Name: Why I Started The Nerdwriter
Uploaded: 2026-01-24T17:16:20.000Z
Duration: 5 min 26 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I wonder if anybody who's watching this right now remembers this video.

Hi everyone, this is Evan Pushak and it's my first video blog.

And it's also my first ever nerdwriter video, made almost 11 years ago on my laptop 480p laptop camera.

And in it I explained that I'm starting the channel because I want to build an audience for a novel that I'd written.

And it was a plan that went out the window really quickly for two reasons.

I can see that now better in retrospect, but

But the other reason was that I fell in love with YouTube, with the idea of making a show about my interests and that use the unique tools of a new medium.

But the dream of writing and publishing a book never died.

Just 30 days from today, on August 30th, my first book of essays called Escape into Meaning will be published.

This is the final hardcover version, which I am being completely serious, was just delivered to our door by UPS like 20 minutes ago.

So I'm still, I'm still just buzzing looking at it and holding it.

Today, I want to ask you sincerely to pre order this book.

It is just the best way to help support this project.

Pre orders just have so many important cascading effects.

They get the attention of retailers and the media.

And because pre order sales count toward first week sales, they represent the best chance for most first time authors like me to get on the New York Times bestseller list, which really can lift a book out of obscurity.

Essay collections are notoriously hard to categorize, which makes them hard to publicize.

So because you guys watch my show, you really know better than the media or the industry or other readers what this book will be.

So if I've built up any trust with you or goodwill with you over the last 11 years, you can help me communicate that goodwill to other readers by pre ordering.

But don't buy something just because you want to support the author.

You should buy something because it has value for you.

The 11 essays that are in here, representing my richest, most original ideas, and

they're written with the skill that I didn't have 11 years ago when I wrote that novel.

Escape into Meaning has essays about what makes a great Superman story, about the dilemma of a voter when experts disagree about the blending of identities in really close friendships, about the value of public benches in urban design.

Something also really passionate about about the hidden depths of Jerry Seinfeld's stand up comedy about why Quentin Tarantino is only going to make 10 movies which people can't seem to stop asking him about the ways the Internet hijacks our minds and more These were pitched and intended to be separate essays, but

I was surprised in the writing of them how much they all connect.

The book became much more of a cohesive whole than I imagined it would be.

It's also much more personal than I imagined it would be, which makes me feel really vulnerable and is scary.

But I think that's also a sign that I gave it everything I had.

In the description you can find the Simon and Schuster master link for all the versions of the book, hardcover, ebook or audiobook, which I read personally.

The hardcover is what's going to help the most with the bestseller list.

But get any of the versions that you like.

The book should be available around the world in most places where English books are sold, so check your local Amazon or local bookseller if it's not where you are.

And finally, I just want to say thank you.

Looking at that old video, the first video I ever made, it's hard to imagine a more full circle moment for me.

And the reason I've completed that circle is because of you.

That's also the reason you guys, all of you, anyone who's watched this show in the last 11 years are the final thank you in the acknowledgments of the book.

I have no idea how to end this video, so I'm just going to try to recreate that crazy face from the first video.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Why I Started The Nerdwriter

vulnerable

intense

genuinely

practice