The Old Boys Club Circle Jerkiness of my Industry
(And maybe yours?)
Roughly two years ago, I was pitched a guest for my podcast, On Good Authority. In the three or so years I hosted that podcast, I accepted only occasional pitches, and usually regreted it. Anyone I wanted to interview I’d just reach out to. And anyone being pitched was someone who had something to sell.
But then, someone was pitched to me who seemed perfect for the show. I’d never heard of him but he was a self-proclaimed expert on writing business books so I said yes. It was the last day I was working before our son’s birth and I went in open-minded.
I could tell from the moment he logged onto Zoom that this curly-haired, middle-to-late-aged man1 and I would not get along. I don’t do well with nerdy types who overcompensate for their nerdiness with their blustering. And I certainly don’t do well with people who, when I’m roughly 30 seconds into welcoming them onto a podcast they’ve asked to be on say, “Great, now can we just get started?”
The interview went downhill from there. He treated me like I was, frankly, an idiot who didn’t know anything about publishing or business books. I tried to not let it bother me and kept the interview going, figuring I could maybe extract interesting information from him. But that’s the thing about blusterers…they never seem to have much that’s interesting to say.
Mercifully, our time together ended and I decided not to release the episode. The guy was a complete asshole to me so, I figured, why should I help him promote his dumb book while letting other people hear him treat me like I was an idiot? (Please comment below if you think I should have released the episode and allowed other people to hear his jerkiness.)
Months later, this man started making a lot of noise about a study he was putting together: according to him, it was the world’s largest study about business book authors! He managed to get a lot of press about it and I seemed to be the only person who found it to be 1) Not that revolutionary (they surveyed about 300 writers out of the 300 million that exist) and 2) One big circle jerk.
See, this guy got a hybrid publishing company, ghostwriting agency and book PR firm to pay for the study. And then the study revealed…guess what? That people who invest in ghostwriters and publicists and hybrid publishers make more money from their books than those who don’t! This is revelatory?!
To me, the whole thing seemed to be a not very subtle advertisement for the ghostwriting firm, hybrid publishing company and book PR firm who’d paid for the study. But others seemed genuinely excited about this study and I watched it get picked up by several outlets and people I respect. And it was weird to me. Because here’s the thing: why should you need an anonymous study to prove that your services are valuable? Shouldn’t the case studies, reviews and testimonials speak for themselves?
But this experience made me wonder: how many industries are filled with blowhard a-holes who are condescending to podcasters, tout silly, self-serving studies like they’re the second coming and act like the only people worth respecting in their industry are old white men? Because the truth is, my industry is dominated by people like this. Is yours? Please tell me in the comments.
The first time I encountered this was when I first started my company and we’d only published about three books. One day, I came up with a surprise for my mentor: I took all the newsletters he’d sent out over the years and compiled them into a book. I had our cover designer make a cover, our copy editor edit it, our layout person lay it out and our printer print it. I was able to delight my mentor with a fully published book by him that he never even had to write!
Shortly after that, the founder of a much bigger hybrid publishing company saw the book. He apparently told my mentor that the cover sucked and he could do a much better one. He then took all the material I’d put together, had his cover designer do a new cover and then published the book under his own imprint.
The company this guy started was at that point publishing hundreds of books a year. My company had published three. It was the equivalent of Godzilla picking on an ant. But this guy—the ultimate blustery, patronizing man if ever there was one—managed to take credit for my work.
Of course, we reap what we sow and, over the next few years, I heard worse thing after worse thing about him and his company. As Legacy Launch Pad grew, many clients came to us for their second book after working with that guy’s company on their first book. Their experiences were pretty universally terrible but not all that surprising to me after my experience with the founder. But then the blustery founder guy sold the company to another blustery man and then it imploded and now it’s back…sort of. I think? Hard to tell. They are definitely still blustering.
What is my point? Well, while I find it pretty annoying when women go on and on about misogyny (if you don’t like the rules, I always think, just make a new game), every now and then, dudes like this get to me. They’re just so LOUD. And so sure they’re RIGHT.
BTW, this is NOT an anti-man rant. We’ve all met a woman or two, too like this in our time. But my hope for you is that you can tune people like this out, then go publish a book about your industry that makes you the leading authority and leaves the blusterers in the dust.
LINKS OF THE WEEK:
I’m also curly ish haired and middle to late aged so I don’t mean these in a derogatory way (though I have no studies to support it, I will say that my hair IS nicer than his)