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December 11, 2007
The necessity and art of tooting your own horn.
Everyone from Donald Trump and Little Richard to Ralph Nader and Lance Armstrong does it--just differently--and you should, too. Only a few of us in life don't need to get that light to shine out from under that confused and conflicted place in each of us where we practice humility and good manners. Two years ago over the New Year's holiday, a man in Charleston, S.C.--a lawyer-professor-author who looked vaguely familiar--struck up a conversation with me. His wife joined us. The conversation turned from law to books, and I learned he had written one on the 1925 John Scopes trial. At the time, I was looking for a literary agent for two very different and festering book proposals, one on client-customer service in the expanding global services markets, and the other, a labor of love, on France and America between 1776 and 1789. He had great advice. Getting excited, I asked him about what book agent or agencies he used himself. He said he didn't use an agent. Surprised, I peppered him with questions on how that was possible. Finally, he said quietly, and almost embarrassed: "A while back I won a Pulitzer Prize, so I guess...I don't need an agent anymore". Had to drag that out. Well, the rest of us need to "brag" a little, and it's all in the details. But how? For more on this, and a classy example of the genre, see "Tell the World About Your Successes" at Stephen Seckler's Counsel to Counsel.
Posted by JD Hull at December 11, 2007 11:59 PM