In his new book Lessons from a Desperado Poet, cowboy poet Baxter Black offers lots of advice for authors and speakers. It’s his first self-published book of the 22 books he’s penned in his long-standing career.

Reviewer Nancy Jorgensen says, “As you read of his exploits, you’ll discover how to market yourself, publish your own book, and manage your business while following the cowboy way of doing the right thing.”

Lessons from a Desperado Poet by Baxter Black – Book Review

by Nancy Jorgensen

In his new book Lessons from a Desperado Poet, Baxter Black offers this advice if you’re looking to start your own speaking and writing career:

“If you are easily discouraged, vain or sensitive to rejection, then entrepreneurship is not for you. Stick to a job that offers company insurance and a retirement package.”

Still, determined speakers and authors could look to Baxter Black as a model. As of September 2012, he had addressed 2,428 audiences and published 22 books. Not bad for a career spun out of cowboy poetry.

Baxter Black and his wife Cindy Lou, along with a handful of workers, run his media “empire” from home in Benson, Arizona, where he tapes his short videos for RFD TV and his weekly radio broadcasts. Content for the broadcasts and most of his books comes from the weekly column he’s written for 32 years, “On the Edge of Common Sense,” which appears in 144 newspapers.

Baxter penned his first self-help book Lessons from a Desperado Poet as “a cowboy’s guide to the entrepreneurial universe.” As you read of his exploits, you’ll discover how to market yourself, publish your own book, and manage your business while following the cowboy way of doing the right thing. He self-publishes his cowboy poetry, but landed Random House for his novels and Twodot for Lessons.

Here are a few Baxterisms from his new book.

•  You will be amazed at how capable people think you are if they don’t know you well. Don’t waste that advantage.
• Remember, often it is not ability, it’s reliability. The world is run by those who show up.
• Two pounds of persistence are worth ten pounds of talent.
• Diversity is like fishing with two rods; you’ve always got bait in the water.
• You’ve got to be able to recognize a dead horse when you see it and put down the reins.

The book also covers Baxter’s life story, including his work as a vet on a large Idaho livestock operation.

When Baxter started out, Western movies and TV shows were hot. Few Westerns are made today, but when asked if he worries that his cowboy audience will disappear, Baxter laughs. “As long as there are cows, there will be cowboys,” he says. “You just can’t see them from the highway.”

For more information, visit baxterblack.com, or email jorgensenn@q.com.

Nancy Jorgensen, a free-lance writer from Pomerene, Arizona, specializes in food, agriculture, finance, and rural themes.