Comedy Books Archives - Page 8 of 22 - Ben Rosenfeld

December 1, 2014November 29, 2023

How To Self Publish A Book Through Kickstarter

In 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.

November 28, 2014December 23, 2014

Ben’s New Book “Russian Optimism” Now Available

I’m thrilled to announce the release of my new book, Russian Optimism: Dark Nursery Rhymes To Cheer You Right Up.

Russian Optimism an illustrated coffee table book containing thirty of Russia’s most horrifically hysterical nursery rhymes, in English.

You can see more examples on the book’s website here.

Or buy directly using one of the following links:

PayPal (US & Canada) | PayPal (International) | Amazon | Barnes and Nobles

This book makes for a great holiday gift.

Whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa or Festivus, anyone who likes dark humor will love this book.

Here’s two commercials to prove it:

November 27, 2014November 26, 2014

“Comedy Writing For Late-Night TV” Quotes

I recently read “Comedy Writing For Late-Night TV: How to Write Monologue Jokes, Desk Pieces, Sketches, Parodies, Audience Pieces, Remotes, and Other Short-Form Comedy” by Joe Toplyn. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, buy the book here.

“Because all late-night hosts are expected to have this same broad appeal, they all have basically the same persona. It’s a time-tested persona that has proven very popular in all sorts of media, that of a likeable, playfully irreverent everyman.” (11)

“Head writers are looking for writers who can turn out comedy material that requires very little editing to get it to the point where the host is happy with it.” (14)

“On any television show the amount of time that a writer is expected to spend at the office is inversely correlated with how well-run the show is.” (38)

“A former writer for Johnny Carson said this about writing a topical Monologue: “Doing this every day is like taking a dump when you don’t have to.”” (51)

“If a mass audience hears a joke about one of those traditionally taboo topics the subtleties of the Surprise Theory of Laughter come into play. The audience might want to be surprised by the incongruity in the punch line but they won’t laugh because the incongruity isn’t harmless. The incongruity harms them because it makes them think, “If I laugh at that punch line I’m a horrible person.”” (61)

“A good topic for a Monologue joke has to meet six conditions. It must be:
factually true
not intentionally funny
only one sentence long
a news item that will capture most people’s interest
something that your audience will let you joke about
something that your host is willing to joke about” (67)

“Yes, a comedian should be outspoken, puncturing hypocrisy and taking shots at emperors, venerable institutions, and celebrities. But if the comedian tries to educate his audience they won’t laugh.” (72)

“The job of a comedy/talk show host isn’t to get his audience to discuss his jokes. His job is to make his audience laugh, immediately and loudly, and to do that he can’t say the emperor’s not wearing any clothes. Instead, he has to tell the audience something they already know.” (72)

“To make your jokes as funny as possible…
Shorten as much as possible.
End on the laugh trigger.
Backload the topic.
Make everything clear.
Don’t telegraph the punch line.
Make the punch line parallel.
Use stop consonants, alliteration, and assonance.
Wildly exaggerate.
Get specific.
Use the Rule of Three.
Don’t be too on-the-nose.
Consider an act-out.” (115)

“Your parody and the original video should be very similar in at least these nine ways:
actors
tone
visuals
pace of the editing
music
on-screen text
length
format
structure” (260)

“The best packet to submit to a comedy/talk show that’s currently being broadcast is one you’ve written specifically for that show.” (342)

“What types of comedy pieces does the show do? Desk Pieces? Story Sketches? Audience Pieces? Does the host perform characters? Does the show do Semi-Scripted Field Pieces? If so, who goes out on location, the host or a correspondent? Not very show does all the types of comedy pieces covered in this book.
What is the host’s persona? …
How big a budget does the show seem to have? …
Are celebrities enlisted to participate in the show’s comedy? If so, are they A-listers or C-listers? If you pitch an idea that requires a celebrity, you want to suggest someone who’s gettable.
What audience does the show seem to be aimed at?” (346-347)

“‘The same, but different’ is a paradoxical principle that governs the production of most forms of American mass entertainment. What it means is that a new television show, say, has to be in many ways the same as other, successful television shows. That’s because that sameness reassures the television executives who approve the production of the expensive new show that it will be successful, too. But a new television show also has to be different in some significant ways from every other television show because those differences will make the show seem somewhat fresh and therefore more attractive to viewers.” (348)

“Remember that your overall goal is to submit material that’s as close as possible to being immediately useable on your Target Show.” (352)

“Submit each idea for a new comedy piece in the format recommended by every head writer I’ve ever talked with. This is the same format that staff writers on comedy/talk shows use to submit their own new ideas to their head writers. The format consists of these three elements for each idea you submit:
Title: Give the comedy piece a good title, one that the host could use when introducing the piece on the show. A good title is descriptive, punchy, and short.
Premise: State the basic concept of the piece in, at most, a couple of short paragraphs, briefly describing the participants and what they do. Also include any key production details. Your goal here is to get your readers to quickly visualize how the piece would play out on the show and to convince them that it’s producible. Keep your description straightforward. Don’t embellish your description with little quips, which will just distract and annoy the reader. Save your comedy for the sample jokes.
Sample jokes: Provide your best three or four sample jokes for the piece, with each joke comprising at most a few sentences. The reason to include these jokes is to convince your readers that the piece would get laughs. In the case of a sketch idea, the sample jokes should be funny things that happen (“beats”) in the sketch, including how the sketch ends.” (355)

“The best way [to write monologue jokes] – Write all your Monologue jokes within a week of when you submit your packet to the show… even if your submission packet is read months after you submit it, the fact that all the Monologue jokes were written during the same week will be apparent to your readers because of the topics you’ve used. You’ll still have shown your writing speed and your dedication to your craft and, even though your jokes may seem dated, your readers will still be able to judge the skill that went into creating them.” (356)

“If your Target Show doesn’t specify a length for submission packets, keep yours to eight to ten pages.” (358)

“The piece you think is funniest should go first… The piece you think is second-funniest should go second. You want to convince your readers that your first piece wasn’t a fluke and to hook them into reading even more of your material.
The piece you think is third-funniest should go last, so your readers will read something strong right before they have to decide what to do with your submission.” (358)

“Type it in regular 12-point Courier.” (359)

“If seeing a particular photo or graphic is necessary to understand a joke, show the actual photo or graphic on the page.” (360)

“Lay out each page so that it’s easy-to-read and inviting. Don’t fill your pages with long, intimidating blocks of text; build in plenty of white space.” (360)

“Don’t put a cover on your submission, just a title page laid out like the one in the sample packet.” (360)

“Your script should parody a TV show promo, a commercial, a movie trailer, or a PSA.” (366)

“Write a generic packet almost exactly the same way you’d write a customized packet but include these comedy pieces:
one page of Monologue jokes
two pages of new ideas for Desk Pieces
one page of new ideas for Audience Pieces
one fully-scripted Parody Sketch (two pages maximum)
one page of new ideas for Semi-Scripted Field Pieces
one page of new ideas for other live pieces like Liev Joke Basket Sketches” (371)

“The ideal person to read your packet is the host of the show. If the host wants to hire you, you’ll have a job. But getting your submission packet to the host without first going through somebody else on the show’s staff is almost impossible. So instead your goal should be to have the head writer read your submission.” (376)

“The best way to have your packet read by a head writer is to convince someone the head writer knows to give it to him.” (377)

“The most useful spec scripts are probably an original pilot and an episode of a well-regarded show that’s currently on the air and will probably stay on the air for another season or two.” (388)

“agents are highly accustomed to dealing with people on the phone, which is why written queries are likely to be less effective with them.” (388)

“Most hiring of writers for prime-time TV shows – sitcoms and son on- tends to take place in the spring.” (390)

“Just be casually witty, good-natured, and enthusiastic. Say some nice things about the writing on the show, maybe about a particular comedy piece that you liked recently. Tell your interviewer that you’d love to work on the show. You don’t have to prove you’re talented; your submission has already done that. You just have to demonstrate that you’d fit comfortably into the staff and not drive everybody nuts.” (392)

“Men can’t go wrong with jeans, sneakers, and a long-sleeved, collared shirt… The idea is to look as though you already work there.” (392)

Liked the quotes? Click here to buy the book.

November 6, 2014

“You’re Lucky You’re Funny” Quotes

I recently read “You’re Lucky You’re Funny: How Life Becomes a Sitcom” by Phil Rosenthal. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As always, if you like the quotes, click here to buy the book.

“Almost every experience I’m writing about here will somehow be used later. You’ll see. And what you’ll also see is that as you go through life as a writer, it’s easier to write thing down than to actually write.” (56)

“Then there are the people who are running shows who have no business doing that because they are not ready to run a show yet. They were on staff of a hit show and sold a pilot. But they don’t know what they’re doing and don’t know what they want and they’re operating from fear and nervousness. Their minds are changing all the time because they just don’t know what they want. Or they’re listening to the network’s or the studio’s notes and assuming they know what they want. you have to know what you want.” (62)

“The single best piece of advice I ever got from anyone about anything. It was from Ed Weinberger. He said, ‘Do the show you want to do, because in the end, they’re going to cancel you anyway.’” (67)

“There are umpteen factors you can’t control. So you have to make sure the ones you can control are so fantastic, they trump the ones you can’t. Your show has to be undeniable.” (70)

“The networks don’t like what’s called a premise pilot – one where the premise of the series is established – because it’s not indicative of what the other episodes will be like. They want an episode that could be episode number two or twelve or thirty.” (80)

“Comedy isn’t just comedy, it’s clarity. Without that clarity, you’re only funny to yourself.” (100)

“We started with a few rules in The Writers’ Room:
Could this happen?
No topical jokes.
No B stories.” (101)

“At the end of the day, you know the best way to reconcile your feelings with people who’ve done you wrong? Just keep this in mind: They have to be them. That’s their punishment.” (125)

“There are dry-erase boards all around us on the walls. One board has the places we order lunch from. One has the places we like to go out to. One board has words that Ray can’t pronounce, and the way he actually does pronounce them, which come out of his mouth sounding like Einsteen and mispronunctuation. Another board is titled “Ray’s Surprise Vocabulary” and has some lofty words Ray has actually used correctly in a sentence, like “sharecropper.”
Several boards have the name and number of every episode we’ve done so far, so that when someone has a great idea, someone else can usually point to the board and say, “Number sixty-seven, you moron. We did it already.” And then there are teh boards with the color-coded ideas. And these colors actually mean something, not like the government with its terror alerts. A certain color indicates this is just an idea. Another color might indicate we got somewhere on that story – we have actual notes on it. And another color means it was turned into an outline already, which means we’re doing it. If we’ve already gotten to the outline stage, it’s very rare that we’ll throw it out.” (132-133)

“We were always looking for the deeper meaning in every story, something that would have some kind of resonance with the audience, no matter how silly on the surface.” (140)

“Half the day is working on future shows, and the other half is this week’s show.” (140)

“No matter how seemingly silly the episode was, we felt the need to tie each one down to some sort of emotional underpinning, something that would resonate with the viewer after the show was over.” (167)

“The best note I ever received as an actor I got when I was doing too much on stage – you know, trying to be funny… she said, ‘It was very good, but let them come to you.’
‘Let them come to you’ means just be. Don’t playact at being the character, just be the character. Just be. Just live. Don’t push. So that applies to everything. It’s one of those notes that applies to everything in life. Let them come to you. Just be. Just be you. Don’t push; they’re going to like you at the party. It’s going to be fine. We tend to like people who are real and believable and are like us. It doesn’t mean you don’t do anything, but you don’t push it. You don’t show the audience that you’re doing an action. ‘Look how I brush my hair away from my face so slowly to show I’m really interested in what the other actor is saying’ – you just are interested. Same in writing.” (170-171)

“Everyone in our cast had it. The deadpan look. To me the golden key in comedy is: They know what you’re thinking. That’s what we take so any pauses in the show. So that the look will get the laugh because the audience, once the characters have been established, knows what Robert is thinking when Ray gets a big homemade cake from Mom. And we know what Debra is thinking. And Frank. And Marie and Raymond.” (171)

“It’s all a struggle toward simplicity and clarity – from the writers’ story, to the show in front of the live audience, to the show as broadcast on television.” (174)

“Sometimes it’s a goddamn struggle to figure out what an episode is about. What is it about? That’s at the bottom of everything. What is it about. What is this scene about? What is this line about? What is this word about? Or, is it worth stopping the scene for that joke? What if it doesn’t advance the story – and not every line has to advance the story – we are in the comedy business – but is it worth stopping for Frank to insult his wife at this moment? Usually, you bet it is. Everyone has his or her part to play. Everyone has his or her character that we look forward to seeing.” (174)

“You have to justify every action and attitude the character takes, or they don’t make sense.” (175)

“It’s good writing if the setup is funny in and of itself. Then the audience doesn’t know they’re being set up – that’ sa good setup. It’s not dry, it’s not boring, it’s not what we call “pipey” – as in, it’s so obviously information that the audience needs to know just to understand what the hell is going on, it’s as if we’re laying pipe. We don’t want the audience to know it’s just exposition, the part they have to sit through before we get to the kitchen burning down.” (178)

“Say it without saying it is a great rule. You don’t want to be so on the nose; you want the subtext to come through. First of all, you have to have text before there can be subtext, right? But the show, what is it about? You don’t want ot say it blatantly in lines; you want it to be there, understood. You never want to say, “I am angry.” That’s bad writing, right? Too on the nose. So you want to say it without saying it. You want to say I love you without saying it.” (180)

“If we want the audience to care about the show, we have to care about it, and we worry and fret over every detail. I have to save for another book the decisions about costume, hair, and set design; personal dramas; how the show is advertised; how the film is developed – there’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into making a half hour look seamless. Fred Astaire would practice dancing until his feet were bleeding. Every move, everything, where to turn, every decision, how to hold his head, his hands, every split second of that dance had been choreographed to within an inch of its life so that when you watch it, it appears effortless. Same with this. Same with any good play, film, TV show, book, painting, vagina sculpture. You shouldn’t think to look under the sucks; you just enjoy the dancing.” (181)

“Everything is tested to death, under unrealistic conditions, and testing’s main use has become ass covering. So that any given executive doesn’t have to take the blame for a decision but can point to the numbers when the thing tanks, and say, “It wasn’t my decision; it tested well.” If every show tests well that the networks put on, there’s clearly something wrong – for instance, the only reason the Stupid Show test “very well” is because the audience recognized the lead. The quality of the show meant nothing. “I know that guy! I turn the knob on my approval meter to the right.” End of testing. And so the show goes on and it stinks because that’s not how anybody watches television, but sometimes enough people watch to justify the process, and then the end of civilization.” (193)

“My attitude was, it all just gets richer. Robert marries Amy, and at first he thinks he has what he thinks Raymond has. However, once he gets married he will see he’s still Robert. He still doesn’t have the place in his mother’s heart that Raymond has, and so he may feel worse. Robert could have everything Raymond has – he could even have twin boys. He could have triplets. He could have a better life in every way than Raymond has, but he will never be Raymond. THe circumstances may change, but not his character. We’re changing the sit, not the com.” (199)

“I want every episode to have some truth revealed so that it’s something that the audience identifies with in their lives, that has resonance. That’s the whole point. And if you work in the sitcom form, which is fast, like a short story, the challenge is: How do you get that emotional punch or meaning in that short form?” (199)

“I can also tell you that while running our show, I learned a helluva lot from the other side of casting. Advice to my fellow actors: Always memorize your audition, and don’t treat it as an audition, treat it as a chance to perform that day. Then, if you don’t get it, it’s not because you weren’t prepared, and you can at least feel good about yourself. And always try to get the first appointment. If you’re good, you’ll be the one to beat. If you’re bad, it wasn’t you, it was the idiot doing the casting.” (217)

“The work is its own reward. I’d heard that from some guy.” (221)

“Things need time to grow. By the way, about reality shows, why are they so popular now, at the expense of comedies? Because a lot of comedies are not writing real people. The characters are not believable as people. So we turn on a reality show and we say, ‘That character is funny!’ That’s a real person that we recognize and relate to, because we understand what it’s like to be a real person. So when we watch a sitcom and the characters speak like nothing on the planet, and don’t act human, and they’re cardboard cutouts of human beings, I’d rather watch the reality show. Even though it’s not reality, the people on them remind me of people. We know this, don’t we? Even if we don’t know it and can’t articulate it all the time, we know it intrinsically. ‘Why am I not relating to his?’ Because this is not dialogue that anyone would say, this not a situation that anyone could believably be in. And here’s a person in a reality show that’s plopped in the middle of an island, and he’s acting more like a person I’m in the office with than this person on a sitcom who is actually in an office setting.” (237)

“We’re looking to connect. That’s all we do as human beings on the planet – look to connect with other human beings. So we look for the most relatable, connectable thing. Subconsciously, not even consciously.” (237)

Did you like the quotes? Buy the book here.

September 18, 2014November 26, 2014

“Improv Wisdom” Quotes

I recently read “Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up” by Patricia Ryan Madson. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. As usual, if you like the quotes, .

“I had tried to be worthy of receiving tenure. I didn’t understand that this worthiness could come only from honoring my own voice. Making decisions solely to please others is a formula destined to fail. THe people I admired were not looking over their shoulders to see if their peers were applauding. They were heeding their inner promptings. “I do this because I know it needs to be done.” My search for validation has diverted me from discerning what was uniquely mine.” (13)

“Keith Johnstone’s encouraging quotation form Impro reminds us that this habit can be acquired:

There are people who prefer to say “yes,” and there are people who prefer to say “No.” Those who say “Yes” are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who say “No” are rewarded by the safety they attain. There are far more “No” sayers around than “yes” sayers, but you can train one type to behave like the other.” (18)

“Art is simply what one does, now who one is.” (39)

“All starting points are equally valid. They being where they are, often in the middle.” (53)

“You can improve how you give a lecture by using the principle of improvised speech. Instead of writing out your notes in precise language, try writing questions to yourself.” (57)

“When you try hard to do your best, the effect on your performance is often to jinx it.” (60)

“Getting a laugh is easy – trivial, actually. Anything unexpected seems funny. This kind of humor is like a sugar hit. It gives a temporary lift, but it is a poor diet and won’t nourish artistically. If you give up making jokes and concentrate on making sense, the result is often genuinely mirthful.” (65)

“Life is attention, and what we are attending ot determines to a great extent how we experience the world.” (67)

“The Japanese have a word, arugamama. It is the virtue of abiding with things as they are.” (77)

“The most consistent road to unhappiness that I know comes from turning a blind eye to reality.” (78)

“in the act of balancing, we come alive. Sensations change moment by moment; sometimes we feel secure, sometimes precarious. In the long run we develop tolerance for instability. As we come to accept this insecurity as the norm, as our home ground, it becomes familiar and less frightening. We can stop trying to flee from the wobble. And sometimes this sense of being off balance is exhilarating and reminds us of the impermanence and fragility of life, nudging us to appreciate each imperfect, teetering moment we are alive.” (82)

“99.9 percent of the time, a mistake is just an unanticipated outcome giving us information.” (105)

“When you make a mistake, turn your attention to what comes next. Focus on doing that well, with full mind and heart. Look ahead, not back.” (108)

“The French word bricolage. It’s the art of commandeering the materials at hand – what is most obvious – to solve the problem.” (111)

“Natalie Goldberg’s first rule for writers, “Keep your hand moving.”” (115)

“Keep adjusting to how it is rather than how you’d like it to be.” (129)

“Tom Byers says these five ruls are essential for the successful entrepreneur:

Show up on time.
Be nice to people.
Do what you say you’ll do.
Deliver more than you promise.
Work with enthusiasm and passion.”

“Enjoyment is a way of approaching an activity, not the activity itself.” (138)

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