A Billion Dollars

There’s a billion dollars on the sidewalk waiting for someone to pick it up.

It won’t even be that difficult. It would take a few years of very very hard work, then the momentum will take care of itself.

How can I say this? I answer with a question: Why was it so relatively easy, once he saw the open road, for Brian Epstein to create the phenomenon of the Beatles? Or for that matter, for a closer analogy, how does one explain Lady Gaga? Luck? But in both cases it wasn’t luck. It was making the right moves.

I look at early rock because that was the kick-off point. From 1955 to a little after 1980, the music industry multiplied in size and sales many times over. Pop music in its various forms became an integral part of everyone’s life. A huge success story.

My goal is to double or triple the literary biz. Very doable. There’s a great deal of untouched, unexplored territory. People who aren’t regular readers. You have to have ways, of course, to reach these people. You don’t do it by hitting them with Franzen’s “Freedom.” You instead need a product that’s cheap, fast, and very exciting.

The alternative is to try to squeeze in your little burger stand on an overdeveloped street where there’s already a few dozen. Or really, many times that..