Make things better by making better things.
Note: Links in this post may be affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission, at no extra charge to you, if you make a purchase through such a link. Learn more here.
Notes
Selling can feel selfish, hustling, manipulative.
Test for manipulation: “if the people you’re interacting with discover what you already know, will they be glad that they did what you asked them to do?”
Industry makes what’s requested, cheaper and faster.
Artists contribute, enlighten, connect us (to our better selves, to others), lead
Thoughts
This chapter addresses one of my greatest fears.
I remember, awhile ago, when I got a phone call out of the blue from an old friend I’d fallen out of touch with. It felt good to reconnect, to recall old times when we’d been roommates, to catch up on what we’d been doing—and then he told me he was selling Amway now, and asked if I’d… well, I don’t remember if he wanted to meet with me personally, or if he wanted me to attend some selling party, or what. I do remember feeling pretty gross.
When I started this blog, too, I went back and forth over whether I should use affiliate programs—would readers, especially friends, feel like I was just writing to get them to buy things so I could get a cut? Certainly there are sites that exist primarily for that, and those make me feel pretty gross, too.
But it’s not an obvious issue. I’m annoyed by commercials in podcasts, but I don’t resent them. I don’t feel gross for the Patreons I support. I respect Amanda Fucking Palmer’s practice of asking (see her TED Talk, for example), even while acknowledging that there is meaningful controversy around it. (How odd is it that I just chose to link to her TED Talk, not to an affiliate link of her book?)
There’s a spectrum of “selling,” or asking, or sponsoring, or funding art, or whatever. And, as with my attitude towards the value of my creative work, I have a double standard about how I relate money and art. I know there’s a huge spectrum, from the gross “sell-out,” through the refusal to accept any payment (despite how expensive making art can be), through sponsors and commercials, though allowing people the opportunity to generously support work they believe in.
I am fine with artists, wherever they fall on that spectrum—I even understand the gross “sell-out” part. But when it’s me, it’s all “yuck.”
Of course, this should all be moot. I don’t sell anything—I haven’t “shipped” any work, to speak of. In three years, I still haven’t received an Amazon affiliate payment (I haven’t met the minimum for check disbursement). So the idea that this matters to my willingness to “ship creative work” is just silly.
Yet this ickiness I feel around this vague potential that I might, someday, try to sell something does have an effect. It’s a part of that Resistance, as Steven Pressfield calls it. It’s irrelevant, yet nonetheless paralyzing.
(And how odd is it that I was okay with an affiliate link for Pressfield’s book? I’m a mess.)
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.