Recently, Evie called to say she had read a review in the local paper of a book called “Bowling Across America: 50 States in Rented Shoes” (Mike Walsh, St Martin’s Press). I went to my local bookstore and ordered it, ostensibly for Peter for Christmas, but mostly because I wanted to see a) if this guy did a better job than we would have and b) how he managed to get it done and we didn’t.
First of all, it’s not the book we would have written. We wanted ours, of course, to be funny—bowling for most of us is just plain funny—but also to include nuts and bolts information with reviews of not only the bowling facility but also, the snack bar, bathrooms, and safety issues--a travelogue of bowling alleys skewed by our perspective of the world. On the other hand, “Bowling Across America” is a pretty good book. He gets you hooked in with a story about the death of his father who had always wanted to play handball in all 50 states… and off he goes. I would say he has three reasons for his success:
- The subtitle. It’s brilliant and catchy and with “50 States in Rented Shoes” you know he’s not trying to be terribly serious here.
- He’s young (27) and has nothing to lose. His mother loans him her car and he sleeps on friend’s (and friends of friends) couches.
- He spent five years in advertising and wrote press releases and was on radio shows all over the country and a few TV shows. He also solicited sponsorships and again, so far, he actually got one: Miller High Life. I am impressed
It takes some pressure off, knowing that yet another book I thought I could write has been written. This is not all good but it makes me want to write the other three in the pipeline that no one has written yet...just to say I beat someone to the punch. I still think Bowling the West paraphenalia would have made us a lot of money, but not perhaps in this economy.
No comments:
Post a Comment