The first time I spoke with Marc Allen, he told me he could help make me a millionaire. Six years later as I drive up a private road in Marin County just north of San Francisco toward Allen's stately home, I remember how the founder of New World Library built his reputation and his company on the premise of helping people realize their dreams.
It's high noon on a lovely late-autumn Friday. Allen, a self-described “type Z” personality, doesn't do mornings or Mondays. His work week starts Tuesday afternoon. He admits he rolled out of bed just a half hour before I arrived.
Allen started New World Library on his 30th birthday, now 30 years ago. He likes to tell the story of how he woke up broke, unemployed, a musician without a band or a future. He laughs as he repeats the story, standing on a terrace with a view a resplendent Northern California autumn.
“In my little slum apartment in Oakland, I imagined this house,” says Allen. Everything starts with a dream, for Allen—then goals, then affirmations. In his books The Millionaire Course: A Visionary Plan for Creating the Life of Your Dreams, The Type Z Guide to Success: A Lazy Person's Manifesto for Wealth and Fulfillment and the forthcoming The Greatest Secret of All: Moving Beyond Abundance to a Life of True Fulfillment, he shares the key to his success—writing down his dreams in the form of affirmations and carrying them around with him as a constant reminder.
When Allen dreamed of starting a publishing company, everyone told him he couldn't make a profit. He started New World Library anyway—calling it Whatever Publishing in the beginning—with his then girlfriend, Shakti Gawain. By the time he was 35, Allen was $65,000 in credit card debt. Then he found a smart bookkeeper named Victoria Clarke (now CFO of the company), signed up with Publishers Group West for distribution and hired Munro Magruder, a transplant from New York publishing, who was a wizard at marketing.
“I have people who are far more together than I am,” says Allen, who still dislikes the marketing and financial parts of the business and prefers to concentrate on the editorial side.
In 1979, with the publication of the company's fourth book, Gawain's Creative Visualization, New World Library was on its way to the success Allen visualized. Now it publishes 40 titles a year in the New Age/self-help/personal growth genre, including perennial bestsellers The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra.
Allen's come a long way from his Minnesotan, Lutheran roots. He arrived in San Francisco with a theater group and fell in love with Marin County, which is a little like going to New York and falling in love with Westchester. Allen was in San Francisco in '68 for the summer of love—and loved it—but ultimately he preferred the calm that could be found across the Golden Gate Bridge.
When Bay Area publishing types talk of Allen, the first word that often comes up is “generous.” He shares more than half of the profits at New World Library with his 17 employees—which he credits with making the company even more profitable. Allen says that the 5%—10% profits most conglomerate publishers chase is pathetic and that New World Library's pretax profits are in the 20%—25% range. On his current list of goals he carries with him, there is an affirmation about building the company profit level to 50%.
“I am convinced that because I share more than half the profits with the employees, we have twice the profits,” says Allen. As a result of profit sharing and a generous benefits package that is aimed to help employees create wealth for their retirement, there is very little turnover at NWL.
When Allen speaks about helping people attain wealth, he does it without arrogance. He simply thinks that every person has the means to create the life they want—and he publishes books that help them do that.
As we walk through Allen's living room, he points out the grand fireplace that spreads over 24 feet of stunning white brick. A statue of Buddha sits at its base. He says that the builder told him the bricks were from some famous San Francisco landmark building, but he can't remember which one. The statement is quintessential Allen: it's not about the things in life, but the spirit of living fully.
And it all starts with a dream.
