Fast Company interviewed Dan Heath, co-author with his brother of "Made to Stick," about his experiences with his best-selling book. That book looked at why some ideas have an impact and others don't. They asked him why it was so successful. His answer:
"I'd love to tell you that it all unfolded according to our master plan of stickiness, but the honest answer is that I have no clue. Chip and I worked hard on Made to Stick, and we're proud of it, but I'm not naïve enough to think that our hard work explains anything. There are lots of great books that don't get much attention. I think the book's success was 90% luck and 10% putting duct tape on the cover." (Cover image on left.)
He may have been joking, but I think the duct tape image did make a difference. As you may have noticed from previous posts (and my book of the same name) I'm a big fan of "do something different." Very few book covers do anything different. It's not enough to make anybody buy the book, but it may be enough to get them to pick it up for a closer look and that's the first step toward a sale.
("Do Something Different" features 100 case studies of people who marketed their product or service inexpensively and creatively. It's published by Virgin Books with a foreword by Sir Richard Branson. You can get it from Amazon or other online or offline booksellers.)
