Nazi Nexus Review

BY RICHARD PACHTER

Nazi Nexus: America's Corporate Connections to Hitler's Holocaust. Edwin Black.

Author Edwin Black is a child of Holocaust survivors. When he first saw an IBM card-sorting machine as part of an exhibit at the United States Holocaust Museum, he vowed to learn more about this machine and the role of its manufacturer. The result was 2001's IBM and the Holocaust., a devastating account of the venerated American firm's hand-in-hand collaboration with Adolf Hitler's Nazi government in identifying, organizing and exterminating Jews and others who were deemed non-Aryan and undesirable. Black's exhaustive investigation, abetted by an international research team, resulted in worldwide headlines — and stonewalling, obfuscation and denials by its subject — which continues to this day.

Black's next book, War Against the Weak (2003), studied the role of the fake science of eugenics and its rise in the United States in the early 20th century, which provided the rationale for Hitler's racial policies. In shocking detail, Black related the subjugation, sterilization and murder of thousands of Americans solely on the basis of their race, country of origin or failure to pass culturally biased ''intelligence'' tests. This was fueled by xenophobia and ignorance, and supported -- astonishingly -- by corporate names like Carnegie, Rockefeller and others.

NEW WORK
Black's new Nazi Nexus uses these earlier works as primary sources. But this new volume offers a compact and highly concentrated dose of history that powerfully demonstrates the deleterious effects of the convergence of avarice and ideology, American-style.

The author's premise is that American businesses beyond IBM were also complicit with Hitler's rise to power, conquest of Europe and war against the United States and that many of their activities continued through the war. In addition to doing business with the Nazis, philanthropic organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation, for example, contributed the equivalent of millions of dollars in support of German institutions devoted to eugenics, which served to legitimatize racism by attaching a ''scientific'' basis for it, according to Black. The ties between German and American researchers in this area are astounding.

Black subsequently cast his attention to our insatiable consumption of petroleum in Internal Combustion, which also covered the role of General Motors in supplying Hitler with a fleet of vehicles that enabled the Nazi blitzkrieg across Poland and other nations. It was made possible, Black writes, by the close cooperation between the Germans and a wholly owned GM operation, Opel, which manufactured a light truck called the Blitz, hence ''blitzkrieg,'' the lightning attack. Black writes about GM CEO Alfred P. Sloan, who not only collaborated with the Nazis, but also worked hard to organize opposition to President Franklin Roosevelt's administration whenever possible.

NOT JUST COMPILATION
More than just a ''greatest hits'' offering, Nazi Nexus brings several seemingly disparate threads together to create a fuller portrait of this dreadful chapter of our history. Though one may wish to see more details of other notorious American Nazi enablers (Google ''Bush'' and ''Nazi'' to read news reports of the former president's grandfather's collaboration, for example), Edwin Black has done more than his share. If you missed his earlier books, this is a great place to begin, and if you read one or two but not the rest, Nazi Nexus ties them all together succinctly and frighteningly.

Racism as American as Apple Pie

History of the "science" of eugenics
BY RICHARD PACHTER

War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. Edwin Black. Dialog Press. 592 pages.

The promise of controlling natural biological phenomena affords endless opportunities for commerce. Biotechnology and genomics will most certainly play a huge role in the future of business.

But some people are deeply concerned with the morality of manipulating these processes, fearing that the presumed objectivity of science will inevitably be tainted by human ignorance and bias.

These fears are serious and not without foundation, especially when placed in a historical context. When technology and biology intersect, there's a danger that the profit motive is one of the least objectionable forces that come into play.

In his previous book, IBM and the Holocaust, Edwin Black demonstrated how early computer technology enabled Hitler's ''final solution.'' Now Black, aided by a small army of researchers and scholars, uncovers the roots of the Nazis' obsession with racial purity and their devotion to the Nordic ideal of blond hair and blue eyes, a notion popularized in the United States, not Germany. But the effects weren't just cosmetic.

Writes Black: "Throughout the first six decades of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Americans and untold numbers of others were not permitted to continue their families by reproducing. Selected because of their ancestry, national origin, race or religion, they were forcibly sterilized, wrongly committed to mental institutions, where they died in great numbers, prohibited from marrying and sometimes even unmarried by state bureaucrats.

"In America, this battle to wipe out whole ethnic groups was fought not by armies with guns nor by hate sects at the margins. Rather, this pernicious white-gloved war was prosecuted by esteemed professors, elite universities, wealthy industrialists and government officials colluding in a racist, pseudoscientific movement called eugenics. The purpose: create a superior, Nordic race.''

Eugenics was derived from the work of such scientists as Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel. It was further refined by the studies of Francis J. Galton, a 19th-century Englishman with an insatiable curiosity about all aspects of human life and behavior. Galton — who introduced the use of fingerprints in criminal investigations and charted the first weather maps — coined the word ''eugenics'' to describe his studied pursuit of the quantification of human heredity and behavior.

According to Black, Galton had not quite put together enough science to back up the theories, but his ideas later found fertile ground in the New World. Many Americans showed great enthusiasm for Utopian ideals, among them the curious notion that racial purity was highly desirable. The America of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had begun to experience an influx of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe — immigrants who were decidedly not Nordic. Eugenics fit neatly into these settlers' growing xenophobia.

Black chronicles the rise of eugenics and its marriage to racism in America and its subsequent adoption by a young German corporal. Adolph Hitler, in fact, studied several American eugenics texts while jailed for participating in mob action in 1924 and even penned fan letters to the authors.

War Against the Weak is hardly escapist fare, though Black's prose makes a difficult subject matter far less tendentious than one might expect. As we consider the commercial possibilities afforded by gene mapping, cloning and the like, this book should be required reading for leaders seeking to avoid the inevitable penalties bestowed upon those who fail to learn the lessons of history.

published 9/15/03 in The Miami Herald

Book Marketing 2009: Take it where you get it

E-mail from author Edwin Black:
Hello all... at about 8:25 today Good Morning America was doing a segment on how to burglar proof your house. Then they showed a hollowed out book to hide jewelry in. It was Banking on Baghdad by Edwin Black, which they showed a close-up of for a long time. The reporter said, "Now nobody is going to look in Banking on Baghdad for jewelry!" I have long argued that my books have lasting value. This proves it. Also see the book on the icon link at bottom right. The book question shows up at around the 3:30 minute mark for 30-seconds in this 4-minute. You can't wrap jewelry in a newspaper. Books are always your best value. Enjoy.


My review of Banking on Baghdad is here.

Next from Edwin Black

Nazi Nexus: America's Corporate Connections to Hitler's Holocaust. Edwin Black. Dialog Press. 192 pages.

Haven't read it yet, but you can pre-order here.

IBM and The Holocaust

In early 2001, I learned of a new book that was embargoed before release — not an atypical occurrence or something that portends significance; advance copies of books that may possess newsworthiness in the opinion of a publicist or publisher may include a non-disclosure promise that reviewers are asked to sign, or they don't get a book. But that doesn't mean that the book contains anything important; I had to sign a non-disclosure statement before receiving a copy of a relatively innocuous biography of mogul David Geffen.

But with a title like "IBM and the Holocaust," I knew that something was up.

I tracked down a copy, read it quickly and wrote the following review.



IBM'S CONNECTION TO NAZI GERMANY: THE UNTOLD STORY
BY RICHARD PACHTER

IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation. Edwin Black. Crown. 528 pages.

Edwin Black's book came out two weeks ago with no advance publicity. In fact, the book was virtually kept under wraps, with hardly any information offered to booksellers or the media. Nonetheless, as of this writing, it is a best-seller.

The subject matter is explosive: the collaboration between International Business Machines and the government of Adolph Hitler. According to Black, the firm was not merely a passive order-filling vendor, but an eager and proactive partner who enabled and empowered the Nazi Reich with their technology. Specifically, IBM, (a company founded by a U.S. Census Bureau employee who invented a punch-card machine to automate the counting) devised, sold and supported a system for recording the German population's ethnic make-up. This allowed the extermination of Jews and other so-called non-Aryan religious and cultural groups deemed unacceptable by the Nazis.

One of the biggest mysteries of the war, according to Black, was the uncanny prescience displayed by Germany in identifying and organizing its population and those of the nations it conquered. When he stood in front of an IBM card-sorting machine on display in Washington at the United States Holocaust Museum in 1993, Black, accompanied by his parents-themselves Polish Holocaust survivors-vowed to learn more about the role of this machine and its manufacturer.

"What was the connection of this gleaming black, beige and silver machine, squatting silently in this dimly lit museum, to the millions of Jews and other Europeans who were murdered-and murdered not just in a chaotic split-second as a casualty of war, but in a grotesque and protracted twelve-year campaign of highly organized humiliation, dehumanization, and then ultimately extermination."

"For years after that chance discovery, I was shadowed by the realization that IBM was somehow involved in the Holocaust in technologic ways that had not yet been pieced together. Dots were everywhere. The dots needed to be connected.''

The result is an exhaustively researched, highly detailed look at IBM, its history and business dealings. Thomas Watson, the company's undisputed MaximumLeader, is portrayed as a ruthless, amoral, avaricious operator. Just weeks before the Nazi's key election victory, Watson invested millions in fortifying his German operation, ready to assume an active, hands-on role in accommodating-and anticipating-der Furher's needs. The subsequent collection, organization and analysis of data, married to the Nazi's pseudo-scientific theories of eugenics and race, streamlined the process of mass murder on an unheard of scale. Furthermore, IBM technology, Black asserts, also enabled the German war machine's mighty manufacturing and distribution prowess. For these contributions, Watson received the Merit Cross of the German Eagle in 1937, a medal second only in prestige (per Black and his sources) to Hitler's Grand German Cross. Watson kept the award until a year before Pearl Harbor, well into the European war, and the persecution and extermination of millions.

The question is raised how Watson and other IBM employees managed to get away with this murderous collaboration, how they escaped the notice of the press and the government. The answer, naturally, is complicated. Though much of the firm's activities at home and abroad were reported in newspapers (television news reporting was virtually nonexistent, and radio hardly a credible news medium) there was little effort made to "connect the dots'' — with one significant exception. In 1942, an investigation by a minor U.S. government bureaucrat did, indeed, make the necessary connections, but IBM, by then the world's biggest corporation, was also an integral part of the Allied war effort, and had been careful to create an unimpeachable image of patriotism. The investigation was abandoned.

Black's book is, in many ways, like Spielberg's movie, Schindler's List; IBM and the Holocaust is an ugly story, hidden for years, told by a master craftsman in a compelling way. More than just another Holocaust tale, the author paints a remarkable portrait of how a powerful company created enormous opportunities, irrespective of moral concerns and consequences. It's a chilling lesson in politics and business that remains potent, relevant, and highly revelatory.

Published February 26, 2001 in The Miami Herald.

The Plan

Here's the actual review. (I like to give The Herald an exclusive for at least a day.)

Conquering our oil addiction
Edwin Black's book is enlightening without being at all depressing. No hyperbole or hysterics, but some suspension of disbelief is required.

BY RICHARD PACHTER
published 10/13/08 in The Miami Herald

The Plan: How to Rescue Society the Day the Oil Stops — or the Day Before. Edwin Black. Dialog Press. 192 pages.

I was expecting a dark tale of gloom and doom, a post-apocalyptic tableau of a born-again, prehistoric oil-free society. After all, Edwin Black is the author of the chillingly revelatory IBM and the Holocaust, a disheartening exposé of America's disgusting attraction to the racist pseudo-science of eugenics, War Against The Weak, and other sobering and impeccably researched investigative works.

Surely Black's new book about ending our country's self-destructive addiction to fossil fuels would be brilliant, but dark and deeply depressing.

Wrong!

Black states the problem clearly and without hyperbole or hysterics. He then presents a sane and remarkably rational step-by-step scheme for quitting our fossil fuel dependency. Along the way, he cites published, noncontroversial works plus his own primary research, which keeps the proceedings well out of the realm of science fiction, except perhaps for one element (I'll get to that in a bit).

IT'S NO ACCIDENT
The fact that this unending and expanding thirst for oil is the world's economic and political choke point is no accident, as Black recalls from his previous book, Internal Combustion. Throughout history, fuel has been controlled by political and commercial interests that were, as now, two sides of the same coin. And despite the fact that oil pollutes, affects all other prices and forces us to play nice with interests that are antithetical to our own, a huge socioeconomic infrastructure supports and promotes its perpetuation. But rather than pound the obvious, Black calmly sets the table, then moves on to his recommendations for extricating ourselves from the nightmare.

RATIONAL IDEAS
The required actions are all rational and involve the use of existing technologies -- electricity, bio-fuels, hydrogen fuel cells and more. Black lays it out week by week, with each successive step building upon previous ones to move away from the petroleum morass.

The auto industry will have to be a large part of the solution. One would consider this a no-brainer with the economy in the dumper right now. Manufacturing and selling gas-free vehicles could revive the industry.

But according to Black, automakers that have already developed the technology are reluctant to fully roll out new vehicles to compete with their large stock of unsold gas guzzlers. But the good news is that they would be forced to do so as their business spirals downward.

The challenge is to get past the incumbent infrastructure. Between lobbyists, politicians and the public, the addiction to oil is entrenched. That's where The Plan requires some suspension of disbelief. With their profits on the line, we can expect a fierce and concerted campaign of fear, uncertainty, doubt and obfuscation to dissuade the migration from oil. The government, which should be part of the solution, is still a large part of the problem. The EPA, for example, makes conversion of internal combustion engines to alternative fuels more difficult, according to Black. And its determined indifference toward mileage standards has encouraged inefficiency, too.

So is Edwin Black's Plan the road map to our future? Maybe, but at worst, it's an excellent point of departure from our current suicidal path. Highly recommended.

Edwin Black Q&A

An edited version of this interview appears in the October 13th edition of The Miami Herald along with a review of the new book, The Plan.

Though based in Washington, DC, South Florida seems to be Edwin Black’s second home. The peripatetic author’s current and previous books were launched here, he frequently speaks at local events and visits to recharge a bit between writing and the promoting.

I first met Black after reviewing IBM and the Holocaust and have followed his successive work with great interest. During a recent visit in late August, we had a quick chat over lunch, then a flurry of phone calls and e-mails that resulted in this colloquy.

Why did you write this book? Specifically, why did you select this topic and the form it took; literally, a plan?
The Plan was an outgrowth of my commitment to tackle America’s addiction to oil in the age of petro-terrorism and petro-politics. I’ve spent my life chronicling a terrible past in hopes of preserving a precious future. My oil addiction books — this is my second — documents a precious past juxtaposed against a terrible future. Our addiction to oil is a clear and present danger. But The Plan is not about energy independence which is, at best, a distant goal. The Plan outlines how to recognize and survive an energy Pearl Harbor imposing an oil interruption on America—this can come at any moment. This crisis will require a plan to survive. Amazingly, no government official, local or federal, has even discussed such a plan — but our allies have.

How long did it take to research and writing the Plan?
Most of my books require one to two years of intense writing and research, much of it in dusty archives located in numerous countries. The Plan was different. Centering on the confluence of historic precedent, existing energy policy and the threats against the Strait of Hormuz, I was able to write this book in about six months with the help of only half dozen research assistants. My established paper-intensive, on-site documentation techniques were converted to electronic and computerized methods. Therefore, I was able to footnote every paragraph and organize the documentation as usual, but using Internet databases and reducing everything to a series of Adobe PDFs, rather than yards of archival documents.

In your earlier books, you encountered resistance from some of the companies that were profiled, specifically IBM and GM. Who wouldn't speak to you this time, and did they seek to prevent others from cooperating with you?
This time is was certain groups within the Department of Energy, and certain industrial association such as the American Trucking Association and oil industry group. But The Plan yielded a tremendous turnaround in one company, General Motors. In my previous investigations, General Motors would not answer any questions or even communicate. They tried to stonewall and rebut their involvement with the Hitler regime and the subversion of America’s trolley system. After three years of the most negative publicity based on my writings and facing bankruptcy, GM underwent a complete turnaround. The response time of their media department was this time measured in minutes — indeed moments. This time, they were honest, admitted all their past misdeeds, but were also quick to explain their fresh new commitment to the electrification of their fleet beginning 2010. If GM can be believed, it will be a major part of the solution to getting off oil.

Has your book reached either of the presidential candidates? If so, any feedback?
In my opinion, nothing can reach any of the presidential candidates. No matter how good a plan is, they will be oblivious to it. Between McCain offering a $300,000,000 bonus for a battery invented decades ago and Obama offering to position one million plug-in hybrids seven years from today, when there will probably be 300 million gas guzzlers on the road, increasing at the rate of 1.5 million per month, it became clear to me that while someone needs to provide them with a copy of The Plan, I think they are too busy making empty promises and using alt energy buzzwords to absorb any new ideas. Between the old guard and the new guard, in the event of an oil interruption, America will discover that its leadership has been uniformly negligent. There will be a Katrina-style catastrophe in every city from South Beach to Seattle. No one will care until it is too late.

Beyond promoting this book, what's the next step for you in trying to secure the implementation of The Plan?
I’m just one man working with no help with no one’s permission rallying a diverse national movement of alt energy advocates who are only now awakening to the reality that beyond the warm and fuzzy goal of energy independence, there is no plan for an energy interruption, which could occur at any moment. My website www.planforoilcrisis.com will bring people together to develop such plans. Not only am I speaking to public groups around the country in book and author events, I am meeting with key industry leaders, employers and organizations explaining exactly how they can help get a plan for their company, association and community. In fact, my very first meeting the day before I officially launched the book in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was a closed-door briefing with two key magnates in the transportation sector who are determined to move aggressively to adopt a plan and to help get our country off oil. But I have found too many are reacting too slowly to the necessity to learn about the coming hurricane in the Gulf…not the Gulf of Mexico but the Persian Gulf, which holds the key to 40 percent of all seaborne oil, 18 percent of the global supply and 15 to 20 percent of America’s oil lifeline. It can all be shut down by Iran or Al Qaeda at a slender choke point just two miles wide in each direction called the Strait of Hormuz.

What role does Nova University play in your book promotion?
Nova Southeastern University has been the launch pad for each of my books during the past several years. To me, Nova represents the most enlightened university management I have encountered, willing to commit its resources, its campus and its support to new ideas and the pursuit of new revelations. I have found Nova particularly interested in helping the country get off of oil by promoting the discussion and jumping at every chance to adopt new technology as soon as it’s available. Unlike most universities which seek the aggrandizement of their own institution to the exclusion of others, I have found Nova exercises profound caring and sharing with the community.

Next book, tying all the American corporate Holocaust collaborators? Then what?
My next book is Nazi Nexus, already announced and should appear by the end of the year. Nazi Nexus will connect the dots like never before demonstrating the indispensable and pivotal involvement of America’s major corporate entities in the Holocaust—it’s inspiration, it’s planning, its execution and its cover-up. These include, at the top of the list, IBM followed by General Motors, Ford, the Carnegie Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation. Assembled in one volume, the indictment should be devastating.

And after Nazi Nexus?
Another megabook just as frightening for our future as anything I’ve written about our past. It’s called codenamed Project R, and I can’t wait. But like all my projects, it will be a secret until it releases.

Coming soon

New book from the author of IBM and the Holocaust, Internal Combustion etc.

For authors, marketing is mightier than the pen

(above, novelist Joseph Finder)

It's not enough to write a great book. Authors are now expected to play an active role in book marketing and promotion. In this brave new world of always-on media, scribes are expected to either pursue or make themselves available to every potential reader.

Though there have always been opportunities for interviews, reviews, in-store signings, book fairs, seminars and broadcast appearances, now publishers want to make sure no avenue for multimedia exposure is overlooked as a book competes with every other form of entertainment.

Most book companies have full-time staff devoted to pursuing publicity for their books and authors, but nothing is guaranteed.

"Publicity departments are too small and stretched too thin," author Joseph Finder (pictured above), author of "High Crimes," "Company Man" and "Paranoia," said in a telephone interview from his Boston office. "They do their best, but there’s always another book coming out and I want to make sure that mine gets the attention it deserves before they move on to the next one."
But he notes his publisher, St. Martin’s Press, "was extremely cooperative when I came up with the idea of including an audio CD” to promote his current book, “Killer Instinct.” “From the CEO on down, they’re totally behind my books. In fact, the marketing director is a fan," he said.

Still, Finder felt the need to do more. “I paid for my Web site josephfinder.com, hired someone to design it and someone else to run it. It’s impossible to gauge, but I see more and more response from reviewers, journalists and booksellers, and readers communicate with me, too,” he said. “Everyone likes to get inside information and have a connection.”

Making that connection also includes putting up special Web sites in countries where his books sell especially well, such as the Netherlands.

Edna Buchanan, a Miami Beach novelist and one-time Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for The Miami Herald, said she works closely with her publisher’s publicity department and will do book tours and almost anything else they suggest to sell her books.

"But I hate to leave Miami," said Buchanan. "I’m basically a shy person but also I don’t want to miss anything if I’m out on the road. Plus I don’t like to go anyplace where they only speak one language and don’t have Cuban coffee."
But with her new book, "Love Kills," which brings her recurring character Britt Montero together with the Cold Case Squad, due out in June, she expects to hit the road again if that’s what her publisher wants.

Lissa Warren, senior director of publicity for Da Capo Books, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., said authors should first try to figure out how much of a priority their book is to the publisher. "Is it in their catalog, and if so, how does it compare to other books? Is there a two-page spread? Is there a large print run? A big advance? A tour? Have they sent out galleys to reviewers?" are the questions that should be asked, she said.

"They should at least be able to secure reviews from the Big Four trade publications — Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist and Library Journal — too,” said Warren, a poet herself and author of "The Savvy Author’s Guide to Book Publicity: A Comprehensive Resource: From Building the Buzz to Pitching the Press.”"

"Some authors may initiate their own campaigns, often with the knowledge and blessings of their publisher, but sometimes without," Warren said, adding that independent public relations firms may also be hired to work on a project.

"It’s big bucks," said Les Standiford, author of the series of novels featuring South Florida-based sleuth John Deal, as well as several historical works, including “Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America."
"The plain fact is that in an industry where $25,000 is a substantial advance, after your agent’s commission, taxes and a little money to live on, how much is left? My publishers have always been collaborative and like to see me tour and do signings, but do you know how many books you usually sell at a signing?" he asked. “Six to eight."
"So if you do a 10-city tour with average expense of a thousand dollars a day, how much does that work out to be, per copy?"
Standiford, who heads the creative writing program at Florida International University, chuckled and added, "But the publisher thinks it’s worth it and that it helps with word of mouth, which is how most books sell anyway. I’m fine with that, because it’s the most valuable and effective thing I can do to help sell my books."
Does Standiford teach his FIU students how to promote their work? "No," he said. "That would be more of a business course, I’d imagine, but we do cover how to present material to an agent, which is an important step in the process."
Investigative author Edwin Black, who wrote “IBM and the Holocaust,” “War on the Weak” and “Banking on Baghdad,” is a skilled and tireless promoter for his books.

After conducting the substantial research behind his current book, "Internal Combustion" — which chronicles the history of the energy industry and the suppression of alternate technologies, Black became a road warrior.

"Publishers know that in addition to getting a book, they’re getting me," he said several weeks ago while in Broward County to launch the campaign for “Internal Combustion." "I’m out there, meeting with people at schools, organizations and other places that make sense."
Black, who lives in Washington, wrote and helped produce a video trailer for his book that was completed with the assistance of volunteers, packaged on DVD and distributed online through YouTube. He also works with his publisher to secure reviews in print publications, as many authors do.

Major online booksellers such as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com also get into the act by inviting customers to contribute reviews and some have become quite prolific, with devoted followings.

But there are no editors or gatekeepers to ensure the authenticity of the reviews and the legitimacy of the reviewers. Political books, for example, are often critiqued on the basis of the author’s personality or party affiliation rather than the content of the work in question.

By far the most influential television venue for books is Oprah Winfrey’s syndicated weekday show. Her mere mention of a title sends thousands to bookstores.

"When that happens, publishers have to make sure that there are books in shops to capitalize on it," said Da Capo’s Warren.

Some authors are particularly savvy about using the electronic media to promote their work.

Prolific British fantasy writer Warren Ellis ("Planetary," "Transmetropolitan," "Fell"), sends short email messages several times a week, under the heading “Bad Signal,” to fans and others who sign up to receive them. He comments on life, asks questions that come up as he writes his stories and scripts, and announces upcoming projects as well as on-sale dates of books. He even mentions quantities of distributor stock since a number of retailers and other professionals are also on his list.

Ellis rarely makes personal appearances, but his postings to his own website and on other online venues project a presence well beyond his British home base.

Writer and marketing guru Seth Godin’s books are often accompanied with clever marketing campaigns. A colorful cereal box, boldly announcing, Free Prize Inside, contained not a decoder ring or tiny plastic soldier, but a copy of Godin’s book of the same name.

Each of his books is foreshadowed and accompanied by a flurry of online promotions, special offers, podcasts, and blog postings from myriad Web sites. Godin, who lives outside New York City, is also a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences and has deftly managed to keep his message consistent while offering fresh nuances and new insights to cultivate and retain a devoted following.

In response to an e-mail asking about how he markets his books, Godin wrote: "The unspoken truth is that except for perhaps 250 giant books every year out of 75,000 published, the publisher is expecting the author to do 100 percent of the sales and promotion. Because authors don’t understand that, they end up bitter, angry and perhaps destitute.
"The most successful authors drive from store to store in a sort of perma-tour, selling books out of the back of their car or just working with individual stores to make their titles stand out," he wrote. "Oliver North made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling his remaindered autobiography at speeches to right-wing groups. This approach is antediluvian and time-consuming, but it works."

Godin said he works closely with his publisher, Portfolio, to create and market his books. "Once we hammer out a plan, they do a terrific job in supporting it. There are other publishers who are far more conservative, far more certain that the tried and true is the only path. The problem with that approach is that it is wrong," he wrote.

Godin said he doesn’t have a blog to sell books — but rather to spread ideas. "I don’t flog the blog that hard, which certainly costs me short-term book sales. But that’s OK, because the point is to keep the ideas moving around. I think it’s pretty safe to say that the investment in the blog has certainly paid off in increased book sales over time," he wrote.

His advice to authors is to get out and really work for their books: "You need a platform to make a published book work. If you don’t have a platform yet, you should self-publish your first book and give away enough copies to get a platform, and then use that platform to engage your readers so that you can sell the second one to a publisher and quit your day job."
Originally published in The Miami Herald, November 2006

© 2006, 2008 The Pachter Family Trust