GuruBooks.guru
In a rural Irish pub in a county not so long ago...
Necessity is the mother of invention
In Irish pub sessions, anybody can join in with a song. But this puts massive stress on the guitar player to figure out the chords on the spur of the moment.
And in windswept coastal Ireland, our nearby pub was crammed with an ever-changing group of visitors from all over the world. Once medicated with a few glasses of the local brew -- and their confidence at full throttle -- even the most reluctant singer might step up with a European, Asian or other folk song that we'd never heard before.
Our founder realized guitarists needed a survival guide for these acoustic guitar sessions ... how to accompany a singer on the spur of the moment, and how to play your own favorites in the right key. Since he had no formal music training, he avoided music theory at all costs.
And to better serve fellow struggling guitar players, he dedicated an unknowable amount of evenings at the musicians' table, his guitar pick fighting for space on the surface jam-packed with complimentary beverages from the crowd.
After many long, hard hours of late-night research in cozy Irish pubs, we finally perfected the format. We've since sold over 10 million books in 20+ countries from Norway to New Zealand.
Our team pioneered award-winning retail, downloadable and mass-personalizable books in multiple languages. One title was downloaded over 240,000 times in five days -- a record. And, we did trade show exhibitions in London, Frankfurt, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
We customized the Guru format to help market-leading companies connect with their customers. This led to some wonderful collorations and terrific results. One leading consumer brand used a Guru to extend a major retailer's charity foundation reach. This resulted in the Guru book being featured in almost 10,000 retail stores around the USA. And the client won "Vendor of the Year" award from that retail chain. (Details upon request)
The room where it happened
The spilled pint of Guinness legend is "pure true" as we say in Ireland.
The pub name and location:
As it may have been past the legal closing time when that freshly-poured cold pint was served, these data points are highly confidential and subject to a signed non-disclosure agreement!
Thanks for tuning in.
Because I never took guitar lessons, I never learned music theory -- it was just too intimiating. And the how-to books were about 200 pages long, stuffed with (ugh) theory. All I wanted was just enough to figure out the chords to a song or play along with a singer at a party.
Imagine my surprise when, on a trip to Ireland, I often found myself in a pub with acoustic music sessions (and without the noise and required perfection of amplifiers). The muscians around the table enthusiastically encouraged others to join in.
Well, one thing led to another, and here we are.
Years ago, founder Bill Hartman was a film producer in Hollywood. After a production role at Paramount Pictures, he joined a Swiss company Condor Productions as Sr VP of Production.
He was the Co-Producer on Journey of Hope, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also worked on films and TV productions with Johnny Cash, Al Jarreau, The Romantics, Dionne Warwick, Ben Gazzara, Mary Crosby, Julian Sands, and Gene Roddenberry.
He got his start in publishing in high school, writing a column for a national hobby newsletter.