Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts

Hard-won reputations can be undone. Fans, once chewed up and spit out, do not come back. Conversely, the more intimate and personal the connection between creator, work, and fan, the more the relationship can endure.

“Authors who want long-term success should adopt this mantra: Participate. Participate. Participate.” But forget authors. People who want long-term success must participate—and do so authentically and honestly.

Developing the right relationships with the right people is the long game.

Think of a creator you’ve been a fan of for years. How have they managed to keep your attention? It isn’t just making something great once and riding that success into the sunset—it’s how great the band is in concert, it’s the thirtieth-anniversary special, it’s the way the creator gives such great interviews, it’s the emails you’ve received or the

You can give your work the same amount of time to get its legs as you would a toddler, right?

The launch is the launch. What happens after the launch, though, isn’t the result of momentum. It’s the result of a different kind of showing up, of word of mouth, of the book (or whatever tool you’re using to cause change) being part of something else, something bigger.

It’s worth remembering that Hollywood record books are littered with “holiday blockbusters” that opened huge on Christmas Day only to be surpassed a few short years later (some even sooner) by perennial favorites like Elf and A Christmas Story—movies watched only one month a year that keep chugging along like the proverbial tortoise racing the hare

master of important relationships, make sure you’re playing chess and not checkers. You better make sure that you don’t overemphasize giving rousing speeches to your troops at the cost of shoring up relationships with critical allies. Doing this work is not only important marketing, it’s essential to establishing a viable and valuable platform.

masters.” “I do not like the modern school,” he says, expressing his disdain for the popular work of the day (which, as it happens, was early-nineteenth-century Parisian art). To which the sarcastic Monte Cristo replies, “You are quite right, Monsieur. On the whole, they have one great shortcoming, which is that they have not yet had the time to be