On this week's episode Editor/Author Mike Sacks (Vanity Fair) discusses his career path, the importance of not asking for permission with your writing, as well as how he prepares for some of the artists he interviews.SHOW NOTESMike Sacks Website: https://www.mikesacks.com/Mike Sacks on Instagram: mikebsacksMike Sacks on Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelbsacksAUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPTMike Sacks:It's never been any time in publishing history where you could do this, where you could put out a book that looks professionally done. In the past, you'd have to buy 5,000 copies of your book, and they set Moldering in the basement. Yeah. Now it's a purchase. It's a paper purchase, so if someone wants it, they'll pay for it. Then it's published and it's not published until then.Michael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another Screenwriters. Need to hear this. We've got a surprise twist for you today. I've done over 90 episodes and today we're taking a turn to the world of high literature and publishing something I know very little about. And I'm very pleased to welcome my next guest, Mr. Mike Sacks, and he comes from the Mike. Welcome. Let me give you a proper introduction. I'm not done with you yet, before I let you say something. So Mike is, aside from being an editor at Vanity Fair, he's written a number of books, I don't know, 11 or 12 something. A lot of books. He's gotten his work in Vanity Fair, Esquire, gq, the New Yorker, time, New York Times, Washington Post MCs, Sweeney's, radar Radar. Funny or Die. He was Die Mad New York Observer, premier Believer, vice Max. It goes on and on. So this guy's from the world of literature. So thank you so much, Mike, for being on this show. I want to learn all about your experiences.Mike Sacks:Well, I'm from the world of literature, meaning I have no money and plenty of time. So this is nothing else to do,Michael Jamin:But why? Okay, but why was it that I want to talk about your books and all that, but okay, so what attracted you to the world of literature though?Mike Sacks:My biggest dream was to get into tv. I mean, I wanted to write for Letterman. I wanted to write for SS n l, but I didn't know how to do it. I mean, I didn't know any writers. I didn't know anyone who knew any writers, very mysterious world. So what I thought at that time was that I would write for the written page and then be discovered like I would from AA or AA to be pulled up to the majors. It doesn't work like that. I didn't know it at the time, but over having done that for so many years, I just came to actually prefer that, I guess, to any other medium. I've done a little bit of TV and a little radio, and I do a podcast in the end. You know what, I came to love? I love the control. I love the fact that there's no one over my shoulder telling me what to do, how to do it, and I think if I were at 2021 to have gotten a job on Letterman or S N l, I would've been in heaven. I think now it sounds like hell, and I don't think I would've last would last a week.Michael Jamin:But tell me when you say no, no, you get to do what you want of that. Is that entirely accurate when you're are working with a publisher or even a magazine?Mike Sacks:Not always, especially when it comes to humor, which is one of the reasons I stopped humor for magazines. I mean, what I found is that most editors view themselves as humor writers in disguise, and if they hadn't have to have a job, they would be famous humor writers. So a lot of them consider themselves humor genius as very high humor iq. So I would get a lot of rewrites based on that and also based off of, I was writing a lot of stories and pieces based off of current news. So that goes bad very quickly. So I prefer now, what I've been doing now is self-publishing and putting out evergreen pieces where meaning it's not tethered to any sort of current news. So when I look back at some of the GQ pi