Writing Wednesdays
Two Days Only: “War of Art” eBook for $1.99!
By Steven Pressfield | Published: October 20, 2010
Once upon a time, I worked in advertising. I used to write those TWO DAYS ONLY (exclamation point!) headlines all the time, for toothpaste or dog food or checking accounts. It’s a giggle to be doing it now for The War of Art.
Wednesday and Thursday Only: Click to buy!
Here’s a link to the store. Today and tomorrow only—10/20 and 10/21—get the eBook for a buck ninety-nine. Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks (iPad and iPhone), Barnes & Noble Nook, Borders Kobo and Ingram Digital. There’s also a .pdf version you can download and read on your computer. If anything goes wrong, write me or Michael Ashley—mashley@fastpencil.com—and we’ll fix it.
My life as a Mad Man
I worked in the ad biz a little bit after Don Draper. He was gone by the time I showed up. Here’s a post about the single greatest lesson I learned working on Madison Avenue. But what I want to talk about today is the least prestigious ad gig I ever had.
The lowliest ad job I ever worked on
This job was a significant turning point for me, in terms of becoming a professional. Let me set the stage:
I was in my mid-thirties. Not a kid anymore. I had long since left Mad Ave and crashed and burned a number of times in other endeavors. I had migrated at last to L.A.—dead broke, no prospects, writing screenplays that nobody wanted and scraping by on whatever freelance ad stuff I could dredge up. Somehow (I forget the exact circumstances) I got the following assignment:
It was what they call a data sheet. Not even an ad. The job paid twenty-five bucks. The product was an egg carton. The audience was not the public; it was egg farmers and producers. The assignment was to sell them on this specific brand of egg carton. I remember thinking, “Steve, this is about as low as you’ve ever gone as a writer.”
I was wrong. That attitude was egotistical (not to say narcissistic), snot-nosed, defensive, condescending, entitled and all-around bullshit. Fortunately for me, the egg carton was about to teach me a lesson.
What I learned from an egg carton
Did you know that there’s a fat side to an egg and a skinny side? I never did. An egg is not a perfect oval. An egg carton has to accommodate the fat side. It goes in down. This particular brand of carton had a way to do that, so that the machines that packed the cartons didn’t break any eggs. Wow, I thought as I’m working on this, that’s pretty cool. Who knew?
An egg carton’s main job is to protect the eggs. If one egg cracks, the customer will see it and put the whole dozen back on the shelf. This brand of egg carton had particularly high “shoulders” between each egg pocket. This protected the eggs better.
That’s not all. Egg cartons have to be stacked on top of the other, sometimes twenty high—in the truck, the warehouse, on the handtruck as they’re wheeled out to be stocked on the market shelves. What if a carton caves in? Now all the eggs break. That’s why my brand of egg carton had six reinforced posts (not four like Brand X cartons) to support the weight of up to thirty cartons stacked on top of it.
An ad for a nail
I got into the biz a few years after this guy
Young & Rubicam, the ad agency, once did an ad for a ten-penny nail. The ad was actually for the agency itself. The visual was a simple nail, nothing more—except what they call “call-outs,” meaning little blocks of text with arrows pointing to a specific part of the nail. Each call-out described a humble but fascinating part of the nail—the head that was reinforced so it wouldn’t snap off when you pulled it out with a claw hammer, the four-sided point that drove through wood without splitting it, the little grooves just under the head that bound the nail tight into the wood when you hammered it down.
Bottom line, said Y&R: “There are no boring products, only boring ads.”
A professional attitude
A pro turns up his nose at nothing. A pro respects everyone and everything, however humble. A pro keeps his eyes and ears open. All things are fascinating to the professional, because he understands how much thought and effort go into even the most unassuming articles (and jobs and concepts and people, including ourselves) in our lives.
I got more than twenty-five bucks from that egg carton. It was doing me a favor, not the other way around. And did I tell you about the locking devices on the carton’s lid that snugged down tight so the customer felt secure when she took the eggs home? Or the wide space on top for your egg farm to put its name and logo?
And the Mad Men “call to action” …
Don’t forget the eBook War of Art for $1.99! Two days only!!! Buy now!!!
Posted in Writing Wednesdays
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
SUBSCRIBE to "Writing Wednesdays."
I just told my mailing list about this, Steven. I couldn’t let them miss this!
Thanks very much for this…for the sale and for overcoming the Resistance to write this book.
Also want to note that the customer service at Flyleaf was exceptional. Being on the road I was not able to sync my reader, but Flyleaf made sure I was able to get up and reading in the interim.
…and by Flyleaf I mean FastPencil. Michael was quick and responsive.
Thanks for the kind words but I just have to ask, how do you get Flyleaf out of FastPencil? We’ve been called all kinds of things, but never flyleaf
Good question – one of those times when commenting while doing 3 other things doesn’t mesh well. Thanks again for the great service.
Thank you and Fast Pencil for the $1.99 offer.
I’m the Mom who carried a well-worn paperback TWofA in my Chevy Suburban door pocket for a quick hit of wisdom and inspiration during moments when I was stuck waiting. I’ve just put TWofA on my i-Phone. I actually love the way it looks and reads. The short, punchy writing style is a natural fit for the glance-and-swipe mode of the small screen. Well done, Mr. Pressfield.
Also, I heard a nice mention of you on Hugh Hewitt’s show yesterday, during his interview with Vince Flynn.
Many thanks to you, Steve, and the kind people at Fast Pencil for making this happen. I am digging into the book now, mining its value and searching for those nuggets that I can use to thrash the monsters that hinder my creativity!
Oh, how I love this. Of course, I’d have loved it more if I hadn’t just bought my Kindle copy of the book two months ago!
Seriously, this is a really cool move. I hope you have so many customers they break down the e-doors.
Steven,
I’m a long time reader / lurker of your blogs and, like everyone else here, look forward to your work every Wednesday. Thank you so much for getting WoA out in digital form. When I picked up the book version a while back I distinctively recall thinking “that was the best 10 bucks I’ve spent in a long time”. Now I can say the same about my buck ninety nine I’ve spent on the digital .pdf version.
I do have a question for you, however. Maybe I missed the official announcement somewhere but in the opening pages of my new pdf WoA contains a list of your work. One of them is The Profession (dated for 2011). Where can I find more information on this piece?
Thanks again,
John
John, that’s my next book, coming out in June next year. In fact I’m just sending the “final” manuscript in tomorrow. It’s a story about mercenary armies about a generation into the future.
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say: I’ll be looking forward to it. Thanks!
Thanks for this, Steven. I already had a paper copy but wanted a digital one to carry with me at all times.
Your attitude of professionalism sounds much like Musashi’s art of strategy. He saw the true strategist as knowing all arts, learning from everything. Great post at a great timing.
I blogged this and got a complaint from one of my readers that she had to register with FastPencil to get the book, but the truth is, I’m pretty pleased with FastPencil’s response to my query.
desperately wanted to buy the ibook format, but it’s not available in the Australian store…had to buy the pdf version instead. bummer! (but still greatful to get a great book so cheap!)