Steve finished The Profession. Seth Godin contacted Steve about the The Domino Project.

Steve Martin opened his performance with Steep Canyon Rangers by thanking the audience for being there—saying that he knew asking us to join him for a night of bluegrass was like Jerry Seinfeld asking his fans to join him for a night of bassoon. It wasn’t what any of us expected—or necessarily wanted—from him, and he hoped we liked it. We did. While my ears, eyes, and soul were drinking in the music, all I could think about was “the crossover.” In the late 90s, country musician Garth Brooks released an album under the name of “Chris Gaines.” He created…

I can’t think about William Blake’s “The Lamb” without thinking about Shelby’s and Jonathan’s impressions of Foghorn Leghorn reading the poem: “Ah… Little Lamb. Ah, say… Ah, Little Lamb. Dost thou know… I, say, I say, dost thou know who made thee? We were seniors in Ms. Wilmers’ high school English class and she had just finished asking us: “Why can’t you imagine the vision of a song or a poem in your own head? Why do you need videos?” She wasn’t able to help us create a shared visual image of the poem and blamed it on our reliance…

(Another CrossFit-related post for you up front, but stick with me for a bit and the big picture point about giving it away makes it into the post.) Each time one of Steve’s books left the table, my son reached in a box, pulled out another book, and topped off the stacks.

The Domino Project team should go with a YES sign—if it ever considers ditching its domino symbol. The NO sign greeted everyone entering the retirement community my husband and I lived in just out of college. We were young, broke, starting our first jobs and planning a wedding, so my husband’s grandmother pulled a few strings with the condo board, and—BOOM—there we were, in our early 20s, at least 60 years younger than the youngest retiree in the community, every day facing the NO sign in South Florida, the land of sun and fun.

East Russell Street Feed and Seed sold everything from hanging plants and corn seed to dog pedicures and Easter chicks. I was 16 when I worked there—my first non-babysitting-or-lawnmowing-and-comes-with-a-paycheck job.

Summer 2002, I caught one stop on the Aerosmith, Run-DMC and Kid Rock tour. It was awesome. These three different generations of artists, with distinct sounds, were all doing their own thing, yet they figured out how to work together, to keep everything moovin’ and groovin’ with rhythm and ease—void of jarring awkward transitions. And as individuals off the stage, they’d grown—and their art had grown with them. They were all relevant. Even Kid Rock, the youngest of the group, was already mixing things up, diving into the country and sometimes pop world, rather than allowing himself to be pegged…

When I want a surprise read, I hold my three-year old daughter over the Costco book table and let her pick out a few books. (recent picks: Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Marilynne Robinson’s Home, and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge.) Or—I do a reverse pin-the-tail on the donkey in airport and train station book sections. I close my eyes, spin around, and then buy whatever book I grab. (recent pick: Wm. Paul Young’s The Shack). Some rock, others stink—all are a surprise.

I visited a CrossFit “box” last week. CrossFit came on our radar two years ago, when it referred thousands of CrossFitters to Steve’s site, via one small mention on the CrossFit site. Between that first link and last week’s visit to one of their “boxes,” I realized how much I’d forgotten—and then had to refocus upon—the fundamentals. Here’s how things went down:

So far, we’ve been talking in these What It Takes posts from our own point of view, from the angle of the writer and his agent and publicist. Today I’d like to turn that around. Let’s get down and dirty–in the trenches, selling books to bookstores. We’ll talk with Random House’s David Glenn, who’s one of the key sales reps working to “sell in” The Profession—and one I’ve had contact with since Gates of Fire back in 1998. SP: David, welcome and thanks for giving our readers, many of whom are writers and artists, a peek into the real world…