Tucker Max Gives His Thoughts On ‘Total Frat Move’ Book

TFM Intern12 years ago

If you fancy yourself a reader, or you’re just a debauchery-loving American between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, odds are you’ve heard of Tucker Max. He’s the author of three New York Times bestselling books, including I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, and has been almost unanimously credited as the creator of “fratire.” Earlier today, Tucker gave his two cents on the Total Frat Move book, which itself is now a New York Times Best Seller.

Since I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell first came out and became the huge success and cultural touchstone that it has, I literally cannot keep count all the people who have tried to copy it in some form or another. Thousands upon thousands of people have started blogs about their “fratire” stories, and almost all are blatantly unoriginal rip-offs of mine.

It also seems like each one sends me multiple emails, either asking me for advice or telling me how much better than me they were going to do. None of them ever did anything of note. My agent Byrd Leavell estimates that he’s gotten 20,000(!) submissions where the author explicitly compared themselves to me in their proposal. He’s never signed one of them.

I’ve tried to tell people that the way to replicate my success is NOT by copying it. You cannot be a better “Tucker Max” than me; the best thing you can do is take my work as a starting point, and then build out from there to create something that is new and authentic to you and your experience. Yes, I get credit for inventing fratire as a genre, but the way I do it is just one way; there are an infinite other number of ways to write about the same basic things I write about.

This is my favorite part about the Total Frat Move book: It doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is.

To read the rest of Tucker’s thoughts on Total Frat Move, click HERE.

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