With a nod to Robert Boynton’s NEW NEW JOURNALISM, I asked Seth a few questions related more to his writing style than to his marketing style. In this interview, Seth shares how (and why) his writing style has evolved over the years, who his influencers are, and about the organic story he tells himself.
Talk about how your writing style has evolved from PERMISSION MARKETING to LIARS.
SETH: Blogging has really messed me up. If it’s more than four paragraphs, I think it’s too long. As a result, I have to push myself to make those four paragraphs sharper and more cogent. I feel like someone giving a speech at a toll booth. Talk too long and they’re gone.
What writers have influenced you most and why?
SETH: Guy and Zig and Tom and Malcolm are my big four. I love that they all are recognizable just by first names! In all four cases, the writing is generous and positive and sharp and a little unpredictable. 90% of the biz books I see I could write the rest of the book after reading just the first chapter.
In blogland, I’m finding a few writers (like Hugh—there’s that first name thing again) that every so often click and define the way this medium is going to sound.
Describe the writing routine you used for LIARS.
SETH: Some books take me a long time (like Survival is Not Enough). Some take three weeks (like Purple Cow, for the first complete draft). This was a little of both. I wrote a very, very long first draft pretty quickly, then it took me months to shorten shorten shorten. I wish I had shortened it by another 50 pages.
What was the greatest challenge you had to overcome in writing LIARS?
SETH: People have a very visceral reaction to the title. I had to figure out how to use the word Liar correctly (my friend Karen Watts helped a lot with that) and how to explain myself without giving away the entire conceit.
From my marketing days at Whole Foods Market, we found most consumers who choose to eat organic foods do so following some life-changing experience. In LIARS you referenced your preference for organic products. I'm curious, what was your organic inflection point?
SETH: Since I was a freshman in college, I’ve been in this never ending cycle of tweaking my food intake and making it healthier. First I was a vegetarian. Then a veggie who ate no dairy, then no fat and then on and on. I’m pretty profoundly opposed to the side effects of cattle (on us and on the planet) and I wish agribusiness would wise up. Organic seemed like a good story to tell myself.
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