The other day, I gave a fairly “meh” review to Scott McKain’s Collapse of Distinction. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the book, but rather that I wanted more than the scope of the book covered. He wrote about differentiation, and I thought that it was great, but wished that it was part of a larger work. In a lot of ways, this is silly. That’s like me wishing that the steak I ordered was also a skewer of grilled shrimp. Scott wrote the book he sought to write.
So, again, the book’s fine the way it is. I just came away wanting more than what he chose to write. Read other people’s much better reviews at Amazon, if you’d like ( Collapse of Distinction).
But here’s the story. Scott told me this in a follow-up email, with regards to my comment that the cover needed to change:
I went to B&N and asked for their input. I just thought it was a bit incongruent to write something creating distinction through, in part, listening to the customer — then, not ask the company I hoped to be the top retailer of my new product how I could make it better.
The head business buyer there read the book, went to the publisher and said that he wanted to do a push for the book — but absolutely hated the cover, and wasn’t willing to do anything for product he felt was so badly packaged. So, the publisher got him involved in the new design.
Think about that. Scott wanted the book to succeed. He wanted Barnes & Noble to be pleased with it. So he asked them what they wanted. Makes sense that if B&N is going to be a big distributor, you might want to care what they think of your design choices.
This one little story alone, about how Scott wanted to be sure his book was distinctive, was useful, was salable, made me go back and rethink my “meh.” I think he’s a smart cookie, so maybe you should skip my opinion and check out the book for yourself.
I’m allowed to change my vote, right?