#243 Francis Greenburger (Real Estate Billionaire)

#243弗朗西斯·格林伯格(房地产亿万富翁)

Founders

商务

2022-04-26

1 小时 16 分钟
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单集简介 ...

What I learned from reading Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger.

单集文稿 ...

  • As soon as I took the phone call, I regretted it.

  • All of my authors had a lot of personality, but Jim was never happy about anything.

  • I just read about your latest real estate deal in the newspaper, he said.

  • I'm not sure how you can be doing your job for me when you're busy buying up this city.

  • I didn't appreciate Jim's questioning my competence as his agent when I not only worked hard on his behalf, but had also discovered him from the slush pile.

  • Not long after my father died, I had taken over the agency.

  • I put a small notice in the New York Times calling for authors to send in their work in an effort to drum up some new clients.

  • Accepting unsolicited manuscripts was very unconventional for an agent.

  • I was deluged with all manners of books.

  • Most were not worthwhile, but I did find it a good, highly stylized, fast paced thriller built around a political assassination.

  • I liked the book and contacted the author to take on the challenge of selling his first novel.

  • A challenge is exactly what it became.

  • I went through 27 rejections until I found an editor who didn't say no immediately.

  • If the author would rewrite it, the editor would consider publishing it.

  • Jim agreed and rewrote the book, which I resubmitted to the editor, who nonetheless declined it.

  • Most agents would have certainly given up at this point, but I can be extremely stubborn when I have a hunch about something.

  • On the 38th submission, not only did the editor buy it, he paid $10,000, a very generous advance for any first novel, and especially one that had been rejected 37 times.

  • Jims first book, published in 1970, ₩6, the Edgar Award for best first mystery.

  • It was a nice little success story and a parable on the merit of dogged determination, but it hardly warranted him calling the shots in my career.

  • Look, he said, you have to decide whether youre buying buildings or youre selling books, because I cant have an agent who does both.