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It Begins with Bucking Conventional Wisdom
Following the success of her 1993 hit album Music Box, Mariah Carey met with her management team to plan future projects. Tommy Mottola, her husband at the time, suggested she release a Christmas album.
This bucked conventional wisdom at the time. Back in the day, artists released a Christmas
album when their careers began to wane. Mariah, who was 25, was just hitting her stride.
At first, Carey and her team decided she would sing Christmas songs from the public domain. Writing a new Christmas hit seemed like an impossibility.
Paul McCartney tried it and released the ugliest Christmas song of all time—“Wonderful Christmastime.” It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Undeterred (I love that word!), she decided give it a try.
So, in mid-1994, Carey decorated her home with Christmas decorations to get into the holiday spirit. Then she played It’s A Wonderful Life on the TV downstairs while she and her co-writer Walter Afanasieff (that’s really his last name!) experimented with melodies and lyrics on the piano upstairs.
Pardon the rabbit trail here, but I need to mention this. You probably don’t recognize the name Walter Afanasieff, but the composer produced Celine Dion’s song “My Heart Will Go On” for the 1997 movie Titanic. He also produced and arranged the motion picture soundtracks for Beauty and the Beast (remember the Celine Dion/Peabo Bryson duet?),
Aladdin (A Whole New World), and the Hunchback of Notre Dame (Someday).
The guy’s a pretty big deal. Back in the day, he was just Mariah Carey’s co-songwriter.
As they began, she made a list of things she associated with Christmas when she was a child.
“I wanted [the song] to feel like something I could have grown up listening to,” she said later.
They decided to write a Christmas song that sounded like some of the classics from the 1960s.
“I always looked forward to the holidays," she said. "And then I have this incredibly dysfunctional family that would ruin it every year. Not my mom—my mom would try to make it fun—but we
didn’t have a lot of money, so sometimes she would wrap up fruit and whatever it was she could afford.”
So instead of focusing on Christmas gifts, they focused on the importance of relationships.
Then they wrote “All I Want For Christmas Is You” in only 15 minutes.
READ. THAT. AGAIN!
When they recorded
the song in August of 1995, they decorated the studio with Christmas decorations and turned the air conditioning down so it felt like winter.
Now, I know the song may drive you crazy, because it’s ubiquitous (another favorite word), but get this: the song has earned $60
million in royalties. Every year, it generates $3 million more in royalties.
The song hit #1 on the charts for the first time ever in December of 2019. Then it hit #1 again in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
You read that right!
Here’s What We Can Learn From Mariah Carey
So what can we learn from this story?
Don't underestimate the roll environment plays in sparking creativity. Did you notice that when Carey wrote and recorded her song, she decorated her surroundings with Christmas stuff? And she played A Wonderful Life on the TV downstairs.
If you’re writing a period piece, decorate your writing environment with elements from that period.
Whatever genre, decorate your surroundings with whatever will get you into the mood.
As you launch into your manuscript, indulge yourself in a time-waster that thrusts you into your topic.
While I was working on today’s post, I jumped onto YouTube and watched a a vocal coach critiquing the top ten renditions of the National Anthem at the Super Bowl (which included Mariah Carey).
After concluding with Whitney Houston's version, my favorite rendition of all time, my creative juices were in overdrive.
Insist on being unique within your genre. This is extremely important. Carey didn’t try to invent a new genre. She wrote a contemporary song that reminded
listeners of the classic 1960s Christmas songs.
People who invent new genres rarely sell any books. Neuro-poetry or long-form haiku novels might strike your fancy, but let someone else be the first.
Stay in your lane and experiment but BE DIFFERENT.
Think evergreen. In other words, consider writing toward specific seasons of the year. Nobody listens to “All I Want For Christmas” in July. But every holiday season, Spotify plays the song
to death. The song is evergreen.
Heck, the movie Elf was released in 2003—and our family still watches it every Christmas Eve. This year makes twenty years in a row.
Perhaps you have a book idea that fits in well with Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving. While you might not sell any copies during the offseason, you’ll have a relevant book two or three months a year. Every year.
Collaborate. Mariah Carey made her song
famous, but it wouldn’t be the catchy hit without some help from our good friend, Walter Afaniefeisss, or whatever his last name is.
Our focus at Illumify Media is what we call "Collaborative Publishing." We believe that we can maximize your book by collaborating with you on your message, your cover, your back cover
copy...everything!
We do it together.
The first step in the collaboration process is scheduling a free, no-obligation brainstorming session with
me.
Click here to schedule a meeting and we'll explore the possibilities of your book idea.
Because I'm in the Christmas mood, I'll include a free sixty second book trailer—a video about your book—if you execute your contract before the end of this year.
Before we go, I wanted to congratulate Alan Kraft on his newest Illumify release...
