Self-Help Writers are Cult Leaders
Why Writing for an Audience is Therapeutic.
Self-help writers are the socially acceptable cousins of cult leaders, religious gurus, and influencers. They (We?) sell the idea of personal transformation, peddling hacks to success or eternal happiness. Like cult leaders, they thrive on charisma and a knack for creating a devoted following, except their rituals involve buying books and attending workshops instead of spiritual ceremonies, drugs, and group sex.
They’ve perfected the art of crafting a sense of community around their transformative wisdom, convincing followers that their unique insights are the path to a better life. The testimonials, success stories, and endorsements serve as the modern-day equivalent of divine miracles. In essence, self-help writers are merely the highbrow and less physically vain version of Instagram influencers.
So, take all the advice I’m about to dispense with a grain of salt.
Unlike those who have made a living writing, I can’t further capitalize on my success by writing about how to succeed. However, I can tell you why I keep writing for an audience while cheerfully hemorrhaging money.
It’s therapeutic.
Nobody knows for sure why writing is therapeutic. The underlying mechanism is likely to be complex and multifactorial. One theory is that the mere act of ‘getting it off your chest’ is a powerful therapeutic agent. Writing may facilitate the cognitive processing of traumatic memories, resulting in more adaptive, integrated representations about the writer themselves, their world, and others. It’d also be possible that the development of a coherent narrative over time will help find meaning in the traumatic experience.
Now, this might be true when writing for yourself. But what about when you’re writing for an audience?
Writing for an audience doesn’t always mean writing for an income. If you write for the market, you sell your freedom while turning your passion into a product. It turns the creative process into labour instead of play, which might be worth it when it results in a financial goal, but I’m unfamiliar with the particular outcome.
I’m not yet privy to the lives of those who make a living by creating what their hearts desire. Nor have I experienced the thrill when thousands of people like your work. Yet, I still prefer writing for an audience than keeping a diary.
For those of us writing about our lives, keeping an audience in mind can make the act of writing even more therapeutic because it makes you look from the outside in. It forces you to examine where the greatest forces of antagonism are coming from, which flaws are of interest, whether the characters’ desires are getting in the way of their goals, if you see the people in your life as complex human beings, whether the narrative includes a character arc, and so on.
So, why is the archetype of a writer a self-loathing alcoholic?
With all this reflection, you'd think we’d be stable and content, yet we’re often anything but. Writing about yourself, like reading self-help books, requires paying too much attention to yourself—a depressing process when you take yourself too seriously.
Whether fiction or nonfiction, all writers draw on their lives in one way or another. Sometimes, a mystical intervention outside of ourselves opens us up to the universe, retires the ego, and leaves a sense of fulfilment. Even then, we’re just tools that filter the information based on our lived experience.
So, don’t delude yourself into thinking that buying into our words grants you a magical blueprint for life. Writing, at its core, is a reflection of the messy, complicated world we all share—not a golden ticket to enlightenment or success. If you’re inspired, great. If you feel compelled to support us, even better. Personally, I’d love it. Just don’t confuse a guru, influencer, or religious leader’s advice for your truth, and don’t mistake our stories for a shortcut to living your own.
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Maybe that is why many writers try to find this golden intersection of writing for self (therapeutic or self-reflection and so on) and what people want.
I am still exploring here to show up as myself yet still benefit and inspire my readers with it. So far I am really enjoying the community here, and it's been a great motivation!
I couldn’t have said it better, Nolan. Substack is the campfire I sit around and tell stories to. It’s the rocking chair on the front porch with a dog at my feet that I tell stories to. It’s our stories that describe who we are. Like your trip to Poland and the little kids you befriended, the story told us about Noland.
For me, the reward is having people connect with the stories. If they laugh, cry, or share back their own experiences, then it’s a really good thing. The really engaged small group of vocal readers give enough feedback to make it worthwhile, but there are many friends and family who sit in the background, mostly quietly, but who also respond occasionally. I’m not here for fame or fortune, obs, I’m here for the connection of community, which is a soul need.