I could write. I was prolific. I could write a book a year. To great advantage, I could get it on the bestseller list. My publisher was very happy. And I just kept writing, writing, writing, writing. Working so hard on these books but having the greatest time. And gradually becoming very well known in the country and again what everyone says, you know, she’s such a self promoter, but it wasn’t about self promotion. It was about filling voids. Every time I wrote a book it was to fill a void that I and my friends had to have filled. So when I wrote a book about hors d’oeuvres it was because there wasn’t a great book about hors d’oeuvres. I mean, it’s not self promotion to write a book about hors d’oeuvres, but I went out on the road and I lectured. I did fantastic fundraising for numbers of charities and groups like young women’s clubs, junior leagues, everywhere.
And I — I kept that library of books totally alive for me and my publisher. So that ten years after I published Entertaining, I sold more copies that year than the first year. So I kept going and I got snowballing. Every single book was a big bestseller. The library is still alive and well and I have 27 books now.
And it is — and they sell tremendous numbers, and it’s exciting that the voice is found, the brand is built, the information is evergreen, terribly important to me never to write anything that isn’t evergreen and fits into an asset library for me and my company now that’s very valuable.