Plans for the coming year - get rich, and change the world.
I don’t really believe in “New Year’s Resolutions.” They don’t work. People go back on them by January 20th, if not sooner. Things only work when you make a “daily resolution” each day. (Like how AA members don’t drink “one day at a time.”)
My main new “one day at a time” goal this year, however, is to stop doing so much free art (I’ve done more than enough) and put that energy to making enough money for us to retire (or at least for DJ to quit her day job). We want to buy some land somewhere we cannot hear our neighbors, where we can shoot guns off our porch, and not see anyone when we don’t feel like it. I don’t just mean not visit anyone, I mean not SEE anyone. That takes at least 30 acres, and that ain’t cheap.
To accomplish this goal, I’m going to need to write a few bestseller books. I’ve never written one, but really think I can now. And I can write one that delivers what it promises. It’s not just a desire to “write something to sell”, it’s a desire to write something that’s so valuable to people that it WILL sell.
My next book is called “Practical Emotional Self-Defense” (PESD), it’s about dealing with idiots. I think it’s going to be “a winner.”
I’ve started about five books I haven’t finished in the past year (and did finish two books in that time, which are both out in the world now.)
None of those “failed” attempts are really failures. They were trial runs and research for this book.
It’s all good.
MWD
(and this post is going IN the book. It’s just that kind of book!)
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I just consumed that Youtube book and even have gotten another copy I’m going to give as a gift. Quality content, sir.
As a writer of a future bestseller, how do you focus on a niche that will become your readership? Will your future tome be found in the SELF-HELP or ART section? Do you foresee something with broader appeal? Words for the punk rocker, the shooting enthusiast, the cat lover and the new media guru?
Happy ‘09, btw.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Self-help. Because there are more fucked-up people in need of help in general than there are artists in specific. And I think I’ve done a lot for artists.
Also, artists don’t have much money. I’ve written six books and two movies for artists, they’re some of the best out there, and they have not made me rich. Though I could see a series spinning off the book I am writing, much as “Chicken Soup for the Soul” lead to “Chicken Soup for the Artist’s Soul”, “Chicken Soup for the Parent’s Soul”, etc.
I don’t see “getting rich” as a goal unto itself. I see money as a tool to do what I want. I want land and I want to be left alone and not be impinged by the machinations of the world in general. That’s hard to do in the suburbs, where we live now.
I see self-help books as a natural progression from what I’ve been doing. The “Closing Arguments” chapters I put in most of my tech books (the $30 School series, and in the YouTube book) are self-help pamphlets hidden inside tech books. And I’ve usually had to fight with the publishers to keep those parts in the books. Maybe “fight” isn’t the right word, but I do know that I spent more time in e-mails and on phone calls with the company each time defending them than I spent writing them.
But reading the amazon reviews, and from the e-mails people send me, that part seems to be the part people remember more than the tech stuff.
MWD
January 4th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
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January 5th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Sounds great… I always enjoy your self help type advice / life observations. It’s probably my favorite thing about the podcasts.
As I get older, I think that “life advice” is almost the most valuable thing a person can read. When I first discovered you, I was impressed with the way you approached art. It was a totally different creative mindset to me.
I often think about some of your self help ideas. One of my favorites is still (hope I don’t misquote this): “The best ideas cannot be stolen, because the best ideas contain you as an essential ingredient.” That’s a GREAT one and so true.
The other was from the recent book about women. You said not to obsess about changing the sheets every day or showering too much — that one should smell like a man. Hope I’m not embarrassing you by taking this quote out of context. Anyway, I was a bit of a clean freak up until now. But with my new girlfriend, I started not changing the sheets every day. That advice has worked out GREAT — less housework and she seems to love the sheets! Haha.. we’ll end the story there.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Thank you man. I’m honored that you dig the stuff I do and the way I do it.
And yeah, that thing about “The best ideas cannot be stolen” is really true. That’s why I’m willing to post all my ideas on StinkFight. Many people I know would hold their cards to their chest, but if they do, it’s not a ground breaking project.
If someone had “stolen” my pitch for “$30 Film School” or “DIY or DIE: How to Survive as an Independent Artist” or that, um, book about ladies…lol…All they could have stolen was a great NAME. No one else would have made anything even resembling what I did, even if they had all my notes and my “outline.”
And putting the pitch online early on makes it HARDER, not easier, for someone to “steal” the NAME.
MWD
P/s. Glad the “lady advice” helped, and if it would have embarrassed me, I wouldn’t have published it!
January 5th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
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January 22nd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
A woman I know has set a goal to get married this year.
My advice to her: visit a prison.
I see this as an absurdly low objective.
Now, to get married to a well-off, good-looking man who is ambitious, supportive, sensitive, well-read, intelligent, well-educated, funny, great with kids, cultured, etc etc: that is impossible.
Because I’m not getting married. At least not to someone who sets such an absurd goal.