I started this blog in September 2012 after a writing teacher suggested we students do that. The whole point was to establish writing published on the internet and someday be used for marketing the creative endeavors that would make money. Nine years later, I just have this blog that is my name dot com and an upcoming bill for hosting and that name.
I have written some blogs and essays that have made me money, but I am an unknown, unpaid writer other than rejection letters.
Other than the occasional controversial taco blog or the one time I wrote a topical piece about school shootings, I don’t have much readership on this blog. I get a dozen or so consistent, and then it drops down to half a dozen usually. The hashtag cancer topic had the most consistent readership of all my subjects. My art, short stories, and poetry have the least.
Spend fifteen minutes on Etsy or even half an hour on Instagram, and you will find out that people are selling art and crafts of all kinds of calibers. People put on a witty saying with a cool design on a t-shirt, and they sell out. I am not knocking people’s creative endeavors that wade into the world of commerce, but I sit there wondering why I am not also raking in cash.
Two reasons. The number one and less critical of the two is lack of ambition. My idea of a good time is reading a book, watching a movie, and listening to jazz if I’m not watching a baseball game from first pitch to last out, so getting my hustle on is an insult to my leisure.
Then there is the genuine reason; I don’t think I deserve it. Why would anyone buy something I have made? I have sold guns, chainsaws, vegan kale chips, coffee beans, and radio advertisements, but I can’t take a complete book that I have written off my computer and into the hands of willing consumers. If I even ask for money for a product, I am afraid that people will laugh.
Now, this isn’t a self-pity advertisement for money or you to like my things; this is just what I write about, what I’m struggling with. I have paid for this blog for almost a decade, and there is no reason for it other than my name dot com exists.
I drew an entire tarot card deck and then wrote a book about the cards. This is very sellable. It would seem that a book with a deck of cards plus t-shirts, beer cozies, and buttons along with special readings by the author would be a great way to make some money on the side along with getting my work out there, but I just can’t seem to get myself to do it.
Nicole even paid to have the book professionally edited, so it won’t be like the usual junk you see written on here, but a very thought out smartly written book. I almost owe it to her to sell this book. Before you go digging around, this blog doesn’t have the edited version up.
After I finished with the editor, I looked at the drawings I did and felt very crappy compared to the book. I am proud of the book. My cards are to the best of my ability, but my abilities don’t live up to my imagination. I could try redrawing them, but part of me feels like I’m not good enough to satisfy myself.
It isn’t as clear-cut as just print it and sell it; I still have the decision to make on whether I should shop this to publishers or if I should self-publish it. A publisher would take up some of the costs and help with marketing it. If done right, this would get the book and cards into the most amount of hands, but after some research, I have found that it is very little by the time the creator gets any money.
If I self-publish, I will have to pay out vast amounts of my own money at significant risk. I would also have to do all my marketing, advertising, and promotions – which might not make up for how many books a publisher could sell.
It isn’t an easy call. It also allows me to stay in my anti-ambition and lack of self-esteem while pretending to hem and haw about my options.
I didn’t draw these cards or write this book to make money. I didn’t finish it and think I will get to quit my day job. I’m not looking for financial rewards – except that it is the only way that someone can show real validation for someone’s craft: pay them. I just want to hold a fully published item in my hands. I want to have a tactile experience from something I made.
I also want people out there to have it too. I don’t need hundreds; I could be happy with a dozen people with my book on their shelves.
This is all because I got my bill for my website, and every time I get it, I think about the point of having it. I have had many years where I have been grateful to have a place that I can post my thoughts, my craft, and my drawings on, but other times it has been a struggle to think of anything to say and put up.
It isn’t like this world needs one more person making public their thoughts on anything. This world doesn’t need one more artist vying for your time. Imagine if I also had things to sell? I would be unbearable.
If I’m going to continue the my name dot com, I will have to make it pay for itself. That means advertising or selling shit. That means I will have to begin hustling and promoting and hashtagging and fucking influencing and publishing goddamned book and deck of tarot cards and just fucking be okay with a lot of people not giving a shit. Maybe some people would buy it and like it a lot, gods forbid.
Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?