Archives for January 2020

Today the new book Reasons To Circumcise: A Comprehensive Unbiased Evidence-Based Guide To All Of The Data In Favor Of Circumcision launched.

I’m giving away a FREE PDF copy of the book Reasons To Circumcise to everyone who signs up to my email list this month!

Subscribe here to get your FREE book:

Here is what people are saying about the book Reasons To Circumcise:

• “The best reasons to circumcise compiled in one compelling read!” – Eric Clopper, Sex And Circumcision: An American Love Story
• “A brilliant treatise that precisely enumerates the main arguments in support of circumcision.” – Anthony Losquadro, Founder of Intaction
• “If you were looking for a good reason to circumcise your son, this book has your answer.” – Destin Gerek, Author of The Evolved Masculine: Be The Man The World Needs And The One She Craves
• “The most straightforward assessment of the arguments in favor of circumcision that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reviewing.” – William Stowell, Fincastle Underground Broadcast Media Group
• “The pages of nothing turned out to be really something. Buy this book!” – Michael Winnel, Foreskin Revolution

After you see this book – you’re going to want a print copy!

Get your print copy of Reasons To Circumcise here.

Get your free pdf copy by signing up for my email list here.

New book out today:

• Reasons To Circumcise: A Comprehensive Unbiased Evidence-Based Guide To All Of The Data In Favor Of Circumcision by Hugh Dickman.

Get the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/165183430X/

Why are people talking about this book?

Reasons to Circumcise is a book of 153 blank pages.

That’s right – aside from chapter titles, this book is entirely blank.

Get a free pdf copy of the book if you sign-up for our email list this month: https://www.brendonmarotta.com/subscribe/

See what people are saying about the book Reasons To Circumcise:

• “So good I read it twice!” – Brendon Marotta, Director of American Circumcision
• “The best reasons to circumcise compiled in one compelling read!” – Eric Clopper, Sex And Circumcision: An American Love Story
• “A brilliant treatise that precisely enumerates the main arguments in support of circumcision.” – Anthony Losquadro, Founder of Intaction
• “If you were looking for a good reason to circumcise your son, this book has your answer.” – Destin Gerek, Author of The Evolved Masculine: Be The Man The World Needs And The One She Craves
• “The most straightforward assessment of the arguments in favor of circumcision that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reviewing.” – William Stowell, Fincastle Underground Broadcast Media Group
• “The pages of nothing turned out to be really something. Buy this book!” – Michael Winnel, Foreskin Revolution

Get your copy of Reasons To Circumcise here.

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We would like to make this the #1 pro-circumcision book on Amazon.

Here is how you can help:

1. Search “circumcision book,” scroll down, and buy the book.
   If you search “circumcision book,” scroll down, find the book, and get a copy, Amazon will learn that this should be the top search result for “circumcision book” and start recommending the book. (This would also make this the book Alexa buys if you say ‘Alexa, order a book on circumcision.’)
2. Get a copy TODAY. (Tuesday, Jan 14, 2020)
   If everyone buys the book on a single day, it will shoot up the charts. Then we can take a screenshot of it as a “bestseller” and be able to tell people that this is the best-selling pro-circumcision book. The closer you buy to today, the better!
3. Leave a review.
   After you’ve bought a copy, leave a review.  Amazon values verified purchase reviews, so if you get a copy, you review will be valued more. Because this is a blank book, there is a lot of potential for comedic reviews. A few ideas are already in this email.
4. Share this book.
   Share this book on social media – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. The more people who share the book, the better it will do – so make your post today!

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How You Can Use This Book

• This book makes a great gift. This book makes a great for both people who support and oppose circumcision. They will initially be shocked, and then laugh when they actually look inside.
• This book makes a great conversation starter. Show copies of this book to people to get the conversation started. Even if they don’t like that the book is blank, they will at least begin to suggest what they believe are the reasons for circumcision, and begin talking about the issue with you.
• You can recommend this book to people who will not listen to other sources. Many people will only to read material that confirms their biases. If you’re talking to someone who dismisses nuanced films like American Circumcision, suggest this book.
• Make friends laugh. This is a funny book, and you can use it to make your friends laugh and bring humor to this issue.

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Get your copy: Reasons To Circumcise: A Comprehensive Unbiased Evidence-Based Guide To All Of The Data In Favor Of Circumcision

In Scott Adams book How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big: The Kind of Story of My Life, he talks about a concept called a skill stack.

A skill stack is a series of skills that are okay individually, but combine to something greater. In Scott Adams case, being “okay” at drawing, writing, humor, and business created the million dollar brand that is Dilbert.

Filmmaking is a skill stack. Directing actors and cinematography are two different skills, but if you’re going to direct you need both. Even individual skills like cinematography have their own skill stack (lenses, lighting, framing, etc.).

Whatever success I’ve had with my film American Circumcision is the result of a skill stack. In addition to the skills of filmmaking, I also needed to understand marketing, crowdfunding, basic film business stuff, public speaking, interviewing, etc.

I’m not the best in the world at any of these skills, but I’m good enough at each of them to take an entirely independent film from concept to Netflix.

As I’ve started to explore activism, I’ve realize activism is a skill stack.

Many activists I’ve spoken to are looking for the “one thing” that will change the issue they are working on. However, if the skill stack theory is correct, it’s actually a combination of things that will create change, not one in isolation.

Skill Stack Examples

Imagine for a minute you have a media outlet. Owning a newspaper or digital outlet would be a useful for an activist cause, right?

However, the distribution of that information is also important. If you knew about social media, advertising, how to market your writing etc. the reach of that outlet would be increased.

Say you publish a big story in your paper. Now what? You want people to act on that information, right? So you also need an activist network to take action on your story. If you can’t organize your audience to take collective action, no change will occur.

Note that if you only have one of these things, the effect decreases exponentially.

If you just have an activist network, but no media or information gathering service, what are you going to tell people to do? How will those activists spread their ideas or know what to focus on?

If you just have the news outlet, people will read it, say “that sucks,” and move on with their lives, or worse – they’ll contact you, ask “what should I do?” and all you’ll be able to tell them is “share our information!”

American Circumcision is moving film, but the impact of the film is significantly increased due to Netflix distribution. If I just had the film, but no distribution, it would not be as effective. If I had access to Netflix, but didn’t have as good film, it would also be less effective. It’s the combination of those skills that creates the impact, not any one in isolation.

The impact is also increased by the fact I can write and do public speaking. Many people have heard about the film through podcast appearances I’ve made. However, I would never have appeared on any podcast if I didn’t have a film to promote. My public speaking skills are only useful because of other skills in my stack.

If I wanted to increase my impact, the question to ask would be “what skill could I add to this stack?” For example, if I was writing this in a nationally syndicated column rather than on my own blog, that would increase the impact, right?

(In this case, the speed of being able to come up with an idea and deliver it to my audience in a day is preferable to the distribution of a paper. Plus, it’s intended for my existing audience, not to expand my audience.)

I already have the skill of writing. Becoming a columnist would require adding the knowledge of the newspaper and publishing business, understanding their needs, and making connections with editors who could distribute my writing.

The Missing Stack

I built my skill stack as I went. When I was working on the film, many activists asked me “how are you going to get anyone to watch it?” It didn’t occur to me that activists had not built many meaningful distribution channels for their information. I had to learn the skill of marketing and work backwards to get my film on major platforms as I was finishing it.

When trying to figure out what to create for activism, the thing to look at is: what is missing from the stack?

I think many activists have an idea that they can create change by just focusing on one part in isolation. “If we just get the information out there loud enough, it will change!” “If we just do lawsuits, it will change!” “If we just protest, it will change!”

Media, lawsuits, and protests are all useful tactics. However, if you had all three wouldn’t the impact be greater? Could you use media to tell people about the lawsuits and protests? Could you use lawsuits and protests to create coverage in the media?

Plus, what if you added additional elements to that stack? If you’re going to do a lawsuit, don’t you want people with investigative research skills? If you’re going to do a protest, isn’t an organizer useful? Or a network of chapters around the country?

There may be tactics that are very effective that haven’t been tried because the prerequisite stack has not been created. (For example, getting material into the school system might require already having educational connections.)

Many activists think mass protests are the way to create change, but you won’t get mass protests unless you have mass contact lists. If your goal is a million person march, start figuring out how you can get ten million emails and phone numbers from people likely to protest.

By the way, you’re more likely to get that contact info if you have media you can persuade people with, an organization they can join, and…

Starting to understand the stack?

Collaboration

Thankfully, you do not have to create the entire stack alone.

If there is a piece of the stack you are not good at – collaborate.

I can’t write music. When I did my film, I hired John Graves, a composer, to do the soundtrack. He did amazing work, and my film has a bigger impact because of it.

Likewise, I didn’t create Netflix or my distributor. Those platforms already existed, and needed content. Distributing with them was a win-win, where each of us benefited.

Note that Netflix is way bigger than me, but their platform still benefits from collaboration. Don’t assume that just because someone is bigger, you can’t reach or benefit them in some way. Every publication still needs people to write for them and things to write about.

If you’re looking to make a difference, look at what is missing from the stack, and then look what what unique talents you have that could fill it.

The solution to any issue will not come from “one thing.” It will come from people bringing their unique skills together to create a full stack of complimentary things.

Read More: How To Start Your Activism

Stangle: Impossible burgers are made of what?

The impossible whopper has 44 mg of estrogen…

Just six glasses of soy milk per day has enough estrogen to grow boobs on a male. That’s the equivalent of eating four impossible whoppers per day.

For reference, when people medically transition from male to female they are prescribed around 10mg of estrogen per day. (Source)

If this estrogen information is true, it means that if you regularly eat impossible burgers, you’re basically on HRT and medically transitioning yourself to female.

At first when I read this headline, I thought “that has to be fake news.” Then I read the mainstream “debunking” articles and realized “oh my God, it isn’t.”

None of the debunking articles including the one from the Washington Post dispute the estrogen content. (Note: Linking articles about the Washington Post article, because theirs is paywalled.)

What they dispute is that the estrogen in soy is harmful or processed in the male body like other forms of oral estrogen. It’s basically a finger wagging at the alternative media saying “well… it isn’t proven.”

Isn’t the burden on gigantic corporations to prove their product is safe?

Anyway – we could test this theory.

I propose someone make a movie called Sterilize Me.

Sterilize Me would basically be Supersize Me except instead of eating regular Burger King, a man would eat impossible burgers every day until they grew breasts. Regular blood tests of hormone levels would be part of it.

After all, if it’s totally safe then nothing would happen right?

Note: I’m giving this idea away for free, because I’m not doing it. I’ve done a lot to raise my testosterone levels, and am not about to burn them to prove a point for a movie.

But if you think these burgers are safe – hey, have at it. Maybe someone at the Washington Post would like to make this documentary with regular blood tests. After all, they always need content for that tik tok account.

Read More: The Most Important Article of 2018

When I was preparing to crowdfund my first documentary feature, I had no idea if anyone would care about my project.

As a consequence, I read EVERYTHING I could about crowdfunding. I mean everything.

During that time, I bought a course on crowdfunding.

I’m gonna be real with you – it sucked.

The course billed itself as a series of webinars, but really it was six interviews with people about their crowdfunding projects. Skype interviews.

There was no editing on the videos. At the front of one interview, the subject was fumbling with their headphones as the creator said “I’m getting some ECHO,” and they tried to figure out their connection.

The course was $200.

I was willing to pay that because I was desperate for information. I had been working on my documentary for six years. It was a labor of love.

Until then, I’d survived by bouncing between freelance work and my own dream project. I’d even moved back into my parents place in my hometown just to focus on it.

The project would not be finished without funding, but my film was a controversial documentary about circumcision – not exactly the most commercial material.

In my quest to fund my film, I started reading everything I could about internet marketing.

The advice being given to filmmakers at the time was “you should have a Facebook and twitter account to promote your film!”

The advice internet marketers were giving was “you should build an email list by giving away free content, post relevant content on the platforms that matter 3-6 times a day, and by the way – here is a step by step guide on how to do that.”

Totally different worlds.

But the filmmakers were making better content!

Filmmakers would put years into their passion projects, only to sell them for $4.99 on iTunes, while internet marketers were making poorly recorded videos made with the built-in iSight macbook camera, yet making more money.

Plus, there was a bait and switch going on in many of the products I saw.

One course promised to teach you how to build your freelance video production business. By now, I was wise enough to be able to spot the bad offers, but signed up for the free video anyway just to find out what they were selling.

It was way worse than I expected.

The course creator said his secret to success was to package video production with online advertising and bill your production house as an advertising agency!

He showed a video he made for a local yoga studio (it wasn’t good) and then talked about how much he made running google ads on it for them.

Yeah – the secret to a profitable video production business is to make something other than a video production business! Thanks internet marketing guy.

Then I got aggressively re-targeted with ads for their course, because I clicked on it. I had to block their page.

I remember thinking – I don’t want a course that teaches me how to do something other than how to make my art. I don’t even really want to do freelance work. I want to make MY projects on MY terms. Is there a course that will teach that?

That was the seed that lead to my course Dreams To Reality: How To Crowdfund Your Dream Project.

In short:

I made this course because most internet courses suck.

That might be bad to say, but it’s true.

Many are made by people who haven’t done what they claim to teach, people don’t know how to create a quality video, and people who value money over art.

At first I was pissed. Why should these scammers get rich, while the brilliant artists I knew struggled?

Not just them – in making my documentary I’d interviewed tons of hard-working activists across the country. Every single one struggled with funding. Why weren’t they making more money?

I became fascinated by this question, and began to study internet marketing.

I began to look not just at what internet marketers were saying or selling, but what they were DOING.

I thought – what if instead of hating on people that were more successful from me, I learned from them?

If these tactics could to sell skype “webinars,” couldn’t they also work to sell a real movie?

Could I use their methods to fund my own project?

I decided to learn everything I could about marketing and audience building.

It changed my entire path.

I learned how to sell my art.

I did a deep dive into marketing.

Some of the stuff I learned from was great. Some was not.

One of the things I discovered is that marketing tactics are values neutral.

That means they work regardless of where you apply them.

You could be selling a vegan documentary. You could be selling a carnivore documentary. You could be selling a documentary against both of those things. The same tactics apply.

Most marketers start with the audience and work back from there.

What do people want? Make a product that solves that problem.

Artists work a bit differently. We start with our heart.

What is on our heart? What do we genuinely want to say as an artist?

I began to wonder – what if I made something from the heart, and then applied the tactics of marketers to selling it?

Yes, it might not make as much money as a product promising to help you “get rich” or “get six pack abs” – but I wasn’t in it for the money. I wanted to create something from the heart.

No marketer in their right mind would make the art I love most. No marketer would ever create a David Lynch, Akira Kurosawa, or Stanley Kubrick film. Yet, all those filmmakers have found success and an audience.

Older artists had the backing of studios, and could afford to let the marketing division figure out how to sell their products. Sometimes this worked out for them. Sometimes it didn’t. However, we don’t have that luxury. I knew no one was going to sell my film but me.

People had told me no one would ever want to see my film. It explored a taboo issue that had been marginalized by the mainstream for years.

I didn’t care. This was what was on my heart.

I decided to apply the tactics I’d learned to my dream project.

It worked.

I raised over $90,000 in crowdfunding, and another $20,000 just for the tour.

I broke through what anyone thought was possible for a film on my subject.

We eventually did a multi-city tour, sold to a distributor, and got on Netflix.

A Presidential candidate in the 2020 election even mentioned our film by name.

After the campaign, I had activists and artists call me and ask – how did you raise all that money?

I’d try to explain to them the marketing I’d learned – crafting a two-sentence pitch, a/b testing it, identifying and building your audience, creating content for the relevant platforms – but:

1. I was trying to fit three hours of information into one breath. (Not doable)
2. They didn’t understand or think it would work for them.

The artists and activists I knew still believed that the “business” side of things was different from the art.

They only saw marketing working for art and ideas they didn’t like, so they assumed it couldn’t work for them.

The idea that artists can’t sell is convenient for marketers.

In reality, the opposite is true.

Artists have unique skills that marketers do not.

Their creations come from the heart. The heart cannot be bought or taught.

If artists learn the skill of marketing, they can become unstoppable.

Artists can learn how to fund their art.

After I made my dream project, I watched others try to crowdfund their dream projects and fail.

It wasn’t because their art was bad, or they weren’t trying hard. It was because there was a process to crowdfunding they didn’t know and weren’t following.

Given a few tweaks and a willingness to learn, I knew they could reach their goals.

The truth was – the marketers who’d sold me scammy products were not 100% wrong.

They had correctly identified my need to learn how to crowdfund and build a film business – they just couldn’t deliver on the promise of fulfilling that need.

Most artists do not understand how to market their work. There is a real need to learn.

As I found myself complaining both about the resources available to artists, I thought – what if instead of complaining I actually did something? What if I made the course that I wish my younger self had?

Dreams To Reality

When I was crowdfunding my dream project, I wasn’t sure what to do.

Dreams To Reality: How To Crowdfund Your Dream Project is the course I would have wanted before funding my first dream project.

It is perfect for an artist, activist, or creator who knows they want to change the world, but doesn’t know how to raise the money for their dreams.

The goal of this course it to teach you how to create the projects you really want to create.

It’s made by someone who is an artist first and foremost, and speaks to other artists about what it really takes to create uncompromising art.

I’m not going to tell you to make something “more commercial” or “do freelance work.” I’m not going to tell you create something that doesn’t come from your heart. I’m going to help you make YOUR project.

The first video is free if you sign-up for the email list.

Sign-up here: https://crowdfundyourdreamproject.com/