The sad and mysterious tale of my invisible book

cumulative advantage Tim Ferriss

I have been so very blessed to be an author that people trust. Against all odds, people actually buy my books, even years after they are published. They have been translated into 15 languages, used as college textbooks, and are found in more than 700 libraries worldwide.

Except one.

Today, I submit to you one of my biggest disappointments and professional enigmas: The book that bombed. My invisible book. And oh yes, it might have been my best book ever.

My best work?

If you search for the “best marketing books” on Amazon, here are the top five, and the book ratings:

All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin = 4.5
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Ries and Trout = 4.5
The One-Page Marketing Plan by Dib = 4.7
Hook Point by Kane = 4.4
Building a Story Brand by Miller = 4.6

The average reader rating of any business book on Amazon is 4.2, according to ChatGPT.

And then there is my 2021 book Cumulative Advantage, with a score of 4.7. It stands up to the best in terms of quality, or at least reader appreciation.

Many readers consider Cumulative Advantage to be my best book. And yet it is my lowest-selling book, by far. In the world of business books, you can call a book a bestseller if it reaches 10,000 in sales. My bestselling book, Marketing Rebellion, sold 14,000 copies in its first month.

And yet Cumulatove Advantage has sold only 1,700 books since its release in 2021. This was the very next book I wrote after the mega-hit Marketing Rebellion. What the heck happened?

I have a theory.

The story of the invisible book

I only write a book when it solves a meaningful problem. A trend I noticed in many of my consulting calls was that people often seem to get stuck mid-career. They might experience some success and plateau in their businesses, professional lives, and personal brands.

How do you build momentum for a life, a career, an idea? What is the strategy to reach new levels of success when the growth curve flattens out?

I came across a concept called cumulative advantage. While this concept is well-researched and documented in the field of social psychology, the theory about how momentum works in the world has never been applied to the practical reality of business.

Making this connection was an elegant and practical idea that could help many people. I concocted a unique and entertaining way to tell the story of momentum. I compared my career to the supremely successful author Tim Ferriss. We had both started as authors at the same time, but he had rocketed to fame. To tell a story of the five steps of cumulative advantage, I traced our paths to answer the question: Why did Ferris know Oprah, and I did not?

It was a fun, fast-paced story packed with insights. I knew this was a great book, and based on the rising success of my previous books, I doubled down on my investment in editing, design, and promotion. For the first time, I hired an outside PR firm and an influencer agency. I created a snazzy “movie trailer:”

I spent a small fortune on the book …

And nothing happened

I published Cumulative Advantage in early 2021, and many early readers declared it my best work. Here are a few reviews … not to puff myself up, but to establish that the quality of the book was not the issue here:

“This book is so important. Never before has the career path for the entrepreneur, inventor or other creatives been so clearly defined, laid out and mapped.”
“I will state emphatically that HE HAS OUTDONE HIMSELF when he wrote Cumulative Advantage.”
“This book will have a profound impact on your life and how you view your place in the world. I couldn’t put this book down, because it provided hope in a very difficult time.”
“Such an extraordinary book! I devoured Cumulative Advantage in a single weekend.”
“As good as the entire book is, the last chapter alone is worth far more than the price of the book.”

I was an established author. I had written an excellent, helpful, and inspiring book. I spent a ton of money on promotion. And it bombed.

I will never know for sure, but here is my theory of the invisible book …

The issue of timing

I knew this book was launching at a difficult time. We were still in a pandemic. This placed several obstacles in my way:

The world was still in a state of panic and businesses were struggling. Many people were holding on to their money, and buying books was not a priority. ALL book sales in every category were in decline.
At the height of the pandemic, other authors like me spent that downtime writing books. Almost every marketing author published books at the same time, so the competition for those scarce book dollars was fierce.
All events and conferences had been cancelled. Normally when I publish a new book I would embark on a speaking tour. Speaking engagements sell a lot of books.
Nonfiction book sales have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels. While non-fiction books are growing, overall business book sales have been in decline.

So even though I sensed the timing of the book launch was awful, I went ahead with it. The book was ready. The book was great. And by the way, I had struggled financially during the pandemic, too. I could use the boost!

The challenge of promotion

I had taken a big swing on the promotional budget, and that also bombed:

The PR pro I hired had come highly recommended, but was so ineffective that she returned my money.
I experimented with a “micro-influencer” campaign, and that also fell flat. What I learned is that micro-influencers are mostly interested in promoting themselves.
My other promotional efforts did not take off. The mood of the world was so pandemic-depressed that even a positive book of hope was hard to sell.

I probably could have taken another shot at promoting the book in 2022, but I felt so deflated and shocked by the failure. I had not completely pieced together what went wrong. And I had started working on a new project: Belonging to the Brand.

What’s in a name?

As I dissected my failure to learn from it, I think Cumulative Advantage is probably a terrible name for a book. It’s even hard to say. If I had to do it over again, I would have called the book “Relentless Relevance,” because that offers a more straight-forward idea of what the book is about.

The book had a great subtitle: How to Build Momentum for Your Ideas, Business, and Life Against All Odds. However, most people are unaware of subtitles.

The role of luck

Was my career as an author finished? I put everything I had into that book, but I lost a lot of time and money in the process.

I had another big idea burning inside of me, and I needed to push that idea into the world: The vital role of brand communities in the future of marketing.

I needed to go back to basics. What worked? What went wrong? I never wanted to have a failure like that again.

I conducted a thorough review of book marketing best practices. I even interviewed many authors for best practices that I might have missed. I found something surprising. Almost every successful author said that the most significant boost to their book sales was luck. Ironically, that is also a key idea in the Cumulative Advantage book — dig deep enough and you’ll find that behind every mega-success is some piece of dumb luck.

So bad luck, bad timing, and maybe a bad title had worked against me. I would not be deterred. I keep writing and be bold and brave, as always.

The impact

Since that book, I’ve written two more, and they’ve both sold well. I love the creative challenge of writing, and I’m gratified when people buy the books and enjoy them.

Still, it stings every time I look at my monthly book sales and see a big fat zero for Cumulative Advantage. It will always hold a special place in my heart, even if it’s not on many bookshelves.

I hope this provides some balance to the Mark Schaefer narrative. Not every project is a success, but you must keep moving forward. That’s an important lesson about momentum.

And if you’d like to learn more about momentum, you can always buy the book. It would make me smile today.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.