Kent Merrell might be one of the most published, yet least read authors published today. Nearly every baby boomer has the opportunity to read his work. After 40 years writing and producing advertising mail which totals nearly 400,000,000 pieces mailed, he jokes if all four hundred million read what he so articulately wrote, his clients would be richer than Solomon. Instead, he’s turned his love of words to something much more substantial – fiction—releasing his first historical fiction, “The Blade of Safavid” in 2022.

Fifteen years ago, Kent’s first published book

It was 9:42 am Sunday morning. Kent stood in front of the audience, hands gripping the podium. He would make a presentation he would never forget. A presentation he is certain not one person in the audience remembers today. It was 1963. His father shared with him a story about a ranch hand who could sleep when the wind blows. Kent delivered the speech flawlessly. There was no applause. And there was no silence either, all his fellow primary children were busy poking each other, sliding in and out of their seats, begging to go to the bathroom and asking if was over yet.

Stoic and stilted. Those two words contributed more to Kent’s entrepreneurship than any others. Graduating from college in the height of the 1980 recession, jobs were tough to come by. For an inexperienced kid with only college homework assignments as a portfolio, the Madison Avenue advertising world held no doors open. Kent and his dear friend Court Nauman worked their way through high school and college trading their graphics talent for enough pennies to keep tuition paid. With no jobs for either, they teamed up and started Naumann & Merrell Advertising.