Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work That Lasts

Ryan Holiday

Bestselling author and marketing strategist Ryan Holiday reveals to creatives of all stripes--authors, entrepreneurs, musicians, filmmakers, fine artists--how a classic work is made and marketed.
In Hollywood, a movie is given a single weekend to succeed before being written off. In Silicon Valley, a startup is a failure if it doesn`t go viral or rake in venture capital from the start. In publishing, a book that took years to write is given less than three months to sink or swim. These brutally shortsighted attitudes have choked the world with instructions for engineering a flash-in-the-pan and littered the media landscape with fads and flops.
Meanwhile, the greats, the stalwarts, the household names, are those who focus on a singularly different, possibly heretical, idea: that their work can and should last. For instance, Zildjian has been one of the premier makers of cymbals since its founding in 1623--and shows no signs of quitting. Iron Maiden has filled stadiums for forty years, moving some 85 million albums without the help of radio or television. Robert Greene`s first book, The 48 Laws of Power, didn`t hit the bestseller lists until over a decade after it was first released, and since then has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide.
These works Ryan Holiday calls Perennial Sellers. They exist in every creative industry--timeless, dependable resources and unsung moneymakers, paying like blue chip annuities. Like gold or land, they increase in value over time, outlasting and outreaching any competition. And they`re not flukes or lucky breaks--they were built to last from the outset.
Holiday shows readers how to make and market their own classic work. Featuring interviews with some of the world`s greatest creatives, and grounded in a deep study of the classics in every genre, this exciting new book empowers readers with a foundational set of innovative principles. Whether you have a book or a business, a song or the next great screenplay, this book reveals the recipe for perennial success.