Category: Comedy Books

Comedy Books Quotes

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“Sick In The Head” Quotes

I recently read “Sick In The Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy” by Judd Apatow. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. Since it’s an interview book, the person who says the quote is listed in bold directly above the quote. If you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

Screen Shot 2015-09-22 at 6.19.37 PMJudd Apatow
“There’s this quote from John Cassavetes. He said, “I don’t care if you like me or hate me, I just want you to be thinking about me in ten years.”” (20)

“We were willing to go down for the show. It would have been awful if one of us said, “Let’s do all these changes – I really want to keep this job.” (97)

“You have to have a dream before you can execute it. That the people who succeed are the ones who think through what the next stages of their careers might be, and then work incredibly hard, day after day, to attain their goals. They don’t just flop around like fish. They have a vision, and they work their assess of to make it a reality.” (101)

“Do not be afraid to share your story, or to be vulnerable and open when telling it.” (130)

“It taps into the national neurosis in a way, where people are so happy to not be unhappy.” (223)

“My approach was always: This is an impossible job for Garry. I’m just going to try and help him in any way I can. But other people, when they would pitch a joke that didn’t get through, would get angry at Garry. And that was destructive.” (232)

“I shoot an enormous amount of film, and when I’m shooting what I think to myself is, If I hate this scene in editing, what would I wish I had? And so as I’m shooting, I’m shooting many permutations of the scene. It might be different lines or alts. If it’s too many, let me get something a little less mean. If it seems sentimental, I might get something edgy. I usually have like a million feet of film that in my head – I’ve edited every permutation and I’m just flipping things in and out so at the end of it I’m reasonably happy.” (264)

“So much of the conversation about diversity on TV should be about subscribers and advertisers. If the networks thought they could make more money creating shows with diverse casts they would do it in a second. They’ve clearly decided there’s not enough money in it. Every once in awhile they throw a bone to the idea of diversity, but it’s not a high priority.” (269)

“David Milch said executives don’t want to give notes and don’t want to stand behind their opinions. Executives want you to have enough power or reputation so that if you screw up, it’s your screw up, not theirs. The whole thing is inverted. Executives are looking for ways to not be responsible. And when you achieve a certain level of success, you’ll notice that some executives disappear because they have deniability about the process. “Of course I trusted Judd, he’s had enough success that I should let him do what he wants to do.” It’s actually harder for them to work with young people, because then they have to be responsible.” (270)

“Everybody told me you get five bombs before you go out of business. You can withstand five. your budget will get lower every time you have a bomb.” (270)

“Sometimes you make things and, the whole time, you’re aware that it might not make money, and yet it’s what you should be making at this moment in time and you hope it will connect in a big way because it is unique and personal. You have to try to do things that are more challenging to the audience. Those often become the biggest hits. Sometimes they don’t make a ton of money.” (271)

“I always heard that from Larry David. That was his big inspiration. He was willing to walk away from Seinfeld when they would give him bad notes.” (302)

“You write movies to figure out why you’re writing the movie.” (370)

“The thing that really makes a lot of these movies possible is that when we do the auditions, Seth reads with every actor trying to get a part in the movie. So by the time the movie is shot, he has read with like two hundred people. Through that process, we figure out who his character is and we try to problem-solve all the issues of the movie. So we’ll hold auditions for parts even though we kind of know who we want for the part, just to hear it with that person – and that almost becomes the rehearsal of the movie.” (427)

“With comedy, as soon as you succeed, you have some credibility and then they trust you more.” (442)

Jerry Seinfeld
“I wanted to be around it, you know. I never thought I’d be any good at it. But that turned out to be an advantage because it made me work harder than most other people.” (9)

Albert Brooks
“My friend Harry Nilsson used to say the definition of an artist was someone who rode way ahead of the herd and was sort of the lookout. Now you don’t have to be that, to be an artist. You can be right smack-dab in the middle of the herd. If you are, you’ll be the richest.” (28)

“I sum up all of show business in three words: Frank Sinatra Junior. People think there’s nepotism in show business. There’s no nepotism on the performing side, especially in comedy. I don’t know of any famous person that can tell an audience to laugh at their son.” (40)

“If I’ve learned anything – anything – getting older, it’s the value of moment-tomoment enjoyment. When I was young, all my career was “If I do well tonight, that means that Wednesday will be better. That means I can give this tape to mya gent and…” It was thiis ongoing chess game. And that is a really disappointing game, because when you get to checkmate, it never feels liek it should. And there’s another board that they never told you about. So if I come here and talk to you, if I have an enjoyable three hours, god damn it, that counts.” (45)

Chris Rock
“I did some things that sucked. But you learn more from fucking up than you do from success, unfortunately. And failure, if you don’t let it defeat you, is what fuels your future success.” (70)

“I did stand-up for fifteen years before I broke, you know.” (70)

Jason Segel
“We would get the script on a Friday, and Seth and James and I would get together at my house every Sunday, without fail, and do the scenes over and over and improve them and reallyt hink about them. We loved the show. And we took the opportunity really, really seriously.” (95)

Seth Rogen
“We felt if we made the scenes better on the weekend, if we came in with better jokes, they would film it. And they would! And we didn’t know it at the time, but that was completely unindicative of probably every other show that was on television.”

James L. Brooks
“I think the whole thing with writing – generally, you push and push and push and then, come on already, when do you pull? At a certain point, it pulls. I mean it’s pulling you forward and you’re not working so hard. You’re not laboring. You’re serving. Laboring becomes serving.” (145)

Jerry Seinfeld
“I was a minimalist from the beginning. I think that’s why I’ve done well as a comedian. If you always want less, in words as well as things, you’ll do well as a writer.” (186)

Jimmy Fallon
“We just went in knowing that we might get canceled. And if you’re going to go down, you have to go down doing what you like doing and what’s fun for you, because I don’t ever want ot do something painful and then have everyone go, “Hey, that works. Keep doing that painful thing for years.”” (216)

“Out of all the things I watched to get ready for this job, Larry Sanders was the ultimate – that’s the ultimate piece of advice I’d tell anyone to watch if you’re doing a talk show. It’s so real and so well done. That’s how a show gets made.” (221)

Jon Stewart
“Think of how much energy it takes to fuck with people. What if you try to use that energy to get the show done faster and better and get everybody out by seven? If I go into the morning meeting and I have clarity, and I can articulate that clarity, everybody’s day is easier. If that doesn’t happen, it’s my fault.” (231)

“Intention is a really big thing at this show. We always want to know where’s the intention, and, now, let’s find a path to that intention.” (232)

“It’s so important to remove preciousness and ownership. You have to invest everybody in the success of the show, and to let them feel good about their contribution to it without becoming the sole proprietor of a joke. There has to be an understanding that, that may be a great joke, but it might not serve the larger intention, or the narrative, of the show. You have to make sure that everybody feels invested without feeling that type of ownership.” (233)

Larry Gelbart
“I don’t worry about what they’ll get. I write for myself on the assumption that there are a number of people who have similar sensibilities and will appreciate what it is that I thought was good enough to present, not to them but to me.” (261)

Louis C.K.
“You want it to be compelling, that’s all. The likable thing is not really worth much. It’s a low-wattage bulb, you know.” (301)

“I never cared if I got cancelled. That’s the only thing that makes me do this stuff well, is I was willing to let the job go any day.” (302)

Mel Brooks
“John Calley said, “Mel, if you’re going to go up to the bell, ring it.” (335)

Michael O’Donoghue
“The way that you program is you put your best thing first, and your second-best thing second, and your third – because you’re just trying to fight sleep.” (353)

Mike Nichols
“I’m too good of a director to like me as an actor. I can get better people.” (366)

Roseanne Barr
“Today they want no part of anything having to do with class on TV. No part. Because it’s too true.” (399)

Spike Jonze
“When I’m making a movie, I want to be responsible and listen to the concerns of the people who gave me the money. But at a certain point, I have to put that all out of my mind because it’s not the responsibility of that movie. That movie’s responsibility is to be true to itself. If I don’t get to make another movie, I’ll make something else. I’ll make a movie for a milion dollars. I’ll go write a short story.” (440)

“I just don’t start to make another movie until I feel clean again from the last one.” (443)

“My job really isn’t to know how many people are going to like something. My job is to know what a movie’s about to me, and to know that I need to make it. It’s somebody else’s job to say, “okay, that budget makes sense or doesn’t make sense.” Once they gamble on it, that’s their gamble and I’m gonna be their partner in it, but we have to support each other.” (444)

“When I finished Her, I thought, Okay, I’ve done everything I can do to give this as much love as I could give it and now it’s gonna go off and be what it’s gonna be. If it gets loved I’ll be proud and if it gets hated it’ll hurt, but I also know that what I have done with my friends and collaborators will never change.” (447)

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“The Lean Startup” Quotes

I recently read The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries.  Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quote, click here to buy the book.

Lean Startup“Startups exist not just to make stuff, make money, or even serve customers. They exist to learn how to build a sustainable business.” (9)

“The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build – the thing customers want and will pay for – as quickly as possible.” (20)

“Every new version of a product, every new feature, and every new marketing program is an attempt to improve this engine of growth.” (21)

“In general management, a failure to deliver results is due to either a failure to plan adequately or a failure to execute properly. Bother are significant lapses, yet new product development in our modern economy routinely requires exactly this kind of failure on the way to greatness.” (24)

“When you have only one test, you don’t have entrepreneurs, you have politicians, because you have to sell. Out of a hundred good ideas, you’ve got to sell your idea. So you build up a society of politicians and salespeople. When you have five hundred tests you’re running, then everybody’s ideas can run. And then you create entrepreneurs who run and learn and can retest and relearn as opposed to a society of politicians.” (33)

“Brad Smith explained to me how they hold themselves accountable for their new innovation efforts by measuring two things: the number of customers using products that didn’t exist three years ago and the percentage of revenue coming from offerings that did not exist three years ago.” (35)

“Lean thinking defines value as providing benefit to the customer; anything else is waste.” (48)

“What if we simply had offered customers the opportunity to download the product from us solely on the basis of its proposed features before building anything? Remember, almost no customers were willing to use our original product, so we wouldn’t have had to do much apologizing when we failed to deliver. (Note that this is different from asking customers what they want. Most of the time customers don’t know what they want in advance.)” (49)

“The effort that is not absolutely necessary for learning what customers want can be eliminated. I call this validated learning because it s always demonstrated by positive improvements in the startup’s core metrics.” (49)

“We adopted the view that our job was to find a synthesis between our vision and what customers would accept; it wasn’t to capitulate to what the customers thought they wanted or to tell customers what they ought to want.” (50)

“The irony is that it is often easier to raise money or acquire other resources when you have zero revenue, zero customers, and zero traction than when you have a small amount. Zero invites imagination, but small numbers invite questions about whether large numbers will ever materialize.” (52)

“The two most important assumptions entrepreneurs make are what I call the value hypothesis and the growth hypothesis. The value hypothesis tests whether a product or service really delivers value to customers once they are using it… The growth hypothesis tests how new customers will discover a product or service.” (61)

“The point is not to find the average customer but to find early adopters: the customers who feel the need for the product more acutely. Those customers tend to be more forgiving of mistakes and are especially eager to give feedback.” (62)

“As Mark Cook says, “Success is not delivering a feature; success is learning how to solve the customer’s problem.”” (66)

“What differentiates the success stories from the failures is that successful entrepreneurs had the foresight, the ability, and the tools to discover which parts of their plans were working brilliantly and which were misguided, and adapt their strategies accordingly.” (84)

“The problem with most entrepreneurs’ plans is generally not that they don’t follow sound strategic principles but that the facts upon which they are based are wrong.” (91)

“Before new products can be sold successfully to the mass market, they have to be sold to early adopters. These people are a special breed of customer. They accept – in fact prefer – an 80 percent solution; you don’t need a perfect solution to capture their interest.” (94)

“Early adopters are suspicious of something that is too polished: if it’s ready for everyone to adopt, how much advantage can one get by being early?” (95)

“These discussion of quality presuppose that the company already knows what attributes of the product the customer will perceive as worthwhile. In a startup, this is a risky assumption to make. Often we are not even sure who the customer is.” (107)

“Customers don’t care how much time something takes to build. They care only if it serves their needs.” (109)

“Part of the special challenge of being a startup is the near impossibility of having your idea, company, or product be noticed by anyone, let alone a competitor.” (111)

“A head start is rarely large enough to matter, and time spent in stealth mode – away from customers – is unlikely to provide a head start. The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.” (111)

“A good design is one that changes customer behavior for the better.” (120)

“Instead of writing a specification for a new feature that described it in technical terms, Farb would write a story that described the feature from the point of view of the customer. That story helped keep the engineers focused on the customer’s perspective throughout the development process.” (132)

“There is no bigger destroyed of creative potential than the misguided decision to persevere.” (149)

“Failure is a prerequisite to learning. The problem with the notion of shipping a product and then seeing what happens is that you are guaranteed to succeed – at seeing what happens.” (154)

“Customer segment pivot is keeping the functionality of the product the same but changing the audience focus.” (156)

“This is also common with pivots; it is not necessary to throw out everything that came before and start over. Instead, it’s about repurposing what has been built and what has been learned to find a more positive direction.” (169)

“Once you have found success with early adopters, you want to sell to mainstream customers. Mainstream customers have different requirements and are much more demanding.” (170)

“Large batches tend to grow over time. Because moving the batch forward often results in additional work, rework, delays, and interruptions, everyone has an incentive to do work in ever-larger batches, trying to minimize this overhead. This is called the large-batch death spiral because, unlike in manufacturing, there are no physical limits on the maximum size of a batch.” (198)

“Process is the only foundation upon which a great company culture can develop. But without this foundation, efforts to encourage learning, creativity, and innovation will fall flat.” (204)

“Sustainable growth is characterized by one simple rule: New customers come from the actions of past customers… Either by 1. Word of mouth… 2. As a side effect of product usage… 3 Through funded advertising… 4. Through repeat purchase or use.” (207-8)

“For advertising to be a source of sustainable growth, the advertising must be paid for out of revenue, not one-time sources such as investment capital.” (208)

“Getting a startup’s engine of growth up and running is hard enough, but the truth is that every engine of growth eventually runs out of gas. Every engine is tied to a given set of customers and their related habits, preferences, advertising channels, and interconnections. At some point, that set of customers will be exhausted. This may take a long time or a short time, depending on one’s industry and timing.” (222)

“If you are causing (or missing) quality problems now, the resulting defects will slow you down later. Defects cause a lot of rework, low morale, and customer complaints, all of which slow progress and eat away at valuable resources.” (227)

“In my experience startup teams require three structural attributes: scarce but secure resources, independent authority to develop their business, and a personal stake in the outcome.” (253)

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“Poking A Dead Frog” Quotes

I recently read “Poking A Dead Frog: Conversations With Today’s Top Comedy Writers” by Mike Sacks. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. (Since this is an interview book, the person saying it is the underlined name above the quote). If you like the quotes, please buy the full book here.

Screen Shot 2014-12-23 at 12.40.35 PM“Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” -Teller

“All great comedy has managed to circumnavigate executive meddling. But this is easier said than done.” (xiv)

“Each came to this business primarily because he or she wanted to create the sort of comedy that they themselves enjoyed the most. For all of them – be they writers of sketches, graphic novels, screenplays, New Yorker cartoons, fiction, nonfiction, television, stand-up, the radio – success was a by-product, not the goal.” (xv)

James Downey
“I avoid anything I feel is a cheap laugh based on shock or just being dirty. You can always get a laugh, but you don’t want it to come at the price of your dignity.” (11)

(Sometimes the audience just wants to laugh.) “They do, that’s right. But sometimes writers overlook this. Not performers, though. If the audience is laughing, they’re happy.” (12)

“Writers are much more interested, and maybe even obsessed, with originality. We sometimes treat comedy as a science, where advances are made, and we must always move forward, never backward. So that once something has been done, it should perhaps be built upon, but never, ever repeated. For performers, the fact that something has been done before is, I think, neither here nor there. For writers, it’s a real problem, and sometimes we can tie ourselves up in knots worrying, ‘Is this too similar to that other thing?’” (12)

“I think we need to be ahead of our audiences, but not so much that we lose them.” (12)

“Unless you’re making an observation, and that observation is true – and I hope fresh – it’s not worth writing a piece.” (14)

“I’m less worried about a bad piece than about missing a great one.” (22)

Terry Jones
“We made it a point to end sketches when they might have just been beginning on other shows.” (25)

Diablo Cody
“Always be working on your own material. Write specs! Though I’ve been hired to write studio projects, everything I’ve ever gotten produced has been an original spec script that I just wanted to write on my own. I wasn’t being paid for them. Other people’s ideas are never as important as yours.” (31)

Mike Schur
“TV comedy writing is a team sport. That’s just the deal.” (34)

“Something David Mamet once said sums it up perfectly: ‘Doing a movie or a play is like running a marathon. Doing a television show is like running until you die.’” (35)

“The number of people watching TV on their own schedule, through Hulu or iTunes or whichever platform they prefer, is rising exponentially. And it’s never going back the other way.” (36)

“TV comedies only work long-term if the characters are three-dimensional and great.” (42)

“Shows get picked up based on their pilots, which is directly analogous to judging a book by its first ten pages.” (42)

“TV is about presenting an inviting world in which audiences want to invest their time, regularly, over many years. Jokes help because, you know, they make people happy. But what makes people love a show, and get attached to it, is great characters having great adventures.” (43)

“Television is not about quantity anymore; it’s very much about quality – and specificity.” (44)

“The most valuable and unteachable asset in a comedy writer is a unique voice. That is my top priority in hiring people-does this person sound like everyone else, or is there something about how he or she puts words and sentences and ideas together that sticks out?” (47)

“Complacency is a classic mistake. Some people get to a certain point and go, ‘Okay, I’ve figured it out!’ Writing isn’t a thing you figure out – ever. My favorite things I’ve ever written, I hate.” (47)

“To stay vibrant and successful, you can’t ever feel like you know what you’re doing. Your attitude has to constantly be, ‘Who is this rank amateur, and how can I teach him how to write?’” (48)

“No writer should ever breathe easy. You should constantly figure out how to write better stories and better jokes, more three-dimensional characters, how to change what isn’t work. If you don’t, you’re gonna lose your touch.” (48)

Todd Levin
“A desk piece must be generic enough to accommodate all kinds of jokes, familiar enough to require very little setup, and fresh enough that it hasn’t already been attempted in more than a half century of late night comedy.” (52)

“Never underestimate the importance of carefully weaving your own voice into your submission well enough that it cannot easily be separated from your ideas. That’s the balance that I think is important to strike: supplying something familiar that no one ever saw coming.” (57)

Henry Beard
“You hate to admit it, but it’s all luck. It’s just really all luck.” (73)

James L. Brooks
“If it’s good, you will be noticed. If you’re an actor, you need other people in order to act; a director needs other people in order to direct. But writers can be alone in a room and do what they do, without any help. It’s all in their hands. And sooner or later, someone will give it a read.” (82)

Peter Mehlman
“The (Seinfeld) writers would come up with their own storylines, and then we’d pass them to Jerry and Larry, who would either accept or reject them. If you couldn’t come up with story lines, you were let go. But there was no one room in which the writers had to sit and write and pitch out ideas.
You know, having a writers’ room is very conducive to getting nothing done. You get a lot of people in there and you go off on tangents and people are going to the bathroom and going out and getting coffee. Everybody just wants to get out of that room.” (109)

Paul F. Tompkins
“If you approach everything from a pure creative angle, the work and employment will take care of itself.” (113)

“Just be around and engage people in a pure way and you’re going to get more work that way.” (113)

Adam McKay
“We always try to make our movies one-third satire, one-third parody, and one-third original storytelling.” (118)

“Del Close had a key tenant: always go to your third thought.” (123)

“Now, filmmakers can record the laughs from a test audience at a screening, and we can then cut to the rhythm of those laughs, the rhythm of the audience. We synchronize the laughs with the film. We can really get our timing down to a hundredth of a second.” (130)

“There’s no greater comedy killer than receiving a note that says a character’s not likable enough. The second you see someone write that, you know they don’t know a thing about comedy. The entire game is to make your character as awful and irresponsible as possible, while still keeping at oe in the pool of his still being a human being. I mean, that’s the game. That’s the game you’re playing. The more despicable your guy can get away with behaving while still remaining on the side of the audience, the funnier it’ll be. Seinfeld is the greatest example of that ever.” (131)

“I wasn’t as obsessed with “Why didn’t aht sketch get in?” Your first couple years, you think everything should be perfect. Once you let that go, it’s a really fun show to work on.” (134)

Bruce Jay Friedman
“A more accurate term (instead of black humor) would have been tense comedy-there’s much to laugh at on the surface, but with streaks of agony running beneath.” (151)

“I’m hesitant to begin a short story unless I know the last line, or a close approximation of it.” (170)

Gabe Delahaye
“I was once told, ‘You aren’t good at writing, but if you can get over that, then one day maybe you will be okay at writing.’” (203)

“Write what you think is funny. This does not mean anyone else will agree, but if you write what you hope others will think is funny, you have already alienated at least some readers.” (204)

“If you are lucky enough to get an audience for your comedy, be nice to that audience. You are lucky to have them.” (204)

Glen Charles
“There’s a sadness to all the characters. Someone once described Taxi as being a show about hell. All of the characters were essentially stuck in a very bleak environment, struggling to get out.” (216)

“We had a rule that if writers were pitching jokes and two writers came up with the same punch line at once, it was gone.” (221)

“Every show has a voice. The better the show, the better the voice.” (228)

Joel Begleiter
“I think it’s easier to get one of those gigs on pure merit (late night writer) than it is to get a traditional sitcom writing job.” (231)

“We receive SPAM e-mails all day long at the major agencies from writers who have bought e-mail address lists. They are deleted immediately. There’s not even the slightest consideration. I don’t read the letters. When a client has referred a friend of theirs, the letter is not necessary.” (233)

Marc Maron
“You never know when success is going to happen. It’s not a meritocracy; so much of it is about some weird shit aligning that’s usually out of your control, and you catch your break. And a lot of people don’t ever catch it.” (237)

George Saunders
“At the highest level, revision is about anticipating what most writers would do and then asking: Well, is there anything deeper or better or livelier that I could make happen?” (251)

“Start with the idea that all of our enemies get up in the morning feeling like they’re out to serve good. That’s a more realistic and effective view of evil, I think, even just in terms of how it actually occurs and also how one might start to defend oneself or work against that evil.” (255)

“The thing is, writing is really just the process of charming someone via prose – compelling them to keep reading.” (260)

Byrd Leavell
“Don’t even submit to an agent. you are just going to get rejected anyway. Because these days the idea isn’t enough. Going to publishers with ‘I’ve got a great idea for a humor book’ is about as useful as tweeting your breakfast menu. No one cares. Especially not publishers. All they care about is platform. They care if you’ve written something really, really funny and it’s gone viral and five thousand people have commented on it. They care that your product is the perfect thing to turn into a book that works in the market. They care how many readers you can make aware of your book when it is finally published. You have to show agents that you can do all of these things, and then, and only then, do you get to show them how good your book is.” (264)

Dave Hill
“Because I wrote only for wanting to crack up my friends, and I was cracking myself up in the process, it worked. It was the first writing packet I ever wrote that I had any fun doing, and that’s why I was able to make it good. Normally, you put pressure on yourself. And as soon as you think that you absolutely have to do a good job on it, you’re in trouble.” (266)

“Once I was truly at the point where I was not trying to get anyone’s attention, that’s when I got everything I wanted, including a manager.” (266)

“It’s going back to not really giving a shit. Do your best to entertain yourself. Or entertaining the fifteen-year-old in you. Or just creating something that you want to see exist.” (267)

Tom Scharpling
“If you know how to build jokes, you can write any other genre, including mystery and horror.” (272)

“They weren’t attempting to win a huge audience. But they stuck with it, they eventually found their audience, and it’s what they needed to do. You have to trust what you’re doing. There’s something running through everybody that others will eventually respond to.” (279)

“Look, you couldn’t pay me to listen to their music, but I still feel like I have more in common with Insane Clown Posse than I do with someone who just sits on the sidelines and shits on other people’s work and who never puts themselves on the line.” (284)

“”TV and movies are such collaborative mediums. You have to be ready to not have everything go your way – even if you’re in the top position.” (285)

“You have to appreciate the journey. You can’t control where you’re going to end up. You better appreciate the experience; otherwise you’ll never be happy.” (289)

Jon Wurster
We’re so ingrained to think that we have to do things the exact way of the status quo, but 80 percent of the status quo is miserable, you know? Everything came together for me when I stopped caring about it.” (287)

Patton Oswalt
“Have trust in amusing yourself.” (326)

“Just keep going onstage.” (326)

Daniel Clowes
“I’ll receive a lot more of a reaction when something appears on a small website than I will when something’s published in a major magazine or newspaper. The easier it is for a reader to contact you, the more responses you receive.” (334)

“The people who make the decisions in Hollywood are never the oddballs or creative types, so you have to tell them what they want to hear. It didn’t take long for us to start saying things like, ‘We want to make another There’s Something About Mary.’ We had no intention of doing that, but you must at least make the effort to be reassuring.” (343)

“I learned to get rid of everything that doesn’t work, even though I might have spent a long time on it.” (346)

Adam Resnick
“It was done for the wrong reasons-by everybody. And it was a valuable lesson – never do anything just for the opportunity. Always go with your gut – your original instinct. But then again, my gut fails me constantly, so maybe there is no lesson.” (381)

“You can’t think logically when it comes to something you’re passionate about. All you can do is keep trying. And write a lot of projects you’re not passionate about to pay the bills.” (386)

“If you’re in this business and you can cover your overhead by writing exactly what you want, you’re living the dream. And if you’re getting rich by writing what you want, you’re in an enviable position. But for most writers, it’s usually a compromise.” (387)

“What the show really hangs on are the characters and what kind of a life they have. I’d much rather see a writer come up with, ‘I knew somebody like this.’ Or, ‘What would it be like if these three people got mixed together?’ At that point, you can then ask, ‘Okay, what’s the best context for them to be in? What situation?’” (391)

Dan Guterman
“The nice thing about working aloud, where you’re basically talking out every line of a script, is that it kept the show from sounding overly written. When you write alone, and have all the time in the world, you end up rewording sentences, editing and re-editing clauses, playing around with syntax-and your jokes tend to stiffen up as a result. They sound labored over. Your writing is more prone to feeling unnatural. The oral process at Colbert was great at preventing that.” (413)

Alan Spencer
“Now the marketing people come in and tell the executive what projects to make.” (425)

Mel Brooks
“Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve started with characters. I learn what they want, what they need. Where they need to go and how they have to go about achieving that. I listen to them. You can’t just have pure action.” (438)

“Movies to me were much more lasting. TV happens too quickly, and most is never remembered.” (444)

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How To Self Publish A Book Through Kickstarter

Russian-Optimism-Cover-Final-v2-low-resIn 2014 I did a Kickstarter campaign to create the illustrated coffee table book, “Russian Optimism: Dark Nursery Rhymes To Cheer You Right Up.” I wound up surpassing the fundraising goal and within five months the book was published. I would like to share my lessons learned and offer advice for those who are interested in self-publishing a book.

PREPARATION PHASE

  • Create A Pitch for Literary Agents
    After speaking with a friend who works in publishing, I spent time putting together an agent query letter, a ten page book proposal and a spreadsheet of agents to pitch. Why am I suggesting this when I wound up self publishing? Because:

    • 1) This forced me to write a clear, concise, one page and ten page document summarizing my book, my target audiences and my marketing ideas. Later on when I created the Kickstarter page, I was able to copy and paste from the book proposal document instead of starting everything from scratch.
    • 2)  Unlike many people in film and TV, most literary agents get back to you fairly quickly with a decision on whether or not they want to see more of your book. If an agent likes your book and can get you an advance, it might still be worth going the publishing house route. (While perhaps still combining it with a Kickstarter to build a fan base before the book is released.)
  • Create a Video
    I put together a three and a half minute video explaining the project, giving examples of the content and talking a little about myself. The video shows potential donors that you’re passionate and committed to putting something together that looks professional (make sure to post a high quality video!). This helps convince potential donors to entrust you with their money.
  • Create as Many Mock-ups As Possible
    Before seeking potential donors, I spent my own money to create sample illustrations. If you don’t believe enough in your project to invest seed money, why should anyone else? I put the sample illustrations into a mock-up spread with text, so people would get a feel for how the completed book would look. (The final book came out much better than the mock-ups, keep reading to see why.) You should definitely create as much of the look and feel of your book as possible for the Kickstarter page. This is particularly recommended for illustrated or photo-based books, but use your own judgment for your book.
  • Shorten and Re-Edit Everything, Including Reward Levels
    My first draft of the Kickstarter page had way too many reward levels. The description of the project was too long. I listed too many “potential problems.” Go through your entire Kickstarter page and get rid of every word that’s unnecessary. Then do it again. Then again. Then do the most important thing you can do–
  • Get Feedback From Smart & Trusted Friends Before Launching
    I sent the Kickstarter page to eighteen friends whose opinions I trust, asking them to look over my page for general comments and to answer two specific questions:

    • 1) What do you think of the rewards? Is any reward unclear?
    • 2) What do you think of the project description? Is anything unclear? Unnecessary?
    • Nine friends responded with varying levels of detailed notes, which all helped make the project as clear as possible. A side benefit was two of those nine friends contributed money to the actual campaign, including one for a really high reward level. When you ask people for help, they become invested in your project.
    • Send the page to people you trust for notes, but avoid people who are overly negative or overly positive, you need specific notes, not just “this is great” or “what are you doing with your life?”
  • Figure Out Your Funding Goal By Pricing Out The Costs
    There’s going to be one-time fixed costs (an illustrator, a book designer, ISBN registration, publishing upload fees) and variable costs (how many books you print and the mailing cost per book). Once you’ve researched your fixed costs, figure out how much you’d need to charge per book and how many books you’d need to sell to cover those costs. That’s a rough estimate for how much your campaign needs. (I approached this project with the goal of breaking even from Kickstarter and hopefully making money later on from additional sales.) Then remember Kickstarter’s and Amazon’s fees will eat into the money you raised. For example, I raised $3,800 but after fees I only received $3,300. So add 20% to your previous number for the goal. Also, have an amount of money you’d be willing to lose to make your project happen. And charge a lot for international shipping (see towards the ends of this post for the full explanation).

DURING THE KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN

  • Have a Daily Promotional Plan for All 30 Days
    Before launch, I identified potential audiences that might like this book: Russian speakers, illustration fans, people with a dark sense of humor. Then I wrote down a daily action plan to raise awareness for my Kickstarter campaign and divvied that up into thirty, more manageable, daily tasks. I devoted 30-60 minutes per day for this campaign. Some days I would post it on specific Facebook groups, other days it was on reddit, I also included in my monthly mailchimp newsletter. The point is, do something every day.
  • Don’t Rely On Only Your Friends for Funding / Expand Your Fundraising cirle
    Your friends will (hopefully) help you, but you can’t rely on only them. The first financial contributions were made by friends. Their donations gave legitimacy to the project and then strangers started to contribute. By the end of the campaign, only 30% of the donors were people I knew.
  • Getting Your Kickstarter Project On The Right Blog(s) Makes A Huge Difference
    An early contributor of mine submitted my project link to BoingBoing.net and next thing I knew, lots of strangers were contributing to my project. Figure out who your target demographic is, what sites they frequent, and post on those sites.
  • Mention Your Project In Most Conversations (Without Being Annoying)
    You never know who might be interested in the subject matter of your project. So when you’re going about your normal life and people say “hey, what’s up?” Instead of saying nothing, mention you’re working on a Kickstarter project. If they don’t ask more about it, let it go. But if they ask, this is a great time to spread awareness about the book and its campaign.

CREATING THE ACTUAL BOOK

  • Pay For a Book Designer
    Seriously, this is the best money you’ll spend. I was on the fence but decided to spend the extra money. Once I started working with the designer, I realized how much time I had saved myself by not trying to do it on my own. A good designer is worth his price a hundred times over. Your book ends up looking better because a book designer will think of little things you would have never thought of: different text separator designs, formatting decisions, etc. This will make your original funders happier and more likely to tell people. And the book becomes easier to sell to new customers.
  • Buy The ISBNs
    If you want to be listed on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and every other online (and potentially retail) store, you must spend the extra $250 and get the ISBN. This also makes your book look much more professional. With an ISBN there’s at least a chance that brick and mortar bookstores will stock it too.
  • Build In Lots of “Oops Time”
    I was funded by the end of June. My illustrator said it’d take him six weeks to do the remaining drawings. My book designer said he’d need a month. My printing company said they’d need three weeks. If I had taken everyone at face value, I would’ve promised this book to people by October. But I knew better, and built in two extra months for when things will inevitably get delayed. You’re always better off leaving extra time and pleasantly surprising people than cutting it close, being late and making people angry. Plus the extra time allowed me to order one test copy of the book, where I found lots of little typos. Oh and if your Kickstarter succeeds and you have to ship hundreds of books, guess what, that’s a huge time suck! So leave time for that too.
  • Quadruple Check For Typos
    My only real complaint with self publishing is that the print-on-demand companies gouge you with fees if you have to re-upload any corrections. IngramSpark charges $25 per re-upload, and the cover file is a separate fee than the interior files. That’s $50 every time you catch a mistake late in the process. (And you will almost always catch some last minute mistakes.)After everything seemed fine and I’d placed an order for 150 copies, a friend of mine was looking over the book and found 7 more typos. 7! Including 2 on the cover! Luckily, I called customer support and they were still able to make the changes before printing, but I almost had heart attack. And it cost me an extra $50. Ask everyone you know who is willing to spell check and grammar check your book before you send it to print. If you’re doing something that’s more text heavy, pay for a professional editor. Also, you save $25 if your ebook version is ready at the same time as you upload your print version.

GETTING THE FINISHED PRODUCT TO KICKSTARTER CUSTOMERS

  • International Shipping Blows
    Financially this has been my biggest miscalculation to date. I had no idea how much international shipping (from the US) costs. I knew it might be a little more, so I had international funders add another $5 for shipping. (My basic book price of $25 included shipping to America, which I had properly estimated at $5.) Turns out sending a book overseas (not counting Canada) is $18.65. I lost 8 dollars per book I sent out. So if you listen to nothing else I’ve said, listen to this: Charge an extra $20 for international shipping.
  • “Wow!” Your Kickstarter Customers
    Give more than what you promised, even if you lose a little money. These are the people who believed in you most, reward their loyalty. I included a free copy of my comedy DVD with each book, as well as a Russian Optimism bookmark and a hand signed thank you letter. I want my first 106 customers to be really, really happy and to show and tell all of their friends. You should want that too.

AFTER CROWD FUNDING

  • Be Ready To Sell More
    While it may feel like the end, if you care about your book (and your bottom line) you will realize this is only the beginning. You need to figure out how to get people to talk about your book and (more importantly) to buy your book.
  • Have Your Marketing Plan Ready Before Sending The Book To The Printer
    This is the biggest mistake I’ve made so far. I didn’t fully formulate my post-Kickstarter marketing plan until after the book was already available on Amazon. (My printer told me it usually takes Amazon six to eight weeks to list the book, it took two.) The day after I saw the book for sale on Amazon, my physical books arrived that I had to send out to my Kickstarter funders. I am now behind on generating new sales as it took me four days to ship out all the existing orders. I also lost money by printing my bonus bookmarks locally to save time rather than ordering online.

Hopefully you found this helpful. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me – I can do a private consulting session on your book project.

Thank you to Charlie Hoehn, Ryan Holiday and Tim Ferriss for inspiring me to share my lessons publicly.

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