By Way of Luck

What's luck got to do with it? Everything, says author Jim Perkins.

Follow along as Jim shares his stories of how the son of Greek Macedonian immigrants came to serve in the U.S. Air Force, rub elbows with celebrities and corporate bigwigs, significantly influence the publishing and ecommerce industries, and initiate a program that led to the conservation of more than 30 million acres of public lands in the United States. His stories give a first-hand glimpse into the evolution of business and media in America.

The people Jim has met along his journey are as varied as his career and include: John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Irving Stone, Saul Alinsky, Helen Gurley Brown, Hugh Hefner, Julie Eisenhower and Haines Gaffner, to name a few. His stories give a first-hand glimpse into the evolution of business and media in America.

Jim is sure to entertain while providing insights into how people respond when caught up in extraordinary events. Here, he tells stories of actors and directors, writers, editors and publishers, of advertising agencies and television executives, of communications and financial conglomerates and of the people who run them, and how the decisions they made shaped the world we live in today.

His colorful memoir recounts the oddly circumstantial events in which Jim has played a central role. Sheer luck - much of it good, he says - put him at the center of the changes engulfing the media industry during the second half of the 20th and into the 21st century.

Luck provides those chances and choices that shape our lives. For better or worse, our response when opportunity comes our way defines our successes and failures. Accepting the challenge of difficult decisions and viewing them as opportunities is what makes up a storied and successful life.

Learn through the wit and wisdom of the author how chance may even be shaping the story of your own life every time you decide to take the path "less traveled by."

Praise for By Way of Luck

"Lucky? No way. Jim Perkins fascinating, delightfully crafted odyssey makes it clear, in fact, that it s his extraordinary imagination, creativity and vision, not to mention his mastery of the language, that can transform a tale of luck into an endlessly surprising and always engaging read." -Joe Mathewson, Journalism Teacher, Northwestern University; author, The Supreme Court and the Press: The Indispensable Conflict

"While Jim Perkins credits his livelihood to good fortune...that isn't the whole story. A reader will learn from the stories he tells that when you're alert to life's possibilities; are willing to take risks; and are resilient when setbacks occur; success happens. An invigorating book. " -Jean A. Mansavage, Ph.D., historian, U.S. Air Force Historical Studies Office; author, Natural Defense.

"A bravura performance. By Way of Luck far surpasses most of the breed. Perkins is a natural story teller. His voice comes through in both the flow of the narrative and its peopling with characters vividly drawn. For the reader who knows the territory he covers, this is valuable stuff, with a significant lesson imparted: Namely, danger awaits any firm that stubbornly maintains its corporate culture in the face of change." -Donald S. Lamm, retired Chairman, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, W.W. Norton & Company, publishers

Writing By Way of Luck would be a struggle, author Jim Perkins knew. The baring of little known tales of celebrated friends and business colleagues as well as of himself he saw as a daunting if not self-serving task. Finally, at the urging of admirers aware of his truly inventive career, coursing from editing to publishing to advertising and over the last 35 years to the evolution of electronic media, he relented. How could I say no? he asked. I m a media wonk. I write. I edit. I produce, I promote. It s what I ve always done. Why not write about the people and places I know best, however revealing the stories may be? Jim s influence is today commonly seen in the blossoming of on-line shopping and the transition of delivering voice and data communications from wire hung on telephone poles to multi-use, wireless, hand-held, digital devices. Yet the most extraordinary story of all is how his commitment to the outdoors and the environment, by luck alone, led him to initiate a land, water and wildlife conservation program that today encompasses more than thirty million acres of public lands in the United States. With his wife Judith, Jim lives in rural Connecticut where he has notably taken on land issues, water issues, Native American issues, and uncategorized environmental issues arising from public indifference and neglect. On climate change, he says, getting your arms around the issue is impossible for an individual. But if each of us tends to our own backyard, as neighbors and concerned citizens collectively we can have a positive effect on our shared environment. His successes, he says, are satisfying. Jim is an alumnus of Dartmouth College and of the United States Air Force, the two institutions giving definition to his life and to the importance of family.