'My Kids Introduced Me To Snapchat, I Bet They're Regretting That': Comedian Heather Land On Latest Book
(CBS Local)-- Heather Land never expected to become a comedian and she now travels the country as a stand-up performer and is the author of two humor books. Her latest called "A Perfect 10: The Truth About Things I'm Not and Never Will Be" from Howard Books, which is owned by Simon & Schuster, is all about Land's life growing up in the South and why it is important to laugh at life's most ridiculous moments.
"This is a real light-hearted comedy book and obviously a humor book with stand alone essay chapters just about a lot of nonsense and growing up in the South," said Land, in an interview with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith. "I pretty much just translated this Southern drawl onto paper. It was light and easy and a lot of fun."
Land believes one of the keys to her success has been not taking herself too seriously. The author's career in comedy started accidentally. The stand-up has made a name for herself with her "I Ain't Doin It" videos, but the viral videos weren't a part of some strategic plan. Instead, Land stumbled into a routine one day while she was messing around with Snapchat.
"I was a couple of years out of a divorce and I had been working in my church ministry leading worship and at this point I had to get a big girl job and I was working an administrative job every day from 8-5. I was making dumb Snapchat videos with my friends because my kids introduced me to Snapchat. I'm sure they're regretting that at this point. My friends and I were making dumb videos and for months they were begging me to put them on social media and I absolutely refused. I was single and I didn't really think that was the way to get a date. Finally months later on a dare, I put up my video and people started watching it and asked me to make more I Ain't Doin It videos and didn't even know what they were talking about."
Land's viral video allowed her to quit her administrative job and become a comedian. Although Land's kids don't find her funny, the author and stand-up comedian is thankful that she has carved out a niche in the entertainment space.
"My son is 17 and a senior in high school and he cannot believe this is a career choice," said Land. "He cannot believe that people pay money to watch me on stage. He's continuously dumbfounded. A month to the day I started my fan page, it was at a million people on Facebook. It's at almost three million at this point. Everybody wanted t-shirts and I'm not a t-shirt maker, but I said I was going to figure it out. We sold thousands of t-shirts and that got me by for a few months to decide if I wanted to make a career out of this."
"A Perfect 10: The Truth About Things I'm Not and Never Will Be" is available now wherever books are sold and watch all of DJ Sixsmith's interviews from "The Sit-Down" series here.