Hugh MacLeod's acclaimed blog Gaping Void draws 1.5 million visitors a month, and his ebook, How to Be Creative, has been downloaded more than a million times. In Ignore Everybody, he expands his thoughts about unleashing creativity in a world that often thwarts it.
Book Description When Hugh MacLeod was a struggling young copywriter, living in a YMCA, he started to doodle on the backs of business cards while sitting at a bar. Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog – gapingvoid.com – and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures.
MacLeod has opinions on everything from marketing to the meaning of life, but one of his main subjects is creativity. How do new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world? Where does inspiration come from? What does it take to make a living as a creative person?
Now his first book,
Ignore Everyone, expands on his sharpest insights, wittiest cartoons, and most useful advice. A sample:
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Selling out is harder than it looks. Diluting your product to make it more commercial will just make people like it less.
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If your 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.
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Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. There’s no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.
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The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.
After learning MacLeod’s 40 keys to creativity, you will be ready to unlock your own brilliance and unleash it on the world.
Amazon Exclusive: Author Hugh MacLeod on Having a Life
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| Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Excellent read. Once I started this book I couldn't put it down. Easy to read and put ideas into effect. Some of the cartoons where pushing the acceptable level, but I enjoyed anyway.
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| Great Advice! |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Ignore Everybody is a must read for anyone who is, or aspires to be creative. There are 40 "keys to creativity" that are definitely applicable to creative types, but would serve to round out the non-creative types as well. This book is easy to read, brief, and entertaining - but packed with value. The author can get a bit racy at times - but this just appears to be his style - and he does not seem to hold back. Although I do not necessarily agree with all 40 "keys to creativity" the author presents some great points. Give it a read, you will be glad you did!
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| Thought provoking and entertaining at the same time |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Refreshing and very thought provoking. I would highly recommend this book to entrepreneurs, business owners, sales people, college students, and leaders. It is an easy read and will cause you to think about a lot of issues. A very good read. I have purchased several copies as gifts, it is that good!
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| The Back-of-the-Business-Card Guy Finally Breaks his Silence |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
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Low page count, big type, broad spaces between the lines, and lots of cartoons. As MacLeod cheerfully admits in the beginning, this is more of an extended blog post than a book, so there's not much sense in buying it when you can finish the thing in about half and hour while sitting in the Barnes and Noble cafe.
"Ignore Everybody" is a lively self-help pep talk for people who want to achieve some kind of success in a creative field. MacLeod was an artist in New York who paid the bills by working in an advertising agency, and from this archetypal vantage point he managed to collect a few gems of good advice: do your own work diligently, don't care what other people think about you, don't waste your energy worrying about selling out. Basically, don't buy into the whole adolescent idea of the romantic artist who wows naysayers with a single burst of effortless genius. It's nothing that hasn't been said before, but since there are new eighteen year-olds coming on line all the time it can't hurt to have it said again.
The one novel detail in "Ignore Everybody" is MacLeod's cartoons. These are sarcastic line-drawing doodles originally done on the backs of business cards about how hard it is to make art and/or get laid in New York City. Throughout the book MacLeod comes back to his business card cartoons as a case study of how to make it in the art world. The fact that they were done spontaneously, for his own amusement, with no thought of pleasing anyone else or achieving commercial success is the reason why they became so successful and he became famous as the back-of-the-business-card guy. The what? The hunh? The book seems to take for granted that we've all heard of the back-of-the-business-card guy and are curious to hear how he made it so big. So add to MacLeod's list another useful piece of advice for aspiring creative types: always overestimate your own importance.
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| Shallow |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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"Everyone is born creative, the challenge is to remain creative as you grow up" - Picasso.
I'm a fan of Hugh's work. In fact, I have one of his prints on the wall in my office, but I was hoping for more from his book. While it is an entertaining read, I think Hugh could have traded some of the cynicism for a more in-depth analysis of what it means to be, and how to be more 'creative' in all walks of life.
If you're looking for books to get your creative juices flowing, there are better options out there. (Entrepreneurs: Juice by Evan Schwartz / Founders at Work; Marketing: Juicing the Orange; etc).
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