Don McNay: Book Marketing Lessons from “The Last Free Man in America”

I’m mourning the loss, at age 64, of my friend, author and frequent Kentucky political candidate Gatewood Galbraith.

Anyone who wants to be a best-selling author needed to spend time around Gatewood. He had knack for understanding his audience that few others had.

My first book fair event ever was the 2006 Kentucky Book Fair. When I walked into the arena, I found they had me sharing a table with Gatewood, who was promoting his excellent autobiography, The Last Free Man in America.

I was horrified that I was perched next to a perennial gubernatorial candidate who advocated the legalization of marijuana and was known to take a toke or two on his own.

Being with him turned out to be the best thing that ever happened in my book career.

The day launched an unusual friendship.

I had poked fun at Galbraith in the book I was selling, The Unbridled World of Ernie Fletcher. I confessed my sin to Gatewood who laughed and said, “Donnie, it’s not the first time someone has poked fun at me.”

Being perched next to Gatewood for eight hours was like getting a PhD in book marketing.

Gatewood took me under his wing. He had been to hundreds of book events and passed along his wisdom.

Wisdom that I never forgot.

He talked with me about how to dress. He said to always wear Rockport shoes with hard soles and heavy socks. It made it easier to stand in place all day. If you see me at a book event, you will note that I follow Gatewood’s advice to this day.

Rather than sitting behind the table, Gatewood convinced me that I needed to stand on my feet the entire time, be outgoing and friendly, and look every potential customer in the eye.

He suggested wearing a big hat, like he did, to draw attention. I don’t like hats but decided that a conservative business suit was more up my alley and would draw attention in a crowded book fair.

Whatever we were doing worked. At the end of the day, we were two of the biggest selling authors at the book fair. He sold more than me, but I think he sold more than anyone.

The next year, 2007, when my Son of a Son of a Gambler book came out, Gatewood, Kentucky State Treasurer (and current Huffington Post contributor) Jonathan Miller and I teamed up for a three-person statewide Kentucky book tour.

We traveled from Prestonsburg to Paducah and signed books at numerous political rallies.

We had fun and it was fascinating to be with Gatewood on a daily basis. He also connected with people from every part of society. Working people were his natural base but he could hang with the high and mighty. Everyone loved him.

Everyone knew him, too. I owned a political consulting company in the early 1990s and we did polling for local and statewide candidates. Gatewood was running for something and had 100 percent name recognition in Lexington, Kentucky. George Bush, the president, had 99 percent and the sitting Governor, Wallace Wilkinson, was at 98 percent.

The key to his personality was that he never took himself too seriously. Issues were serious but Gatewood was not.

That’s not to say he wasn’t practical. I was in the car behind him at a broken stop light in Somerset. I sat for twenty minutes, waiting for him to make his turn. Finally, I drove around him and he followed me into a parking lot.

I yelled over, “the last free man in America would have run that red light.” Gatewood responded, “The last free man in America did not want to give the police a chance to search the back of my car.”

Galbraith was ignored or laughed off by better-funded candidates and usually by the mainstream media.

Being with him on a regular basis, I realized how many great ideas he had. Gatewood had a strong populist message that was blown off by those who stereotyped him “the pro-pot candidate.”

He had many views held by both Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party long before either movement came along. His brand of populism might have caught on if he had been a slicker, better-funded, campaigner. He chose to remain true to himself and his core values.

Gatewood ran his last campaign in 2011, as an independent, running for Kentucky’s Governor. He got about nine percent of the vote. His views on issues like outlawing Mountaintop Coal Removal differed from the Republican and Democratic standard bearers and kept the issue in the forefront of the media.

He impacted the political agenda, even when that wasn’t his intent.

I was recently putting together a list of people to invite to my wedding and Gatewood was on the A list. When my fiancé’ asked about him, I said, “you can’t have a party unless Gatewood’s there.”

I hope that his legacy of pushing ideas and issues deemed “too controversial” will live on.

History will prove that he was a man ahead of his time. And a great guy to spend time with.

It’s hard to ask for a better life than that.

(Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from The Huffington Post)

McNay is the best selling author of ‘Wealth Without Wall Street: A Main Street Guide to Making Money.”  Click here to purchase.