“The Secret of Eunoia and Book Writing! --An Expert's How to Write a Book Step-by-Step Guide”
Here's a real-world example of a book that just couldn't succeed... and became a best seller!
by Steve Manning
Eunoia is an English word. It means beautiful thinking. It also is a word that holds the distinction of being the shortest word in the English language… containing all five vowels! It's also the title of a very successful book. Now, for those of you writing your book of poetry, or have an interest in writing a book of poetry and seeing it become an award winning best seller, pay close attention. For those of you who are writing a book but have no interest in poetry at all, you might want to pay even closer attention…
The book was written several years ago by Christian Bök. That last name, by the way, is pronounced 'book.' I'm not making this up. Bök is a University of Calgary professor of poetry and creative writing. So what's so interesting about this book of poetry? Well, it has to do with the architecture of the book. It comprises just five chapters: a, e, i, o, and u.
And each chapter has a collection of poems. But each poem uses only the vowel of the chapter heading. So all of the poems in chapter o use only words containing the vowel o. I'll give you an example in a few moments.
Well, all this is very interesting, but it can't be much more than an exercise in literary gymnastics., right? Nope! This book is not only an award winner, but a best seller as well. In Canada, where it was first published, and where a best seller is roughly 10,000 copies or less, it has sold more than 20,000 copies and is in its 21st printing. Remember, this is a book of poetry. It now holds the number 1 poetry spot on Amazon.ca.
When it was published in the U.K. the publisher tentatively started with a print run of 6,000 hard-cover copies. Bök himself thought the publisher was demented to start with such a large number for a book of poetry. Bök did a five-minute interview on BBC Radio Today and in 48 hours the first print run had sold out. As of this writing, the book is number 8 on Amazon.uk and made the Times of London top 10 list for the year's best books.
Did Bök do something special in the interview? Not at all. He's done dozens of media interviews and he now has stock answers to standard questions. He can almost do them in his sleep. The BBC posted a few lines of poetry on its page and the book was then extensively reviewed and dismissed by those both on and off the net.
Time for a little unabashed, self promotion: If you haven’t asked for my Free CD, “How to Write a Book On Anything in 14 Days Guaranteed!” then you’re just plain nuts! It’s free, no charge, but you can bet this $100 CD will be carrying that price tag very shortly. How do you get it? Just email me at Free CD, Please, or CD_please@writeabooknow.com and make sure you include your name, your mailing address and your telephone number in the email. Now, back to the article…
It owes none of its success to U.S. hype. The book has never been published in the U.S. In fact, this book has profound problems despite its success elsewhere, in interesting a major publisher in the U.S. Or elsewhere. Cannongate Books, the U.K. publisher, agreed to publish it only after a strong of major U.K. publishers had turned it down. The U.K. publisher is now on the third ever-increasing print run.
Why is it successful? Here's what Bök says.
"I think that the work is kind of athletic acrobatic gesture and when people first hear about its constraints, they believe that the work must be impossible to accomplish and consequently I think people are perhaps purchasing the book out of curiosity upon discovering that, in fact, it does have literary merit despite its apparent gimmickry. The book also tends to polarize opinion among poetic readership. Poets tend to like the book a great deal and think it's a work of brilliance, or otherwise they dismiss the book as an absolute work of a charlatan who is merely indulging in a kind of literary gamesmanship that has no literary merit. And I suppose that conflict and controversy attracts interest.
"I've always said that the book dramatizes that even under duress language always finds a way to say something sublime or uncanny. The book seems very optimistic to me because it suggests that censorship of all sorts is really impossible, that language is like a weed. It's a living thing that's capable of surviving under all kinds of unusual environmental conditions. I really wanted to find out I fit was possible to say something of literary quality while handicapped by these awful and onerous constraints. And I think that's part of the message of the book. That people suddenly realize that language actually is an extremely versatile medium. That it's capable of doing things unexpected and surprising.
A sample…
Writing is inhibiting. Sighing, I sit, scribbling in ink this pidgin script. I sing with nihilistic witticism disciplining signs with trifling gimmicks – impish hijinks which delight stick sigils. Isn't it glib? Isn't it chic? I fit childish insights within rigid limits, writing shtick which might instill priggish misgivings in critics blind with hindsight. I dismiss nitpicking criticism which flirts with philistinism. I bitch; I kibbitz – griping whilst criticizing dimwits, sniping whilst indicting nitwits, dismissing simplistic thinking, in which philippic with is still illicit.
Your conclusion? Any book can be a best seller. The genre isn't important. The history isn't important, what publishers believe to be true isn't important. But no one has been able to create a definitive route to making a best selling book a reality. The best you can do is take what has worked for other books and apply it to your own. Make people aware of your book. Make your book unique (for whatever reason). And don't let anyone tell you it's not possible.
While we're on the topic of strategies, and if you haven't already done so, feel free to
subscribe to my FREE on-line course, "How To Write A Book On
Anything in 14 Days... or Less" it's packed with tips, techniques
and tactics for writing your book faster than you ever thought possible! But
ONLY if you're SERIOUS about writing a book NOW!
Wait a minute! You mean you still don't have your writing program, "How to Write A Book On Anything in 14 Days Or Less... Guaranteed!"? Well click How to Write A Book!
Time for a little unabashed, self promotion: If you haven’t asked for my Free CD, “How to Write a Book On Anything in 14 Days Guaranteed!” then you’re just plain nuts! It’s free, no charge, but you can bet this $100 CD will be carrying that price tag very shortly. How do you get it? Just email me at Free CD, Please, or CD_please@writeabooknow.com and make sure you include your name, your mailing address and your telephone number in the email.
Like this article? Link to it from your web site or blog -- just copy/paste this HTML:
Want more ideas for getting your book published free? Take a look at this article for all the answers you'll ever need.