Mark Levy

The Right Position Makes Enemies

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The other day Audible sent me an email advertisement that read, “Rants & Raves: 25 Books that Have You at Extremes.” It featured audio books that had each received a considerable number of listener ratings on both ends of the rating spectrum: admiring five-star reviews and damning one-star reviews.

These bestsellers were polarizing. Each had thrilled some customers and enraged others.

For example, a five-star reviewer used “The 4-Hour Work Week” to start his own software company and live “my life as I want it.” A one-star reviewer thought some of the book’s practices “deceptive and unethical.”

A five-star reviewer said “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” is “universal in its appeal” and moved him to “good tears.” A one-star reviewer called it “a nauseating patchwork of cliché that inspires only suicide.”

In a write-up for “Exit Ghost,” a five-star reviewer called author Philip Roth “the greatest writer of all time,” and said Roth has taught him more “about my country then from any politician, history book, or New York Times’ editorial.” A one-star reviewer compared listening to Roth’s novel as “akin to root canal at the dentist.

The Audible advertisement illustrates a lesson for those of us trying to position a book, a business, or a concept: If you create something that strongly speaks to one kind of person, you’re likely going to turn off people who don’t fit that group. It’s to be expected.

In his book “PyroMarketing,” Greg Stielstra makes a similar point in talking about mushrooms:

“I hate mushrooms. I can’t stand their texture, their appearance, or their flavor. Yet – despite knowing full well they are a fungus – many of my friends and relatives love them. And what’s more, they love them for the very same reasons I hate them. They love their texture, their appearance, and their flavor. If you removed the qualities that make a mushroom a mushroom, your attempts to pacify the haters would alienate mushroom lovers. Making a mushroom less ‘mushroomy’ won’t attract both groups.” (p. 78)

The way to sell more mushrooms, then, is not to tone them down. The way to sell more mushrooms is to find those people who adore them for exactly what they are.

Jerry Garcia also used food to draw a parallel between Grateful Dead fanatics and the rest of society. Garcia compared the Dead to licorice. Some people wouldn’t touch the candy. But those who liked it, really liked it.

Know what makes you, your service, or your product valuable and different, and don’t back down from it. Get it out to the people who will love you for it.

Prepare Mexican food for Mexican food lovers. Write romance novels for romance novel readers. Create shooter games for people who stay up 24/7 playing shooter games.

Writing and the Functional Hero

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In the book, “Which Lie Did I Tell?,” William Goldman writes about his younger days as an awful writer. He was so bad, in fact, that in college he was one of three editors of the school literary magazine, and even then he couldn’t get a single story into his own magazine.

Things changed when he read a short story collection by “Rich Man, Poor Man” author, Irwin Shaw. Goldman thought Shaw’s tales were among the best he’d ever read. More importantly, they were told with such ease that Goldman said to himself: “I could do that.”

Shaw’s writing helped make Goldman into a professional writer. Years later, Goldman would write the novels and screenplays for “The Princess Bride,” “Marathon Man,” and “Magic,” as well as the screenplays for “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men.”

Heroes come in different styles. We have heroes who do near-impossible things, like win a batting title, forge a peace agreement, or walk on the moon.

Then we have another type of hero: one whose works seem wondrous but doable. They give us a model to follow. Call them functional heroes. Irwin Shaw provided a functional hero for William Goldman.

When I have to write something ambitious, I often call on one of my functional heroes for assistance. I read their work over and over, so I can dope out their methodologies and pick up their cadences.

For the first edition of “Accidental Genius,” my hero and role-model was Nicholson Baker. In particular, I idolized the self-conscious, self-deprecating honesty he showed in his book about John Updike, “U & I,” and tried to introduce that into my work. For the second edition of “Accidental Genius,” I called upon the aforementioned Goldman to serve as my muse. His long chatty sentences and focus on story inspired me to loosen up as I told my tales about liberating the mind through freestyle writing.

The funny thing about my use of Baker and Goldman as guides? Neither edition of “Accidental Genius” sounds anything like the work of those two gentlemen. It was enough for me, though, to hear them as I wrote.

How about you? Who are some of your functional heroes? Who are your muses?