Success and How to Avoid It

by Mat Coward

1st The T Party 2004 trade edition paperback, new In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

170 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This is not intended to be an inspirational book. If anything, I mean it to be disinspirational."

Mat Coward does not need to tell us this in the afterword to this book. Having spent 175 pages writing about his grand love/hate affair with freelance writing (mainly hate) in all its forms - from byline photographs giving you a choice between looking like Cliff Richard or a literal arse, to sub editors removing every spelling mistake out a comedy article relying solely on spelling mistakes, Mat does every single thing he can to dissuade you from the dull, poor, lonely, under-appreciated life of a writer, sometimes threatening actual bodily harm to his reader.

Somehow he still manages to make it the most useful guide to freelance writing out there.

Buy this book; you'll learn enough to prepare you for (and dissuade you from) writing and will cry laughing/turn communist after one read.

[Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

witty, to the point, blatantly communist, and most importantly HONEST. if you have any illusions about "getting into writing" one day, read this book first. if you are not cut out for it, you will know by the first couple of pages. freelance writing is not for wimps, and frankly it is often thankless and soul-crushing work with the moments of glory being few and far between ( moments of actually being PAID occur with only a slightly greater level of frequency). if you think you are truly afflicted with the painfully debilitating, masochistic, flesh-eating disease of writing, then at least read this book and get yourself on the right (er, well, perhaps, slightly better than what you are doing now) path.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book most uplifting and extremely funny. It's a guide to professional writing, sort of. It's more than that really; it's an autobiographical account of media freelancing in the UK since the early 1980s. It's an industrial relations textbook. It's the antidote to all the idiotic 'careers' advice I was given as a teenager, which encouraged us to treat the cruel labour market as nothing less than a free shopping mall for the fulfilment of our personal fantasies. I love it.