There’s an important lesson I learned from my improv comedy days that’s very applicable to authors.
Whether you’re an educator or an entertainer, you should treat your readers like poets, geniuses, and scholars.
What does that mean?
First, that means you shouldn’t assume that a reader is dumb.
Don’t assume that a customer is bad.
Don’t assume that someone is just stupid and couldn’t ever understand you.
You need to treat the people that you interact with…
Other authors and your readers like poets, geniuses, and scholars.
It’s actually an old Del Close line (one of the pioneers of improv comedy).
If you treat them like geniuses, then that’s what they’ll become.
So don’t talk down to the people that you’re connecting with in the author world.
Don’t be a jerk.
Assume that everyone is just amazing and brilliant.
And that doesn’t mean to use long words for the heck of it.
It just means to treat them like they have the opportunity to understand something epic and interesting and cool.
And I really try to think about this with everybody that I make a connection with.
With the people I’m trying to serve.
I don’t think of it like I’m trying to “get something” out of them…
Or that I’m just trying to trick them.
The fact that I believe that it’s important to treat your readers like these geniuses means that you can’t really trick people anyway.
You just have to be open.
You have to be honest,
And you have to give them the opportunity to grow and learn and laugh through the work that you put out.
Because I think that’s what’s gonna make a much bigger difference…
Than anything else you do.
– Video #30: Square Image Quote
Your books aren’t about you.
Neither is your marketing.
Everything you do in your author career should be about the readers.
You are working for THEM.
If you keep that in mind with your writing and marketing decisions…
Then you will go very far in the publishing world.
Agree? Disagree?