A Choice
Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying, The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the Columbia Journalism Review to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as Grammy Award winning musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.
How the hell did that make it as the front cover blurb?
Gee, I guess Mary doesn’t think too highly of herself. Poor girl.
But Ryan… Mary Pipher *is* credible and self-aware. See that “Ph.D.” after her name? That means credible in Latin.
And apparently she is very aware that she wrote Reviving Ophelia.
Not too sure what humble means.
–Marcus, B.A., Poster on the Internet
Wow! That is funny.
What a place for shameless self-plugs.
That’s cool, I’d want to be a douche like that person. Maybe it is a comedy act like professional wrestling and they are doing it Kurt Engel Style.
I honestly don’t understand: she’s talking about a book she wrote, which relates to the book on topic, and she happened to be the author of the book she is talking about. Describe a better way of saying what she said. I’m confused because I don’t see a problem with that. Redundant, perhaps, to show the book title twice and almost a pointless, vague statement (especially by a Ph.D.), but I’m sure she had little to no say in that specific quote showing on that specific location of the book (I’m serious; no sarcasm).
Call me stupid, but first give an honest re-phrasing or better marketing tools for this. Or explain why I’m confused. I don’t see a problem.
(I also enjoy your blog Ryan. Especially your book and article entries.)
Someone asks you to blurb their book. You respond by talking about yourself, laughably overstating your contributions to the field, ultimately say nothing substantive about the book in question and make a fool of yourself in the process.
Is that the person you want to be? It’s definitely not the obviously implications I’d like my words to make.
None of this by the way, addresses whether the petty narcissism and lack of tact might make someone unqualified to render social commentary and judgment.
What I meant to say – and I’m not sure how many people follow this line of thinking (everyone, probably) – is that that comment struck me similar to comments NFL or NBA coaches make at half time when their rushing back to the locker room to meet with their team but get “sacked” by the reporter wondering (for the camera and everyone watching from their couches), “Hey coach, how are you going to overcome the opponent’s defense?” or “What do you plan on doing the second half to keep your lead?” — “well, we plan on passing the ball more and outsmarting the defense.”
Or when athletes, after a game, answer stupid questions (“Can you explain what happened out there tonight?”; “How did last week’s events affect your performance?”; etc.) so vaguely and uninspiring and in such a manner that no meaningful information was relayed by, from, or to anyone, and both the reporter and athlete act like they are actually benefiting society through the superficial process. How can anyone be expected to be taken seriously in this world?
I can only assume (or, at the very least, hope) this quote is from a forward or something of some substance, otherwise I see exactly what you’re saying. Knowing marketers love customers who hop on the bandwagon, I bet it’s more of a marketing ploy than a depiction of the woman’s character. I mean, the quote could make sense if it was taken from a forward or critical review, its just marketed quite poorly on that cover. Why couldn’t they just have had someone else say those exact words to give it more authority, rather than less?
Maybe she could start reviewing her own books.
I’d love to see that!
Was her book actually influential or is she just full of shit?
How is that pompous? If anything it looks like Kimmel is trying to ride off of Pipers success. Piper sure as hell didnt have the final say in what gets put on the cover of someone elses book.
What bothers me more is that the publisher decided to use it and display it the way they did. It’s pretty safe to say that around half the people in academia are unreasonably smug and rarely have anything worthwhile to say, but the people that designed the cover should have caught it. If they wanted to use the blurb, all they really had to do was remove the “author of Reviving Ophelia”.
That’s hilarious. Though even the title “Reviving Ophelia” screams of pretension, so I can’t say I’m too surprised.
Just saw this today on an old blog post that I was reading. Reminded me a lot of this. Here’s how PR shouldn’t be done; I doubt talking about yourself in the third person is very effective.
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