Monday Musings #001: Why Marketers Should Read Fiction as Much as they Read Non-fiction

Everyday on LinkedIn, I see marketers asking for book recommendations. Some classics pop up. The Art of Influence, Don't Make Me Think, Hey Whipple Squeeze This, etc. But I rarely see fiction books among the lists. 

I've also had conversations with people I really respect who have told me they avoid fiction books entirely, calling them either a "waste of time" or saying that they "can't get through them." And while the quotations probably make it look like I'm making fun of them, or writing those quotes condescendingly, I'm not. I get it. I felt the same way for a while. Between the time of me finishing the last Harry Potter book, and getting out of college I was not reading a lot of fiction. It felt like a waste of time. 

But at some point, I revisited it. I think it was when my dad recommended the book 11/22/63 by Stephen King. That book changed my literary life. It was the first book in so long that I got lost in. Completely immersed in the world, my imagination devouring the words, chewing them up, and spitting a fully created world into my mind. I tore through a few Stephen King books after that. The Stand, The Gunslinger, etc. And I was hooked again. That was when I began to think, is reading fiction a waste of time? How is this benefitting my skillset as a marketer? 

I have a few opinions. 

Reading Fiction Increases Our Capacity for Empathy

As a marketer, you spend a large part of your days trying to understand people. What kind of content do they consume? How do they spend their days? What do they care about? How will they respond to a specific type of message? How do they feel about our brand? Our product? Our competitors'? How can we check our assumptions about them? 

If I were to restart undergrad, knowing what I know now, still trying to be a good marketer, I'd probably major in psychology. 

Anyway, a large part of understanding people is building our capacity for empathy. If we can exercise the part of our brain that helps us see the world from another's perspective, that's a muscle we can flex often in strategic planning sessions. 

Reading fiction can help us with that. 

Here's a quote from an article in the NY Times called Your Brain on Fiction,

Dr. Oatley and Dr. Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective. This relationship persisted even after the researchers accounted for the possibility that more empathetic individuals might prefer reading novels.

This isn't an easy relationship to measure. But there's been a few different studies done on the subject that make the correlation convincing enough. 

In another study Dutch researchers had students read either 1) newspaper articles about riots in Greece and liberation day in the Netherlands or 2) the first chapter from Jose Saramago’s novel Blindness, in which the main character suddenly goes blind. The students who read the chapter of the fiction novel immediately scored higher on empathy - related tasks, and a week after reading it scored even HIGHER than they did right after reading it. (source). 

Non-fiction books let us in to the head of the author, but the author is generally talking about her understanding of a subject, not about themselves. There isn't a ton of character development there so I'd be willing to wager that it does not exercise our empathy as heavily as fiction might. 

Building Your Own Reading List Leads to Diversity of Thought 

Your marketing team, if it's worth its salt, hired you for your mind. 

Everyone looks at problems through their own lens. That lens is built through a unique combination of people they've met, books they've read, experiences they've had, the list goes on and on. 

It's why a group of people will always come up with better ideas than just one person. We look at problems how we look at problems, and only other lenses can push us past ourselves. 

So while I see the merit in reading the classic marketing books, I think it's important to read the books that you want to read, including fiction books, because it helps add to that unique cocktail that makes up your lens. 

I read a quote once that said, "Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet.”

If you're working with a group of people for a while, and you're reading the same books and consuming the same information that they are, it's likely that you'll start to think the same. Maybe that's why companies often bring in outside consultancies? 

Note, this  section is my opinion. This is not backed with any statistics or science. 

It Helps Make You A Better Writer 

Writing is one of the most important, if not the most important skill you can build in business, especially as a marketer. 

Consider this chart of the most important skills for Tech Marketers from Act On: 

Just in the top 3, writing skills and content marketing skills take up 2 of the 3 slots. 

Whether it's writing to get internal stakeholder buy-in, writing a headline for your campaign, or trying to format the structure of your webpage in a way that tells a story, it's useful in so many ways. 

There's a ton of noise out there about how to improve your writing, but in my opinion, there are 2 ways: 1) read good writing and 2) practice writing. 

And when you're looking to read good writing, most of the best writers of all time specialized in fiction. 

I'm sure there are more or better reasons to read fiction, but these are the three that seemed important to me as a marketer. 

Whenever you're trying to figure out what you should read next to improve your marketing skillset, don't leave out fiction.