Bestselling Author
www.notsalmon.com

Want a quickie mood-lifter or career-booster? Karen Salmansohn has got you covered.

Salmansohn, a bestselling author, self-made self-help guru, career coach and entrepreneur, is perhaps best-known for creating How to Be Happy, Dammit!, an eye-catching collection of pictures and advice that has sold about 200,000 copies.

But she is also the woman behind 28 other mostly self-help and business books, including her latest, Ballsy: 99 Ways to… Score Extreme Business Success, due out in May of 2006.

As Salmansohn says, “We’re all afraid of the same three things: anything new, more different. And the only way to grow is to pursue something new, more, different.”

Here’s how she grew from an ad exec with zero book publishing experience to an author with a celebrity following and fans in the media (Glamour, BusinessWeek, USA Todayand US magazine, for starters).

Walking Away from Success

“When I was in advertising, I always wanted to be a writer. I was a senior VP and creative director at the age of 27. I worked at the big guys, agencies like J. Walter Thompson, Young and Rubicam and McCann-Erickson. I kept threatening to quit, and my parents would say, ‘How can you quit when you’re doing so well?’

‘If I were doing lousy, I probably would have stayed to prove something to myself. But I figured if I could do well at something I didn’t like so much, how well could I do at something I loved?”

Obstacles? What Obstacles?

“I joke that I have Mr. Magoo syndrome. When he went to cross the street, he didn’t notice all the cars honking at him. When I left advertising, I didn’t focus on the obstacles or fears, just that I must get my books published.

“Risk-takers are people who focus on what they seek to gain, rather what they seek to lose. I just focused on what I was excited about.”

Hip Self-Help

“I joke, but I am serious, that I write self-help books for lazy, busy, smart, hip people. People who say, ‘Give me the info fast, I don’t have a lot of time.’ I also create self-help books for people who would never be caught dead reading self-help books.”

Rejected, But Not Dejected

“I originally started out doing feisty female books. I had a book called How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers and it’s still selling fabulously. It came out before Bridget Jones’s Diary, before Sex and the City, and it was turned down by every publishing house I sent it to because it was so feisty.

“I sold the book because of an interview with Playboy magazine – I was interviewing to be a writer, and showed the book to an editor there. They showed it to someone who knew someone at Workman and they picked it up. Then a few years later when every girl and her grandma with a laptop was writing sexy, smart books, I decided to create cool self-help books instead of more books in this genre.”

Doing Self-Help Without a Ph.D

“I’ve always been very upfront about it… I’m not a therapist, but I play one on TV. I think because I did business books first, like’Whip Your Career Into Submission, it wasn’t that far of a leap to go from business books to self-help books.

“Henry Ford said, ‘Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.’ In my passion, I didn’t notice that I actually should have a psychology degree. Whoops! I didn’t know. I figured, ‘I’ll deal with the question about not being a professional therapist later. This book (’How to Be Happy, Dammit!’) will help people.’”

Your Most Important Brand: You

“I have a new business book coming out in May called Ballsy. You can read this book over breakfast, and improve your career by dinner. I write in Ballsy that you are your own toothpaste. You have to figure out what’s unique about your toothpaste. That means not only having a better product on the inside, but also knowing how to package yourself. You should come up with a single statement that differentiates you from the crowd — a mission statement for yourself and your career. And make it so that it’s to the benefit of someone.”

Biggest Risk: The Day She Approached Madonna

“The biggest risk I have taken was probably going up to Madonna at a restaurant with my books and showing them to her. I put down my first book, How to Make Your Man Behave, and she said, ‘I own this book. You wrote this?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m writing books to empower women.’ She grabbed my arm and said, ‘God bless you.’ So I’ve been blessed by Madonna.

‘I called up someone in PR and told them the story, and they said, ‘This is a story.’ So the next thing you know it’s on the gossip page of New York Daily News. From that, I wound up being sent to Ireland and England and I sold an extra 50,000 books. I would have sold more, but they didn’t have enough of my books in the stores. So I say that Madonna gave me a free trip to Europe and helped me to sell an extra 50,000 books… all because of being ballsy. It doesn’t matter how good your talent is if you don’t have the balls to get it out there.”

Taking Risks, Breaking Rules

“Every Friday I could probably tell you five risks I took that week. Everything I’ve gotten was because I did something I kinda wasn’t supposed to.You’re not supposed to interrupt Madonna. You’re not supposed to have someone other than an agent send a book to the publisher. ”

Biggest Mistake: Trying to Do Too Much

“I think entrepreneurs could relate to this… one year I had seven books come out, and I think that I actually would have been smarter if I had done fewer books and focused on making PR happen for fewer books. Sometimes less is more. Falling in love with every idea is not always a good executive business decision.”

How to Challenge Your Challenges

“I have written 29 books, and I thought that by book number 11 or 12 that I would be experienced enough where I wouldn’t have problems anymore. But with every single book, there is the big problem that you didn’t see coming. In those moments, I have a little mantra that I say to myself. I walk around my apartment and say, ‘A lesser woman would crumble right now.’

“Knowing (the problem) is going to happen,I’m an optimist with an umbrella, which helps me a lot. I think of myself as a ‘problemmeister.’ I’m always making a game of problems, asking myself, ‘Okay, how do I get myself out of this one? If this were ‘The Apprentice,’ how would I solve this?’ I see it as a fun game, and that fun spirit and humor really helps me a lot.”

Words of Advice: Be Ballsy

“Basically, most people are lazy, busy and fearful. So if you’re trying to sell something, the more vague you are, the more you stir up fear in people- because they can’t fully see what it is they are potentially buying. And out of laziness and busy-ness, they’re less likely to put in the effort of imagining more fully what you’re selling.

‘So more than ever a book packager — or any entrepreneur — has to put in the extra time and effort of creating a mock-up of their work, to help buyers — an agent, an editor, or any client – better fully see what you are pitching. We must dare to put ourselves, our ideas and egos, boldly and fully into the world. That’s where being ballsy comes into play. Time and again I realize that most of my career success has not been due to my talent, but due to my ballsiness about how I’ve gotten my work out into the world.”