Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t
While we’re on the subject of hardball lessons that the aspiring artist needs to learn, let’s go straight to the Big One. What follows is the underlying truth that every writer and artist from Homer to R. Crumb needs to know and deal with:
Nobody wants to read your shit.
My first real grownup job was in advertising. I worked as a copywriter for a big ad agency in New York. The first thing you realize, writing ads and TV commercials is
Nobody wants to read your shit.
By shit, I mean your ads and commercials. Everybody hates them. Sight unseen, the audience despises everything you put before them. Your coupon ad for Preparation H, your trade pitch for Nugenix Man-Boosting Formula. They fast-forward through your commercials. They turn the page of the magazine. They hit the SKIP AD button on your YouTube spot.
This is true not just for ads, but screenplays, novels, comedy sketches, art installations, dances, one-act plays, musical revues, strip acts, standup routines. Nobody, not your dog or your mother, wants to read your grant application or sit through your opera or screen your documentary on the plight of indigenous hunter-gatherers in the Amazon.
It’s not that people are mean or cruel, they’re just busy. They’ve got stuff to do.
Nobody wants to read your shit.
Understanding this admittedly unpleasant truth produces, paradoxically, the single greatest breakthrough any writer or artist can achieve.
Empathy.
(More on this next week … )
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
I remember the first time I read this. I felt like you let me in on a secret even though it should’ve been the obvious. My writing has improved because of this knowing. But of course I’m still hoping you’ll read this sh*t, I mean comment. As always, thanks for your wisdom.
I recently finished this book, and it’s one of my favorite writing books ever. I love the War of Art, Do the Work, Turning Pro, and several others in your nonfiction collection, but as a budding freelance copywriter and screenwriter, this one really resonated with me, perhaps because people REALLY don’t want to read my shit Lol
Nobody wants to read your sh*t, not your hubby, kids, sister, or friends. They’ll spend their time on YouTube and instagram. And they’ll share posts with you. My copy of the book holds so many post it notes, it’s twice as heavy as it should be.
Steve, you continue to “stop pulling your punches”. As a yet-to-be-accomplished entrepreneur I appreciate the candid candor. But your closing comment about empathy really got my attention. I have identified my lack of empathy as my single worse character flaw. I have given myself plenty of remedies but I am still waiting to recognize some improvement. I hope you continue to “hit me between the eyes” in your empathy plug!
Or listen to your music. If I get a lot of views on a YouTube short, it’s because of the video of a sunset at sea – not for the music I wrote to pair with it. 😢 Still, one hopes.
One of my fellow musician friends have a little joke about how we work so hard to create some music and triumphantly share it, only to receive a like or two, then it disappears forever. But if we absent-mindedly upload a video of our dog chasing its tail, then the comments, hearts, and love all come pouring in.
Don’t let that fool you into thinking making the music isn’t important. There’s no one in the universe that would ever make what you made. That’s your super power. You are you and no one else is. It’s wrong not to let the world have it!
Brian, well said.
Não se iludir. E fazer o trabalho livre de projeções e expectativas.
Difícil.Fundamental.
Valeu!
Needed this reminder as I was disappointed that a recent show hasn’t received press. Other good things have come out of it, including developing new work. Still it can sting.
Probably a good idea to refresh my brain with a reread of the book. Just to reinforce my own internal drive.
Thanks!
I’m really finding this out on Substack. I’ve been on there for 18 months and do all the things the “experts” say one should do to attract readers, but just this week, I hit 100 subscribers. I get, maybe, three likes on each of my episodes. No one wants to read what other artists produce, even though they claim that’s why they’re there. So, I just keep plugging along, working on my craft, and see where it leads me.
It’s a tough pill to swallow, accepting without rancor that “nobody wants to read your shit.” Reflecting again on Dutch Leonard’s quote from last week, “I write to be read.” There’s a dichotomy here, right? Kind of a wave-particle duality.
We want to be read by others, but also accepting that fundamentally we have to be writing for ourselves. We can have beta readers to give us feedback (if they’ll tolerate us). But at the core of it, we have to do our own work before unleashing something on the world.
Asking friends and family to “read this draft” and “now read this next draft” and “what do you think?” and “tell me how to fix this” can be a heavy load to carry, if not a burden.
It’s kind of like a chef in the kitchen, making a soup. “Here I’ve got some hot water with salt in it. What do you think? It’s an early draft, but do you like it? What do you think it needs?” Nobody wants to read (eat) your sh*t (hot salty water). Go dice up some chicken and vegetables and ping me when soup’s on.
Amen, Joe. Meaningful comments from a guy who is not only a writer, but also a professional/competent editor!
Preach it, reverend!
Thank you very much dear Steve.
Well. They don’t want to read that shit. But yet they read, and if inspired, they read devouring the pages.
So, is the problem with the food we cook (ah, nice title for a book)? Are we giving them the wrong stuff? Maybe. Replicas, banal, other things that we must do for them – instead of *being someones* for them.
I can sense this detail at first sight, later I’ll sense more.
My deepest love and care. Carpe diem.
Just singing to the choir here…but this helps me.
Van Gogh didn’t really sell paintings in his life time. (relatively speaking)
There. I can’t imagine my life without his art!
And then Emily Dickinson’s post-life curator and publisher of her work.
But then Anais Nin having to buy her own printer’s press just to get her art published… So many view points.
I’m reading Authentic Swing again.
-Regina
Solid comments today.
I was surprised at the last word in Steve’s post: “Empathy” (defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”) I look forward to Steve’s elaboration next week.
I was expecting the word “Professionalism,” or “Competence.”
It’s been a while since I read “Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit” (I highly recommend it). My take away was — if we want folks to read our shit– then give the reader (customer) a good reason… Become a skilled story teller; add value in the marketplace….
Add value. Yeah, man.
Is anyone here enjoying the new documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes? I mention it because Billy says something that could’ve come straight out of one of the posts in this series…
“I didn’t like thinking like a businessman. I wanted to be an ‘artiste.’ I just want to think about the music and the
creativity and buh, buh, buh. And I’m above all that. Well, bullshit. I wasn’t above all of that.”
If only there was an edit feature for these comments! The spacing looked fine in draft mode 🙁