I’ve tried to avoid worthless posts plugging my new book (in favor of wothwhile posts plugging my new book) but I just got a copy of the finished bound book in the mail today and I was surprised at my reaction. When I finally held my first book in my hands back in 2005, I was elated. But not when I held this one.
I wasn’t disappointed, but it sure didn’t feel the same as the first time.
The first time, I just couldn’t imagine beforehand what the book would be like—how large it would be, how it felt in your hands. I was even surprised it was so much thinner than my binder crammed with my manuscript. (Duh! It was printed on both sides of the paper so it was half as thick.)
But this time, it was just what I expected, no more and no less. I am happy it is finally done (now the interviews and the appearances start) but I didn’t have the same thrill of holding it in my hands for the first time. Neither did my family—my kids said, “That’s great, dad” when they were clearly excited the first time.
I think this book is better than the first. And it is a business book, so the publisher is expecting higher sales. So I should be more excited about it. And I am excited about people reading it. But I didn’t get excited as much by holding a copy. Holding a book you wrote is about the same every time. Next week I have planned to be excited about people starting to get it in their hands and read it. (I have marked my calendar for September 19 to be thrilled beyond words.)
This isn’t bad. It’s just human nature. It’s never as exciting as the first time, no matter what it is. I think marketers forget this sometimes. We get all excited about what we are working on and we forget how hard it is to surprise a customer.
It happens even to great marketers. I really think Steve Jobs expected the headlines for their latest announcement to be about the new iPods but it was the $200 iPhone price cut that stole the headlines. Why did this happen? Because incremental improvements to the iPod are not as surprising as a one-third price cut for their hottest product.
As marketers, we need to remember how hard it is to surprise people. We need to focus on doing so (to be remarkable as Seth Godin likes to say) but to remember how difficult it is to really be remarkable just because you’ve done it before. I think that it is just as hard to surprise every time, no matter your track record.
