Ignore Everybody, by Hugh MacLeod (Win a Free Copy!)

by Miserere

  

My preordered copy of Ignore Everybody sitting on my office desk on its release day, June 11^th (thanks to Amazon’s great shipping policy).

With this title on the cover of his book, one would imagine Hugh MacLeod is throwing stones on his own roof. If we follow his advice we won’t follow it! Think about it.

I’m sure Hugh enjoys the conundrum, playful guy that he is, but in this book he does offer sincere advice for those on the road to becoming Artists, with Artist being defined as someone who creates Art, but not necessarily someone who gets paid for it.

Full of wit and humour (and cartoons drawn on the back of business cards, of course) throughout the 40 lessons (or chapters) you will receive sage nuggets such as the following:

Artists don’t have to suffer.
Clueless No-Talent Dumb-Fucks
who call themselves Artists
have to suffer.

This pretty much sums up Hugh’s attitude and approach. If you want sugar-coated, hand-holdy, lame, PG advice, this is not your book. I do want to stress that behind the humour and occasional foul language there are lessons to be learned about creating, advancing, marketing and enjoying your art. But even if you never intend to sell a single photo in your lifetime, I believe you can still gain a lot by reading this book, and doing it often.

Never compare your inside
with somebody else’s outside.
The more you practice your craft, the less you
confuse worldly reward with spiritual rewards,
and vice versa. Even if your path never makes
any money or furthers your career, that’s still
worth a ton.

Hugh is such a nice guy that he sent a signed copy of his book to the first 1,000 people who preordered it. For free. So now I have two copies. I thought I would continue Hugh’s kindness and give away my extra copy, the unsigned one whose photo graces the top of this post.

Here are the rules of this competition:

If you want this book, get somebody to nominate you. They will do this by leaving a comment below this article explaining why you are creative and deserve the book. No need for novella comments, this can be explained in a couple of sentences. If there are photos of the nominee being creative, even better! If you are two friends, nominate each other! This is the perfect chance to nominate your spouse, partner, sibling, co-worker… who spends too much time taking photos and otherwise being creative.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you use a valid e-mail when leaving the comment so I can contact you if your nominee wins.

On June 30^th I’ll pick a winner and will mail the book to him or her, anywhere in the world, free of charge.

Note: I will leave this post at the top of the blog until June 30^th so everyone has a chance to see it.

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box
of crayons in kindergarten.
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons
away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books
on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years
later with the “creative bug” is just a wee voice
telling you, “I’d like my crayons back, please.”

  

See the winner here.