Alan von Eggers Rudd vs the Zeitgeist

In an era where nobody seems to know what to suggest or do in the world of book publishing – only what not to do – I have decided to channel the marketing genius that, once upon a time, lived inside the brilliant mind of Alan von Eggers Rudd.

Through strange luck and opportunity, I worked for Alan in my twenties. I have since built a thirty-year-career in film and television, partly inspired and fueled by his ideas and ways of thinking. Now I want to see if I can translate that energy into the world of book publishing.

Putting aside the conventional wisdom and using Alan as my spirit mentor, I’ve decided to bushwhack a path of my own.

Alan was an interesting blend of his parents: half Danish and half Russian Jew. The expressions on his face were always compelling, interesting and hard to look away from. In the manner of all compelling storytellers, when Alan’s eyes were fixed upon you, it was hard not to lean into whatever story he was telling.

I can’t recall how many times I heard him tell people the story of how he dealt with the US recession that began in late 1973 and lasted into the spring of 1975.

The recession came about in a perfect storm of events: the 1973 oil crisis, the steel crisis, the unpaid bills leftover from the Vietnam War, the collapse of the Bretton Woods international financial agreement during the Nixon presidency, and the subsequent 1973-74 stock market crash.

I began working for Alan in late 1978, when I was twenty-two and fresh out of college. Alan was thirty-two at the time, but the searing lessons he’d been through five years earlier, when he’d had the audacity to start an international importing business while just in his twenties, had stayed with him.

“There I was,” he would recount dramatically to whomever he was telling his story to at the time. “Financially, I had one hand tied behind my back and no legs to stand on.”

(He always put an arm behind his back and hopped on one foot off for visual effect.)

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that 2.3 million jobs were lost during those years which was, at the time, a post-war record.

According to German scholars – specifically the influential 19th-century philosopher, George W F Hegel – each era has a unique spirit or climate that sets it apart from other periods of time.

Hegel called this a ‘zeitgeist” from the German words meaning time + spirit, energy or ghost. Zeitgeists are the invisible forces that dominate and characterize a particular period of time.

“Most people would cave to the stresses and pressures,” Alan would say, locking eyes intently with whomever was listening. “And I thought about it, about packing it all in.”

But Hegel’s philosophy challenges us to overcome these circumstances and Alan was a determined zeitgeist-beater. It was at this point that he would start grinning.

“But I still had one good arm,” he would say. “And so, I came out swinging!”

Alan not only managed to stay afloat during the tough years, he eventually grew his company into a corporation with three divisions, one of which I would, in time, come to head-up.

These days find us bouncing around within the vortex of a different zeitgeist.

In a world still struggling to regain lost ground in the aftermath of a global pandemic, with wars being waged everywhere – both cultural as well as the bombs, drones and guns kind – the struggle for hearts, minds and physical turf is fraught.

Understandably, this is a difficult if not impossible time to attempt to launch a book by a relatively unknown writer. The process – not to mention the prospects for financial survival – can at times feel like trying to navigate the raging open seas during a hurricane wearing nothing but a pair of leaky floaties.

Publishers and agents are also bobbing about on the same waters trying to survive and hopefully thrive. And in the midst of this turbulence, they want the surest thing to a sure bet they can find.

Publishers and agents are looking for books that are not just well written, but also engaging, which is of course, excellent advice. As a writer, I, too want to be engaged by my own writing. So that’s a natural and a given.

Publishers and agents want to see evidence of the potential audience of buyers and consumers already in place before they take on the risk of publishing a new book.

Channeling my inner Alan, I’m going to take that advice and come out swinging with my one good arm. My intention is to bloom it earlier in the process by engaging my readers before my manuscript even gets picked up.

And so, I’m inviting you all, my thoughtful friends, to not just read my book when it eventually comes out, but to actually be part of the journey to publication.

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