Best-Selling Author, or Talker?

Would you like to be a best-selling author like Tom Peters, Suze Orman, Gore Vidal, Anthony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Wayne Dwyer, and Mark Victor Hansen? If only you could write well enough to make the list. But is writing the characteristic that drove them to the top of the list?

Robert Kiyosaki of “Rich Dad Poor Dad” openly admits that he isn’t a very good writer. He points out that he is on the best-selling lists, not the best-writing lists. I think there is something else all of these fabulously successful people have in common, and it isn’t literary flair.

The one thing that all of these multimillionaire best-selling authors have in common is that they are all fantastic public speakers. In fact, if you stripped away all of their current wealth, took their books out of book stores and prevented them from ever writing books again, all of them would still make seven figure incomes strictly from their speaking fees. You can say that they make good money on the speaking circuit because they are already famous from their books, but I think this is backward.

Other than the case of a true literary genius like Vidal, these writers became successful not because their writing propelled their speaking careers, but because their tremendous skills as public speakers gave them the platform and opportunity to become successful writers. (And Gore Vidal is also a captivating speaker and has long been a master at the art of being a talk show guest.)

Too many writers spend all of their time as hermits locked away from people. They write and re-write their non-fiction book or their great American novel in solitude. To be fair, some of their books are outstanding, but they never get read or even printed, because nobody knows the author.

Perhaps you thing this is a sign of the times? A symptom of a modern 21st Century superficiality?

Wrong! Mark Twain made more money from his public speaking than he ever did from his writings.

I’m not suggesting that aspiring writers throw away their pad, pen, keyboard and books, but if you aspire to become a well-known, best-selling author, you should spend as much time speaking to audiences and honing your presentation skills as you do writing, researching and editing your words.