Terry Jones has a resume that includes growing startup businesses from scratch, serving as CIO at a major airline, and founding venerable dot-coms like Travelocity and Kayak. Now a professional speaker and consultant for other companies and leaders, Terry wrote a book - ON Innovation - that compiles his business experiences and lessons. Read on to learn why he turned down two traditional publishing offers and how writing and independently publishing a book supports his current professional endeavors.
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Tell us about your book.
ON Innovation is based on my experiences in founding Travelocity.com, helping to found Kayak.com and in the 10 startups where I've worked during my career. I've been speaking to corporations and trade associations on innovation for the last 10 years and wanted my message to reach a larger audience and be more lasting than a speech.
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Care to share your author bio?
After college, I spent a year traveling around the world with two friends and caught the travel bug. Upon my return, I entered the travel business as a travel agent in 1970. My first startup began six months later when I co-founded a business travel agency, which grew to $5 million in sales over the next five years. In 1978, I jumped to a company selling computers to travel agents. That company was sold to American Airlines (AA), which led to a 23-year career at the airline in marketing and information technology, ending as chief information officer. While at AA, I led a team of 10 that created Travelocity.com. I served as CEO for six years and took the company public. I later helped co-found Kayak.com, where I served as chairman for eight years until it was sold to Priceline for $1.8 billion. Today, I'm a public speaker, consultant, venture capitalist, and member of four boards of directors.
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How did you come to independent publishing?
I was approached by two traditional publishers who offered advances, but I was frustrated by the lengthy timelines they proposed and their lack of commitment to marketing. As a person accustomed to the speed of the internet, traditional publishing seemed like a very 19th-century business.
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I reviewed several companies and CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) clearly had the most straightforward process. Most importantly, the books were to be printed on-demand and my customers could order on Amazon.com.
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The customer service has been outstanding. Even though this was a complex book to format, the timeframe was short, which was crucial since I needed to produce copies for a large convention. CreateSpace and KDP were always there for me. The tools enabled me to publish my second book with no help!?
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What are your goals with your book project?
I wanted to quickly produce a quality product.The services I used at CreateSpace allowed me to reach that goal. Its cover design group helped me create a standout cover, and the layout team worked with my many photographs and quotes to fix all my issues.
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What have been some of your biggest successes so far?
My book is designed to help leaders and companies be more innovative, and the feedback I've received on the book has been encouraging. In addition, publishing a book has allowed me to raise my speaking fee and generate significantly more income. I am also able to customize the book for specific audiences.
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What's next for you?
I'll soon be publishing a second edition with additional content, and of course I'll continue to promote ON Innovation.
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What advice would you offer your fellow authors?
I'd say that independent publishing is simply the way to go; it is 21st-century publishing. CreateSpace and KDP have all the tools and services you could possibly want and are supportive through the entire process.
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