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Should Jensen Do Epic Sh*t Or Just Disrupt!? by Tim Sanders
April 10, 2013
UPDATE: After considering your responses, as well as the responses from his tribe at Ning, Bill has decided to change the title. The new one is: Disrupt! Think Epic. Be Epic. Thanks to everyone for your .02, and here's a nod to the wisdom of crowds.
Net Minds Select author Bill Jensen has a big decision to make with his title. Stay true to one of the mantras or keep it safe.
Bill has two books debuting June 1 with us. Both are the results of interviews with 100 great disruptive heroes including: Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s CEO; Alec Ross, who was Hillary Clinton’s head of innovation; Annie Duke, the world’s best female poker player; Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr; and Jon Landau, the producer of Titanic and Avatar. Bill’s powerful books found the practices and personality traits best-suited for an era of continuous personal disruption. But here’s his dilemma:
The book’s current title…Disrupt! Do Epic Sh*t – 25 Successful Habits for an Extremely Disruptive World…has some people hot’n’bothered over the use of ‘Sh*t.’ He picked it based on a “do epic shit” quote/mantra from one of the 100 heroes. It also supports the messages within the book of be adventurous, take risks, and go for it! Yet some will find it offensive. It's become a saying for many audacious people, and even available as a T-Shirt and motivational poster. However, one endorsement candidate already said no because he could not be associated with that title.
If it were just book sales, Bill is willing to go for it. (For better or worse, message integrity is important to him. And he knows that sometimes controversy sells.) But he also realizes that many corporate invitations to speak may hang in the balance: “We liked that guy’s book, but we can’t hire him … our culture deems even the asterisked word offensive.” Still, authors/speakers like Gary Vaynerchuck do quite well with in-your-face language and messages. Bob Sutton's book, The No Asshole Rule, was successful despite its colorful language. He speaks about it at corporate events often.
The current alternative “safe” choice: Disrupt! Think Epic, Do Epic.
What to do? What do you think he should do? Keep “Sh*t” in the title? Or tone it down? Please let us know through your comments. Thank you!
About Tim Sanders
Tim is a bestselling author and former Yahoo! executive with a mission to disrupt the traditional publishing and self-publishing industries and share knowledge with authors looking to publish and market high-quality books.
Follow @sanderssays