Holly Jahangiri

Summary

The article humorously critiques the proliferation of "get rich quick" writing schemes, while also acknowledging the irony of contributing to the same pool of advice through tongue-in-cheek commentary.

Abstract

The author of the article takes a satirical look at the trend of writers publishing guides on how to achieve financial success through writing. These guides often promise substantial earnings with minimal effort, capitalizing on the aspirations of novice writers. The article mockingly suggests that the real secret to wealth is already known to the audience and humorously dismisses the idea of writing a tell-all book. Instead, the author suggests that they will be enjoying life outdoors rather than following such schemes or even selling t-shirts online. The piece is inspired by another writer's work, P.G. Barnett, and serves as a reminder that writing advice should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when it comes to financial success.

Humor: Money for Nothin’

I Don’t Care What You Do in Your Sleep

Especially if it involves making more money than Godzilla

I know that you have figured out the fail-safe formula for financial success as a writer: Write a tell-all “how-I-dunnit” for the hungry novice, and publish it on the Internet!

You remember how you once pored over a billion boring blog posts selling sex with their soaps and analyzed the clickbaity titles you, yourself, found impossible to resist. You tirelessly sought the sparkling nugget of fool’s gold that would unlock untold riches and allow you to sleep and grow rich without stopping to think.

In fact, you failed to think when you spent over $497 on “products” designed to help you find the fast-track to somnolent simoleons! The answer was right there, smacking you in the eyeballs, the whole time.

I’d like to earn $1000 a snore, myself. Remember the old story about the sadist and the masochist, locked together in a padded cell? The masochist begged and pleaded: “Hit me, beat me, slap me — make it hurt!” The sadist sulked in a corner, staring at his desperate cellmate, and calmly replied, “No.”

And so, there you have it — I won’t read your whodunnit and howtosit on how you earned a gazillion dollars with a single article and propelled yourself to stardom on the Internet. Your promise to help me do the same now falls on deaf ears. Been there, done that —

While you toil away, dreaming lazily of your rise from battered bedcovers to 90,000 thread count sheets, I will be over on Amazon, selling the t-shirts.

In fact, I won’t be doing that, either. I will be outside, enjoying the sunshine, grateful for every one of you who took the time to read this Story, which was partly inspired by P.G. Barnett’s:

An Open Letter To Writers Who Constantly Tell Us How Much Money You Make

You’re Forgetting One Very Important Thing

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Clearly, though — and it pains me to realize this awful truth — he does not hang on my every word. If he did, he would know that he was preaching to the choir:

Words Are Not Enough

To say “thank you” to all eleven of you subscribers, and especially the four of you who open your emails. Ohhh, you…

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But while we’re in the advice-giving business, and before our novices become jaded and join the Dark Side of Marketing, I think now is a good time to remind you all of this bit of sage writing advice: