Dave Trott is box office.

He’s a widely respected creative director and author of a number of astute books on creative thinking.

What Trott writes, people read.

So, when I came up with the idea of writing my own book, being an idealistic sort, I thought it would be good to be published by the same people who publish him.

Of course, it doesn’t work like that.

Despite my attempts to contact agents and publishers, my naïve ambition was met with the expected radio silence.

In hindsight, fair enough.

I mean, I’m not Dave Trott. I’m Glenn Fisher. A young(ish) guy from Grimsby. Sure, I’ve worked in London and used my creative skills to help people make a shed load of money, which is what I’ve tried to share in the book. But I’m no household name.

Still, I carried on writing my own thing.

I’m sure many reading this have similar projects. Similar ideas you wish you could get published, but you’re repeatedly knocked back.

This parable is for you.

You see, after I realised my error in attempting to blindly follow someone else’s path, I more wisely set about pursuing my own.

In doing so, I found a publisher who was interested in my idea, the excellent, Harriman House.

We parried the idea back and forth. The manuscript was completed. And my book, The Art of the Click, was patiently edited into existence.

The book is about how anyone can use the skills I’ve learned as a direct-response copywriter to better understand and interact with their audience online. In other words, how to get people to click on stuff.

Since it’s publication, it’s become a best seller on Amazon. And rather brilliantly, it’s now been shortlisted in the Sales & Marketing category for the Business Book Awards 2019.

I’m over the moon, of course.

Years of feeling somewhat like a fraud whenever I dared to utter the words ‘I’m a writer,’ now seem somehow vindicated. And not just a writer: a published, best-selling and award-shortlisted author, no less.

At this point, for full dramatic effect, imagine the opening bars of Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way building in the background.

Because this isn’t just about me patting myself on the back for getting published and being shortlisted.

The real moral of the story comes with an email I received a few month’s ago.

It was from my editor asking my opinion on the cover of a book Harriman House were due to publish.

The book’s author?

You guessed it: the right honourable, Dave Trott.

I chuckled at first at the chance of it. But realised there was something deeper in the tale.

Cue Lindsay Buckingham hollering the chorus…

You can go your own way, indeed.

And you should.

After I’d dismissed the silly and hopeless idea of emulating other people and focusing instead on my own strengths and style, by pure chance I’d ended up where I’d hoped to be in the first place…

Published by the same people publishing Dave Trott.

Yes, the lesson is a twee one. But it doesn’t mean it’s not important.

If I can offer fellow aspiring authors some reassurance: you can – and most definitely should – go your own way. Things have a funny way of working out well when you do.

The Art of the Click, has been shortlisted for the Sales & Marketing category of the Business Book Awards sponsored by Bootcamp Media. To get your copy of the book Click Here.