Too Much Lincoln

Suppose an entrepreneur tried to fund a business plan to develop and sell a “brilliant new operating system for computers.” The pitch: Better than Windows or Linux.

Chances are pretty good that he or she would be chased out of more than a handful of venture firms.

It’s not that the idea is necessarily so bad; maybe the world really does need a new operating system. The challenge, of course, is in the competition. In one corner is the most formidable technology company in history (which is, by the way, celebrating the current financial meltdown by buying back $40 BILLION of its stock, taking on cheap debt, AND raising its dividend). In the other corner is a worldwide community of geniuses who are essentially giving away their collaborative product for free.

As competitive strategies go, that would be like targeting a market niche firmly between the biggest flippin’ rock on the planet and the hardest “hard place” in business.

So, tell me this: When an author walks into a publisher and says, “Are you interested in my brilliant new book about Abraham Lincoln,” shouldn’t the same thing happen? Not only is Lincoln arguably the most written about, most analyzed, most dissected and most over-written American in history (and perhaps second only to Shakespeare and Jesus worldwide), but some of the most capable historians in the land have done the writing.

There’s a book about Lincoln entitled 100 Essential Lincoln Books. I assume it is intended to narrow the field a bit. Of course, you already know about the ones written by Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Herbert Donald, James M. McPherson, Stephen B. Oates, James G. Randall, John Hay & John George Nicolay, Isaac N. Arnold, and William H. Herndon. There are some Pulitzer Prize winners in there, as well as a friend of Lincoln and his law partner in Springfield. That is daunting competition.

Just for fun, I shot over to Wikipedia’s article on the Historical rankings of United States Presidents to see where Lincoln stood against his peers. The wiki article tabulates twelve polls taken of historians, political scientists and other notables, from Arthur Schlesinger’s work in 1948 to a study done by the Wall Street Journal in 2005. With a few exceptions, these polls were each conducted with different participants and slightly different questions, and none purport to be statistically accurate of anything, except qualitative consensus.

(This is just a reminder that my putting them on a graph doesn’t make them any more accurate or informed than before. But it does make a few things pop.)

Take a look at the first graph, which is all of the presidents who have scored in the top 5. What do you see? Lincoln, Washington and FDR are always one, two or three. And, without crunching a number, you can see that Lincoln spends more time at one or two than either of the others. All of which reinforces the point: Historians love the guy. Historians worship the guy. Lord knows, historians write about the guy. Who in his right mind, then, would write about Lincoln (expecting a positive commercial outcome)?

Apparently, lots of people. As the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth approaches on February 12, 2009, at least 50 new titles about the president are due out between now and early 2010. This includes three complete biographies; books of essays and photos; books about Lincoln as a military leader, inventor, youth and writer; books about Lincoln’s family and books his connections to folks like Charles Darwin, Robert Burns, Frederick Douglas. There’s also at least one new book about the Lincoln conspiracy which places John Wilkes Booth on the grassy knoll.

This all reminds me of the old record company strategy to sign-up a flood of rock groups, hoping that just one or two would get air play and become big, profitable acts. The rest would be write-offs--the cost of doing business. (Hey, that reminds me a little bit of Web 2.0 venture capital, but I digress.)

If you felt absolutely compelled to write about a president, wouldn’t you want to pick one with a mixed record, one whose legacy traveled a sine curve of inconsistency? At least one who wasn’t rated in the top three by historians for fifty years?

With that in mind, I graphed a few of the more historically controversial of our presidents, looking for a contrarian opportunity to dazzle the publishing world.

Look at this second graph. What do you see? Opportunity, right? Reagan and Kennedy are givens, I suppose; we rarely know how to evaluate near-historical figures, and the “halo effect” of their lives (charisma, communications skills, lingering patronage) tends to disappear once the people who knew and remember the presidents die. (That seemed to be happening to Wilson on the first graph as well.) But what about Rutherford B. Hayes? Ever see a book about Hayes? Exactly. Here was a guy brought in to clean up the scandals of Ulysses Grant’s administration and, in one term, managed to pull Federal troops out of the South, shaped-up a very corrupt civil service, took courageous steps to settle the railroad strike of 1877, and stood firm in enforcing a sound money policy.

Do I see you dozing? OK, maybe not the subject we’re looking for.

But Grover Cleveland slipped from 8 to 20 over the last 50 years, right? There must be a story there. First of all, I’m sure you knew he came after Chester Arthur and before Benjamin Harrison, right? And he was Governor of New York for two years before becoming president, right? And, he took a firm stand against high protective tariffs. . .

OK, maybe I get it. Maybe it really is back to Lincoln.

As a matter of fact, I have just been informed that Abraham Lincoln was the tallest president in history.

My book on this exciting new Lincoln development will be out next February.

Just about the time I’m ready to release that brilliant new operating system.

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

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