It has been almost one year since I published Traveling the Consulting Road: Career Wisdom for New Consultants, Candidates, and Their Mentors. This year has been gratifying and humbling.

It has been gratifying because a significant number of people have bought the book. Amazon data shows that my book sold more copies than 90% of self-published books. It also sold slightly more than the average number of copies for all self-published books.

This is humbling. Clearly this distribution is very skewed with a very long tail. Many books do not break double digits; a significant number are under 100 copies. When you look at non-fiction self-published books I do even better, but that just means the distribution is even more skewed.

So I am very grateful for all the people who purchased my book this year and for those who left a rating and/or a review. Some have written that the book was helpful. Gratifying.

I always knew this was a niche book. One of my beta readers described the niche character of the book this way:

“Traveling the Consulting Road is full of fun stories and useful tools. I can’t imagine it will sell much. It is a book for young consultants, who won’t listen, and old consultants who don’t read.”

Ouch. As I said, humbling.

Remembering this near the one year anniversary of the book’s publication, I got to thinking. I found that statement funny because there is some truth there. As a young consultant, heck as a young person, I didn’t listen well. If you ask some people who love me, they will tell you that affliction hasn’t abated.

There are many jokes about consultant arrogance:

“Sure he’s smart. Just ask him, he will tell you how smart he is.”

“A consultant is a person with an opinion on absolutely everything, without the benefit of experience in anything.”

“Consider if you will, a person educated to the point of unbearable ego, such that they think that people should pay them for their advice. Now imagine trying to tell that person anything, an exercise in utter futility.”

But, I wrote this book to share what I learned, over thirty-seven years. I wrote what I learned about getting a job and being successful inside a firm, about solving different kinds of problems that clients call consultants for, about how I learned to become an independent consultant, start a firm, etc. I wrote down all the mistakes I made as a young consultant with the hope that other consultants might learn from my mistakes.

Yeah, right. Would I have bought this book at thirty? Maybe, but probably not. Do I expect undergraduate juniors or first year MBAs looking for an internship to go on Amazon looking for this book? Maybe, but probably not.

But wait, I also wrote this book for mid-career consultants and senior consultants, mentoring their younger colleagues. When I was in those roles inside a firm, I was a trifle busy. I did make time to keep up with the business press. I subscribed to The Harvard Business Review, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc, Fast Company, but truthfully, I mostly scanned the Table of Contents to see if there was an article about my current clients, their competitors, or a particular issue that they were facing. I did read some business books, but mostly best sellers by academicians or CEOs. So while I might deny membership in the “older consultants who don’t read,” maybe I was more so than I’d care to admit.

When I worked for myself, I was better about reading because I had more control of my schedule, and the autonomy I had, allowed me to follow my interests. Also, the life of an independent consultant is often dominated by meetings with prospective clients, and reading makes for more interesting conversation. Did that make me “well-read and au courant?” I wouldn’t exactly say that.

Many independent consultants write a book to give themselves credibility. I didn’t do that, probably should have, but if I had it wouldn’t have been this book. It would have been a book describing a particular methodology, in which I wanted more work, the “one pound business card.” No, I wrote a book of consulting career advice, hoping the audience would be less arrogant or overly busy than I was.

So I wrote Traveling the Consulting Road for the young or old consultant I wish I was. That realization is humbling.

It is, however very gratifying that there are quite a few of those people out there. Thank you young consultants who listen and old consultants who read. You restore an ancient consultant’s faith in humanity.

Recently, another market emerged, which had not occurred to me before, retired consultants buying for their children and grandchildren.

I received a note from one retired colleague, who bought the book for his grandson who had just become president of his university consulting club, and another consulting partner considering retirement, who bought the book for her daughter who was in her first year at another firm.

Whooda thunk it? I have mailed to university and business school consulting clubs and that did produce some sales, but the grandparent market never occurred to me. And the retiring partner?  She said, “I hate to admit that my daughter does not seek me out for career advice. Perhaps she will listen to you.”

So parents and grandparents, if you’re still looking for gift ideas . . . (I’m not too humble to ask).

And thank you to all who have bought, read, and/or reviewed Traveling the Consulting Road: Career Wisdom for New Consultants, Candidates, and Their Mentors.

I am very grateful.

Come to think about it. I have written before about humility and gratitude being tickets for admission to becoming a good consultant.

May 2025 be as humbling and gratifying for us all.

For those interested in the book