how a book will sell and whether it will turn a profit even if it sells well. (Even a bestseller can lose money if too many books are printed that don’t sell, if too much money is spent on advertising, and so forth.) All that and more is what keeps contracts from being cut and dried.
Andy