{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"286. Nobody Knows Anything","description":"In 1977, Richard Bachman published his first novel. In an unusual move for a first-time author, Bachman made his publisher promise to release his books with hardly any marketing. Bachman stacked the dice against himself Bachman\u2019s books were to skip the hardcover format and go straight to bargain-bin paperback \u2013 the kind you\u2019d find mixed in with other nobody-authors, at a truck stop on I-80, somewhere near Grand Island. He also insisted he was unavailable for interviews, which cut his books off from a key marketing channel. Most publishers wouldn\u2019t agree to such bizarre terms, but they were especially excited to release Bachman\u2019s books. But he still did pretty well Today, forty-five years later, most people have unsurprisingly never heard of Richard Bachman. His books did alright, though: His fourth was optioned for film rights, his fifth sold 28,000 copies, and he got a couple letters a month from fans of his writing. Bachman wasn\u2019t Bachman But his books were so good, one Washington D.C. bookstore clerk was suspicious. Steve Brown dug through the Library of Congress copyright records, and confirmed his suspicion: Richard Bachman was Stephen King. Why did one of the world\u2019s hottest authors publish \u2013 in the same genre \u2013 under a pen name? At the time, King\u2019s publisher had an almost-superstitious belief that if they published more than one of his books in a year, they would distract readers from This Year\u2019s Book (that they let King publish Bachman books with so little fanfare speaks to their conviction in this belief). King later described it as like being married to someone with a drastically-smaller sexual appetite: He had to find an outlet somewhere else. \u201cEither find an audience or disappear quietly\u201d While he was publishing under a pen name, he figured he\u2019d conduct an experiment. He wondered, to what degree was his massive success due to luck? So, as he has said, Stephen King \u201cstacked the dice\u201d against Richard Bachman. He wanted Bachman\u2019s books \u201cto go out there and either find an audience or just disappear quietly.\u201d After word got out that Richard Bachman was Stephen King, his books sold even better. That book that sold 28,000 copies for Richard Bachman \u2013 Thinner \u2013 quickly sold ten times that as a King title. Is seven years & five books long enough? At first glance, King\u2019s Bachman experiment is an open-and-shut case: Bachman\u2019s books sold way more copies with Stephen King\u2019s name on their covers. But King himself feels his experiment got cut short. He said of Bachman, who he killed off in a press release by \u201ccancer of the pseudonym,\u201d \u201cHe died with that question \u2013 is it work that takes you to the top or is it all just a lottery? \u2013 still unanswered.\u201d Bachman worked in anonymity for seven years, and released five books \u2013 how is that not enough? Even the pros don\u2019t know William Goldman was a two-time Academy-Award-Winning screenwriter. He wrote the screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, and Misery (which was supposed to be Richard Bachman\u2019s sixth book, but instead was released by Stephen King). In Goldman\u2019s book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, he pointed out that in one typical movie season, sixteen major films were released by the major studios. One was a runaway success, and ten of those sixteen lost more than ten million dollars. Why did those studios bother making the stinkers? Because, as Goldman said: Nobody knows anything...... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what\u2019s going to work. Every time out it\u2019s a guess and, if you\u2019re lucky, an educated one. Nobody knowing anything takes the appeal out of King\u2019s Bachman story. It sounded like the perfect story for aspiring creatives to point to and say, \u201cLook, the universe is conspiring against me. If you don\u2019t have a big name already, you\u2019re screwed.\u201d Nothing guarantees creative success But really, nothing can guarantee success. You could say you have to have connections, and I could point out that Richard Pryor\u2019s son played at the Apollo, and got booed off the stage. You could say you need name recognition, and I could tell you that the 28,000 copies Bachman\u2019s fifth book sold was four-thousand more than Stephen King\u2019s own fourth book sold. You could say all you need is your big break, and I could remind you that Steve Martin was on The Tonight Show \u2013 the big break in the comedy business at the time \u2013 sixteen times before someone recognized him in public. Nobody knows anything. If movie studios knew blockbusters, that\u2019s all they\u2019d make. If record companies knew hits, that\u2019s all they\u2019d release. If publishers knew bestsellers, that\u2019s all they\u2019d launch. And if venture capitalists knew \u201cunicorns,\u201d they\u2019d just be called capitalists. Quality can\u2019t hide Nobody knows anything, but somebody knows something. As Goldman himself said, you can make an educated guess. I bet he\u2019d agree that a ninety-minute cellphone video of a ham sandwich sitting on a plate is unlikely to fill theaters. There was another author, named Robert Galbraith, whose debut novel didn\u2019t do great. It sold 1,500 copies in the first few months \u2013 not bad either. But there was something fishy about Galbraith\u2019s work. A journalist tweeted that she had enjoyed Galbraith\u2019s book, but it seemed way too well-written to be the debut novel of who was supposedly a retired military officer. An anonymous account tipped this journalist, saying That\u2019s because it\u2019s not a debut novel: Robert Galbraith is actually a really well-known author\u2019s pseudonym. That led to a computer linguistic analysis and the London Times confronted the alleged author. J. K. Rowling admitted that she was Robert Galbraith, then The Cuckoo\u2019s Calling, a crime novel, proceeded to sell like hotcakes. So, of course Rowling\u2019s name recognition helped the book sell, but try as she could to hide her identity, she couldn\u2019t hide her quality. Her writing was, to paraphrase Steve Martin, so good it couldn\u2019t be ignored. Stephen King got to enjoy the anonymity of his pen name for seven years. Rowling hers about three months. Maybe there\u2019s some others out there who never got caught, but it seems social media and computer linguistic analysis has shortened the life of pen names. But King and Rowling both had the same problem: You can\u2019t hide quality, and you can\u2019t hide voice. From the beginning, King got letters asking him if he was Richard Bachman. Bachman had the extra challenge that he wasn\u2019t merely copying the style of an author already dominating a genre \u2013 he literally was that author. Sometimes a copycat does better than the original, because they can\u2019t help but be different as they try to copy. For example, Kurt Cobain said he was trying to rip off the Pixies when he wrote Smells Like Teen Sprit. An exact copy doesn\u2019t have much chance, because the original already punctured the exact same vacuum. You can\u2019t know anything, so know your work Jerry Seinfeld likes to tell beginning comedians they\u2019ll never make it. Because if they hear that from a comedy legend and still do comedy, he figures, they might have a chance. Maybe it\u2019s not satisfying that nobody knows anything. It kind of makes you want to throw your hands up and say, What\u2019s the use?! But maybe that\u2019s a good thing. If you can know that nobody knows anything, and still be dedicated to your craft, maybe you have a shot. About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon \u00bb       Show notes: http:\/\/kadavy.net\/blog\/posts\/nobody-knows-anything\/ ","author_name":"Love Your Work","author_url":"http:\/\/kadavy.net\/blog\/archive\/love-your-work\/","html":"