The Power of Partnerships
April 3, 2007

A great way to get something done that you can't do yourself (for whatever reason) is to find a partner. There are usually five elements to any enterprise: time, talent, tenacity, ideas, and capital. Figure out what you have and what you are missing, and look for a partner or two who can supply the missing piece(s).

To produce my first movie, I had the idea and the time, and I figured I could hire the talent. But I didn't have the tenacity to push it forward. So I joined up with a protege of mine who had an interest in movies, and he did all the initial legwork - searching and locating the talent, setting up the auditions, renting the equipment, etc.

Lately I've been thinking of partnering up with someone to write a book. I have the time to write one book a year on my own, but I have at least three or four good ideas. So I'm thinking I can produce at least one more book a year by finding someone competent to be my co-writer. I haven't done it yet - but that's what James Patterson does. And according to USA Today, he produces more best-selling novels than anyone else, including guys like John Grisham. If he were a publishing company, the paper said, he would have been ranked fourth in 2006 for publishing the most best-sellers.

The partnership arrangement works well for both parties. For example, Patterson's most recent novel, Step on a Crack, was co-written by Michael Ledwidge. Ledwidge wrote three previous books on his own that sold a total of 20,000 copies. The first print run for Step on a Crack will be 1.25 million.

Ledwidge and Patterson met 10 years ago in New York City. Ledwidge was an aspiring writer, and Patterson helped him find an agent. When Patterson offered him the chance to work together last year, he jumped at it "at the speed of light."

The book has Patterson's regular ingredients: a sympathetic hero (Michael Bennet, who has 10 adopted kids with his wife, who is dying), a mysterious death, and short chapters. Patterson wrote a chapter-by-chapter outline and Ledwidge filled in the words. After fleshing out the chapters, he sent them to Patterson to edit.

At 41, Patterson became the youngest CEO in the history of J. Walter Thompson, the ad agency. By then, he had written five novels. He gets mixed reviews, being more popular with readers than with critics.

Patterson has a business, Patterson Entertainment, which has five full-time employees, including two at Little Brown (his publisher) whose job it is to create books, movies, video games, and TV series out of his ideas. He made about $28 million last year, and has set up a few charities to promote reading and writing.

Patrick Anderson of the Washington Post says that Patterson represents "the absolute pits, the lowest common denominator of cynically, skuzzy, assembly-line writing." Patterson admits that his books aren't War and Peace, and says, "You can't make everybody happy."

posted by M. Masterson @ 8:15 AM,

1 Comments:

At 11:17 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Michael,

I'm a book shopper and avid reader and have a different perspective as a customer. I think that having a co-author dilutes the author's brand.

James Patterson has a strong brand. But if I see his name, plus another guy that does not have a strong brand, I'll assume the other guy did most of the work and Patterson just lent his name to the project.

This may be unavoidable in fiction. In nonfiction, let me suggest an alternative. Instead of having a co-writer work on a book with you, invite some of your knowledgeable friends to write essays about the topic you want to address. Then collect the essays, edit them, add your own chapter, and sell the book "edited by Michael Masterson". That way, you are recommending several new writers for me to read (a service in itself); I don't have to guess what is coming from you and what comes from a co-writer; you still get to use your own brand for sales; and it takes much less time than writing a book on your own.

Best of luck,
Jeff B.

 

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