> He called me back one time. We had known each other forever but had never had an issue where someone didn’t want one of my books. So now I saw what happened when someone didn’t want one of my books. “If you are going to tell me how to do my job,” he said, “this relationship is over.” I mumbled an apology and he hung up.
When I first read this, it seemed to me that the agent is at fault. If every editor rejected the proposal, shouldn't he find out why?
> So I wrote an email to Hollis and explained why the book would be good for her. She agreed to meet me. She said to me, “this proposal seems like it was written by wikipedia. You need to give us a real methodology for what to do when the end of the world hits.”
Yeah -- that moment and the moment at the very end where he found his happy ending were the only two moments in the whole thing where I felt any sympathy for the author at all.
The rest of the time, where he wrote crappy books he knew were crappy, alienated editors, and contemplated insurance fraud plus suicide in one swell foop, all whilst capitalizing on others' credulity to sell them financial advice when his own finances have run like a yo-yo, he came off like a complete ass.
Congratulations to Altucher for writing in such an engaging, and hypnotically, brutally honest style that I felt compelled to read all the way through, despite the fact he induced me to distantly hate him through about 98% of the tale.
Some people on HN are dicks sometimes. You weren't asked to judge him, I don't even think he wanted your sympathy. Read and enjoy, take what you need to take from it, and leave the rest.
One of my key takeaways was that he's since come a long way, are your feelings aimed at him 10 years ago? Doesn't read like that. I for one enjoyed it, and look forwards to the next installment landing in my inbox.
Genuinely, I don't understand how or why someone would read that post, and think to write the words you wrote. Full-circle: you came off like an ass.
When did I say that he wanted my sympathy? I explained something, from my point of view, about the character of the tale -- which is pretty much what everyone else here is doing, when not just asking questions. Are you such a fan of the man that you cannot accept that? Am I not allowed to engage in discussion here just because my opinion of how he came off in the story differs from yours?
> Full-circle: you came off like an ass.
Fair enough. Maybe it looks that way to you. Too bad for me.
Your "sit down and shut up" routine makes you look a bit worse than merely abrasive judgment of his self-portrayal, though -- at least in my opinion.
My routine isn't sit down shut up (Did you just assume that?)
I just think you said something that didn't need to be said. The second piece, "how he came off in the story" is almost my exact point: I don't really see how your opinion on how he came off is valuable, unless your really going to delve into some psychological reasoning, use an anecdote or note a similar example - which you didn't. HN is for intelligent discussion i.e. value, not how you thought the guy came off.
Maybe if you'd have made a REAL comment, i.e. "hey, seems like a bumpy ride but it sure does seem like persistence prevails. [enter your comment here]" then it would have been fine.
But as it was, you just attacked him personally based on what you read in that post. Maybe its just a lesson in looking at things from other peoples perspectives, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought what I thought.
Oh? Do you really think my writing here was engaging and brutally honest? Thank you. I strive to achieve that tone in my writing -- which you appeared to achieve so naturally and with such ease in your self-deprecating tale.
I appreciate the compliment, even if what you meant was insult.
> contemplated insurance fraud plus suicide in one swell foop
It's technically only insurance fraud if you commit suicide and manage to make it look like an accident (IE drive into a lake or river known for accidents and just don't try to escape) rather than actually getting killed (IE starting a fight with the nearest drug dealing gang banger after signing a DNR order).
I actually looked this up once as part of pondering a hare-brained fundraising scheme involving quantum suicide.
Apparently, most insurance companies have a clause where suicide voids the insurance if done within a few years of starting the insurance, but they will simply pay out without a fuss after that point.
I suppose they reason that there aren't many people who can calculatedly wait several years to off themselves to benefit someone else. I've never heard of anyone actually doing it and insurance corporations are still in business (and quite profitable, judging from Warren Buffet's holdings), so they seem to have been right.
(And really, is it 'fraud' if you have to die for it? If someone scams me financially and has to die in the process, I'm not sure how angry I could be with them.)
In retrospect, I should have been a little clearer here. This guy is already a published author, and so presumably editors will treat proposals with a little more respect - he's not an unknown trying to break into the industry with no track record. One would expect at least one of 20 targeted editors to have been slightly interested or at least offer a quick one-sentence negative review. That they didn't should have set off alarm bells and caused the agent to dig.
To offer an analogy, imagine your salesman comes to you and mentions casually your biggest client just called and canceled his contract; and no, he didn't bother to ask why (and so, boss, how's the weather?).
You're assuming it's a big mystery why no one wanted his book proposal or that the agent hadn't previously covered this ground, neither of which is stated in the post. (Plus, this is an author who admits he's lied about his contract numbers in the past.) From my read the facts are damning enough:
* He'd gotten a big advance on his previous book but it didn't sell. (Money loser = big red flag #1)
* His reputation alone no longer sells a book idea (evidenced by the sudden need for him to write a proposal to sell a book.) (Warning flag.)
* His financial judgment is suspect. ("The Forever Portfolio" delivered to the publisher just as the market starts a giant slide.) (Warning flag.)
* His last book was, well... Here's a sentence from the first Amazon review: "That said, the book is horribly written -- the author has about 20 pages of interesting content interspersed with 200 pages of random digressions, about his love of computer games and the longest words in the English language." (At the very least, a warning flag.)
* His proposal read like it was cribbed from Wikipedia (Big red flag #2.)
* He's a real peach to work with, insisting he knows other people's jobs better than they do (after all, he claims he chose the $20 price point for the previous loser, and we know how he treats his agent). (Warning flag.)
Now look what happens when that book idea (not the proposal) finally sells -- the publisher insists on bringing in another, trusted writer as co-author.
Sorry, but I don't think there's a mystery here that the agent needs to solve.
On the other hand, the author explicitly said to his agent "Find out why she rejected it," speaking of Hollis. That suggests the author, at least, did not know why.
Perhaps. Or perhaps the agent had already told him obliquely and the author didn't want to hear it.
We know from the story that the agent had previously done his job -- selling the author's books for increasing amounts of money despite declining sales. And we know from the story that after he meets with Hollis and is told the proposal reads like a crib from Wikipedia, he goes home and writes another proposal for her. And what happens? She likes the ideas but not the writing. And when the WSJ steps in, again it's for the ideas -- they want a co-author for the writing part.
Perhaps the agent should have been more direct, "Jim, the word on the street is that you're a one-hit wonder; that your ideas are great, but your writing sucks. What do you say I check around and see if I can hook you up with a co-author for the next proposal?"
Put this in HN terms, if people like your ideas but aren't willing to fund your startup, do you think it's someone else's job to find out why?
Frankly, what I found most alienating about the story was the me-me-me focus. (I mean really, going unsolicited into stores and signing books with random messages?) Too bad there was so little focus on providing value for his readers. Once I hear an author refer to a book of his as "garbage", I'm inclined to agree with him and dump him from my recommended list.
When I first read this, it seemed to me that the agent is at fault. If every editor rejected the proposal, shouldn't he find out why?
> So I wrote an email to Hollis and explained why the book would be good for her. She agreed to meet me. She said to me, “this proposal seems like it was written by wikipedia. You need to give us a real methodology for what to do when the end of the world hits.”
So our author had to do the agent's work for him?