Content Marketing Today

Content Marketing Miracle: McGraw-Hill Just Bought the Rights to Our Book!

We also signed with a top tier agent whose company has handled multimillion copy business bestsellers.

This might seem just like an excuse for self-promotion.  But really and truly, it’s an example of how content marketing can work to achieve an astonishing result that neither Joe nor I would have anticipated when we began work on Get Content. Get Customers. in August 2007.

We decided to self publish because the efforts of rookie authors to sign with a major publishing company would at best have delayed the publication of the book by six to 12 months.  And, at worst, been an exercise in frustration in addition to wasted time.

Here’s how content marketing made it all happen:

An acquisitions editor from McGraw-Hill Professional, Donya Dickerson, spotted a white paper that Joe Pulizzi had written on the web.  The white paper referenced our book.  She then bought a copy.  She really liked the book and contacted one of her company’s other authors, Rohit Barghava, who had written a blurb for the book.  He connected her to Joe.  She asked a simple question, “Would you be interested in selling us the rights to your book?”

The answer was a theoretical yes.  However, we knew that we knew absolutely nothing about doing a deal with a big-time publishing company.  Therefore we decided, after getting a lot of online advice, that we needed an agent.  Normally, that is easier said than done.  A publishing truism seems to be that it is even harder to get a good agent than to get a good publisher.  And, here we were going about it completely backwards.  Publisher first.  Agent second.

It turns out that having a high-end publisher ready and willing to do a deal made it easier to get an agent–and in our case, an agent who is not normally accepting new book submissions.  The connection again came through Rohit, whom Joe and I had gotten to know through our content marketing odyssey.  He recommended Steve Hanselman, whose company, Level 5 Media, has played a major role in the success of bestsellers, The 4-Hour Work Week and The E-Myth Revisited.

Joe and I did the deal with Steve after just a few phone conversations.  Steve, in turn, did the deal with McGraw-Hill Professional in less than a week.

The bottom line: content marketing got us a great book deal with a great company through a great agent. 

Of course, we put an enormous amount of time and effort as well as a judicious dollar investment in the creation and promotion of Get Content. Get Customers.  We did everything possible to make the book relevant and compelling in the way that we urge other marketers to do.

If we had not created the content through the book and if we had not had an active web presence through our respective websites, it is unlikely that either McGraw-Hill or Steve Hanselman would have been likely to work with us.

Oh, a little side note: Since our own 1st edition hardcover of Get Content. Get Customers., may soon become an expensive collectors item, you’ll probably want to click here to get your copy right now before the price of this future collectible goes through the roof.