Is a Best Selling Book Hiding in Your Computer?

Many authors, more than you could possibly believe, have the one of the greatest books of all time locked in a safe, file cabinet, file folder, or computer. Why have writers got a backlog of brilliant material hidden away? Because writers write. Prolific writers write prolifically.

Ask writers you meet at Mark’s Megas, at Book Expo America, at various writers meetings and workshops, or at the Maui Writers Conference, and you will find a lot of talented writers with their opus, looking for someone to partner with and market them and their book to greatness.

Two major writers you know are examples of authors who wrote more than their publishers would accept and found a way to publish their body of work.

The publishing industry historically wants only one book from an author every two years.

Stephen King had to write under several best-selling pseudonyms.

Nora Roberts told Mark that in longhand she can write 55,000 words a week that are nearly flawless and ready to publish and sell. Nora had to write many bestsellers under the pseudonym J.D. Robb to get her work out and be able to continue to write energetically.

Another way to do it is to find public domain books and material and re-author and re-copyright them. This is a big business that is little known.

In the book business, work that was created (fixed in tangible form for the first time) on or after January 1, 1978, is automatically protected from the moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for the author’s life plus an additional 70 years after the author’s death. In the case of “a joint work prepared by two or more authors who did not work for hire,” the term lasts for 70 years after the last surviving author’s death. Have your attorney check the status of material that you may be interested in adapting to see if it may be in the public domain already.

In the area of self-help-action books, Charles “Tremendous” Jones in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, created The Executive Books Company.

Tremendous, as he is affectionately called, rewrote the forewords and introductions to ancient classics like James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh and hundreds of others. He has inspired lots of nonreaders to become readers and is most known for his famous statement “You will be the same person you are today five years from now, except for the books you read, the audios you listen to, and the seminars that you attend.”

Charles has sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of these books via different means: from the platform when he speaks, in volume to major direct-selling companies like Amway, and book-by-book to his colleague speakers, friends, and customers.