For publishers, the author is just one more noodle in a big bowl of pasta
Writing is essentially a self-motivating occupation.
Passive Guy knows the Mastercard bill helps with motivation, but a writer doesn’t have a district director setting quotas and giving weekly motivational speeches (“Write or die!”).
Hugh McLeod is an advertising executive who is creative (not necessarily a common pairing). He also makes money by drawing cartoons on the backs of business cards.
Although a distant second to caffeine, Hugh is good at kick-starting creativity.
Hugh has 26 tips for How to be Creative:
1. Ignore everybody.
The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the cartoon-on-back-of-bizcard format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasnʼt I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest, i.e., cutie-pie greeting cards or whatever?
You donʼt know if your idea is any good the moment itʼs created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. Thereʼs a reason why feelings scare us.
And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. Itʼs not that they deliberately want to be unhelpful. Itʼs just they donʼt know your world one millionth as well as you know your world, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard you try to explain.
. . . .
3. Put the hours in.
Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and stamina.
I get asked a lot, “Your business card format is very simple. Arenʼt you worried about somebody ripping it off?”
Standard Answer: Only if they can draw more of them than me, better than me.
What gives the work its edge is the simple fact that Iʼve spent years drawing them. Iʼve drawn thousands. Tens of thousands of man-hours.
So if somebody wants to rip my idea off, go ahead. If somebody wants to overtake me in the business card doodle wars, go ahead. Youʼve got many long years in front of you. And unlike me, you wonʼt be doing it for the joy of it. Youʼll be doing it for some self-loathing, ill-informed, lame-ass mercenary reason. So the years will be even longer and far, far more painful. Lucky you.
. . . .
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.
I was offered a quite substantial publishing deal a year or two ago. Turned it down. The company sent me a contract. I looked it over.
Hmmmm…
Called the company back. Asked for some clarifications on some points in the contract. Never heard back from them. The deal died.
This was a very respected company. You may have even heard of it.
They just assumed I must be just like all the other people they represent—hungry and desperate and willing to sign anything.
They wanted to own me, regardless of how good a job they did.
Thatʼs the thing about some big publishers. They want 110% from you, but they donʼt offer to do likewise in return. To them, the artist is just one more noodle in a big bowl of pasta.
Their business model is to basically throw the pasta against the wall, and see which one sticks. The ones that fall to the floor are just forgotten.
Publishers are just middlemen. Thatʼs all. If artists could remember that more often, theyʼd save themselves a lot of aggravation.
Link to the rest at a “manifesto” (click the download button for the PDF) and a link to Hugh’s blog (with cartoons)
, Amazon will pay Passive Guy a small affiliate commission on any of your purchases. 
Quote: “Publishers are just middlemen.” Excellently put. Never thought of it that way.
Thank you for the very interestin post PG
*interesting (keyboard stuck)
Jacqvern – And middlemen often get squeezed in a whole lot of disruptive changes.
Good post. It’s always been a look-out-for-yourself type of world and publishing’s no different. I like Chris Cornell’s line from his Casino Royale theme song when he sings, “Arm yourself because no one else here will save you.” Sage advice.
Aron – Authors who expect someone to take care of them are bound to be disappointed sooner or later.
Totally agree. Keep the great posts coming.
Downloaded his whole thing and love it! Thanks for sharing.
Glad you liked it, Robin.
[...] I found this through Passive Guy, and this post. [...]
Ah-MAY-zing.
Still reading it, but it baffles me that so many fundamentals of “running a business based on passion” and “following your passions”, and “being creative” et al, are all things I learned (the very hard way) through starting and running my own business 4 years ago.
Best part is, all that stuff is true. There’s some real GOLD in there if folks pay attention. Thanks for finding this PG, this is the kind of thing I give to people when they don’t understand my emails. Heh.
Judd – Sometimes people forget that success in business or elsewhere requires much more than just making sure the columns total properly. I’m glad you liked this.
[...] MacLeod, a well-known cartoonist I’d never heard of before (thanks to Passive Guy for linking to him) talks a lot about social objects, the things (physical or conceptual or [...]
As one noodle to another, I’ll tell you a big secret: I feel a little overcooked…gone plouf down!
But as always, I enjoy your blog!
Claude – As a resident of Italy, you would be an expert on pasta, although noodle sounds even lower than pasta.
I’m glad you enjoy the blog.