TAILPIECE

 

An author publishes a best-selling book because he has spent years building his expertise and his writing skills. Malcolm Gladwell is an author who has published five The New York Times bestselling books, the first of which was The Tipping Point. Before he published his first book, he worked as a reporter for nine years, covering business and science, and later started at The New Yorker in 1996. There, he gained popularity with two articles, both written in 1996: “The Tipping Point” and “The Coolhunt,” which would become the basis for Gladwell’s first book, The Tipping Point, for which he received a $1 million advance. Gladwell said regarding his writing, “I was a basket case at the beginning, and I felt like an expert at the end. It took 10 years—exactly that long.”