Butterfly hunting
Ideas are like that.
The successful editor, curator or entrepreneur doesn’t go hunting ideas to kill them, but to celebrate them, identify them and dance with them.
And a brutal, all-out frontal attack won’t work. It’s not about raising a ton of money or insisting that the world supply you with only the good ideas. Quibi failed because of the hubris of believing that the ideas could be conjured on a schedule. And countless middlemen have struggled with the dead-end of only wanting to embrace the good ideas, which are often impossible to distinguish from the others at a distance.
Sometimes, you need to look more closely, to reconsider or to circle around again.
And sometimes we go butterfly hunting and find nothing at all.
Fred Hills, who published fifty New York Times bestsellers (including my first one) died a few weeks ago. He took the quest literally, and used to go butterfly hunting with Nabakov. His belief in my book was matched by the trust he offered me and so many authors to find our voice and share it.
Chris Meyer was another butterfly hunter, patiently connecting, leading and challenging, turning on lights in a way that made everyone in the room see the possibilities that lay just ahead.
The ideas are there. It might take patience to nurture them.
[HT to Lisa DiMona.]