What happens when you create a bigger game for your book?
I had been introduced to Nick Kettles after I told a friend I was looking to interview authors with self-publishing success stories. Intrigued by the title, The All Seeing Boy and the Blue Sky of Happiness on Nick’s promotional card, I looked up his web site http://www.newmythcreate.com to read his biog. I wanted to know the backstory, so called Nick for a chat. We connected, and discovered we shared similar values. I was impressed by the way he had created his own market for his book by combining intuition with large doses of ‘bare-faced gumption.’ My kind of person.
I started by asking him why he had chosen to self-publish vs. publishing with a mainstream publisher. It turned out that this wasn’t his first choice, and that like many authors, he came to self-publishing after being rejected by 10 mainstream publishers. At this point, Nick’s story was sounding all too familiar.
“I was appalled by the lack of dialogue and patronizing feedback from publishers who just didn’t see the market potential for my book, and were so risk averse.”
The rejections, however, proved to be a spur for him not to give up. Instead of shoving the manuscript in his desk drawer, as most disheartened authors do at this stage, he followed his intuition which was telling him that the book did have a valuable message to impart. This was an intuition which would ultimately result in the book receiving an endorsement from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. But that was all to come.
Nick decided to take the risk himself, and to explore publishing the story as an ebook. He had a sideline interest in ebooks, having completed a non-fiction ebook proposal for A C Black. Although the proposal was rejected, the research he had done for the proposal turned out to be useful. He knew that the way to successfully market the ebook was to create a viral campaign where it was forwarded on via email, a strategy he had seen work successfully in the personal development niche.
Before launching his ebook, Nick did his due diligence. He recognized that if his book was ever to be picked up by a mainstream publisher, they would need to see statistics to mitigate their risk. So he set about collecting them, partly, at this stage, out of revenge to prove them wrong. Some of the results were surprising:
The first thing he did was test his manuscript with 5 readers, all of whom were ‘blown away’ by the story. This gave him confidence to keep going.
He then asked a well-known print publisher “how many downloads would I need to get before you are interested.” The publisher didn’t have an answer, but guessed around 500. This didn’t seem to be a huge and unachievable number, as Nick knew from his reader feedback, (chosen carefully to represent a cross-section of parents, children and professionals), that there was an audience interested in the book’s message.
He targeted 50 expert endorsements and received 35 good ones, reader comments from authors like William Bloom, Dr. Aretoula Fullam, Carl Honore (author of In Praise of Slowness) and Susie Anthony (author of A Map to God).
And finally, he created a WordPress blog to promote the free ebook.
Over a period of 18 months, the book was downloaded over 450 times, and was translated into German. Not bad, although it hadn’t reached its tipping point yet. Nick began to question, ‘what next’, and to wonder whether it was time to quit. This proved to be another turning point, as he began to explicitly state his intention for the book.
Around this time he had been involved with playing The Bigger Game, which is a personal transformation model based on a board game which allows you to unfold a mission and purpose bigger than yourself. Nick’s goal up to this point had been the promotion of the universal message of loving kindness. He was motivated by a sense of adventure rather than money, and although he was somewhat irked by the publishing industry’s response, he was happy going solo.
Nick had written the book for his godson, out of a desire to create and share to move someone – he wrote it for an audience of 1 he really loved and at the heart of the book (some would say ‘the book’s message’), was the Tibetan principle and practice of ‘loving kindness’. As Dr Jo Nash, Lecturer in MA Psychoanalytic Studies at Sheffield University writes:
“This story is an evocative tale about how thoughts determine our experience,
and illustrates a simple technique for transforming our own and others suffering
through the practice of loving kindness.
A rather special tramp initiates a small boy into the magical world of ‘blue sky
thinking’, based upon an ancient Tibetan meditation practice of compassionate
visualisation. This aims to alleviate others suffering and create positive intentions in
the practitioner’s mind stream, so opening the heart. The results of blue sky thinking
are a re-enchantment with the world through an experience of the transformational
power of generating loving, compassionate feelings towards others.”
Knowing how easy it is for writers to be disheartened, I asked Nick what had kept him going. His reply goes to the core of what the book is about.
“I had a stake, a clear vision for the book, which was to spread the message of loving kindness to the world. The stake was a belief that fueled my actions, and was a place to recover to when I lost my way.
I got stuck however, and lost motivation and it was at that point we got His Holiness the Dalai Lama to read the book. That helped me to re-align my stake around a tangible cause – and suddenly the book was no longer dedicated to one child – my godson – but to 100,000s of Tibetan children”.
Nick believes that having a bigger wish for humanity creates a different alignment for a book’s success, rather than saying it is simply to meet a need in the market. This took him out of his place of ego and getting something back – it was no longer all about him, the ego of the writer.
One of the steps in the Bigger game, is to ask what kind of action related to this project would make you gulp? Nick, together with his partner Priya, brainstormed together, and decided to send the ebook to 10 prominent Tibetan Buddhists, including the actor and activist Richard Gere, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Out of those 10, he received only one reply, which was this:
“His Holiness is happy to have a copy of your e-book “The All Seeing Boy and the Blue Sky of
Happiness”. His Holiness liked the story and hopes it will help to spread the message of
loving-kindness among the readers. His Holiness sends his appreciation and gratitude to you
and your colleagues for this wonderful piece of work.”
Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Ambivalent about appearing egotistical in using this quotation to promote the book, Nick kept this quote to himself for 2 months. Eventually his partner Priya encouraged him to share the comments, so he went back to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Office and asked for permission to use his quote. They agreed, and suggested using the book to promote the Tibetan Children’s Villages. Nick agreed, and republished the book with a new introduction dedicating it to raising awareness of the Tibetan Children’s Villages’ mission to care for Tibetan children refugees whose purpose it is to meet the most critical educational needs of Tibetan refugee children, in Dharamsala, India.
Nick had finally found his bigger game for the book.
To date, the ebook has a readership of 1000, throughout 18 countries, and is slowly edging towards its tipping point.
If you have been inspired by this story, and would like to help promote the book’s message, please forward this article which contains the ebook link, on to as many people as you like. The ebook is free to download and share.
Reflecting on the many breakthroughs and learning points throughout this process, I asked Nick if he could have mapped this outcome from the beginning.
“I’m a curious person, and I treated this as an adventure. The strategy unfolded through trial and error, but it was underpinned by my strong intuition to share the message, and by my desire to create a personal touch by involving people in the project. However the real transformational shift happened when we made the dedication to a specific and tangible cause, rather than just the promotion of a universal spiritual message.”
Download The All Seeing Boy and the Blue Sky of Happiness by Nick Kettles
To contact Nick Kettles
Amanda Seyderhelm
November 2009
