Came across a great interview with well-known blogger, author, serial-entrepreneur, marketer and Tribal Author founder, Jonathan Fields.
Here’s the part that got me nodding:
Newsflash: the moment you seek someone else to exchange value for the things you create, what they think matters. You may not like that. You may not want it. But that doesn’t change the truth of it. Nor does it mean you have to bastardize your creative process to earn a living from what you create.
It does mean that if you want to earn enough to live well in the world, you may want to explore finding the sweet spot between your authentic voice and what readers are willing to pay for.
Either that, or just create because you need to create and own the reality that you may hit it big, but it’s far more likely that you’ll always have to spend far less time creating than you want, because you had to work a full-time job to cover your bills.
I am someone who believes you can create great work, be true to your art AND create words, stories and ideas that people value enough to pay for.
Amazing how many people feel that one of the biggest injustices going is that they don’t get to sit around in their underwear all day, compose poetry and make $100K.
Even though the traditional publishing model severely limits the financial potential for most authors, it’s still preferable to many because they believe (erroneously, of course) their publisher will handle “that whole icky marketing thingy.”
Now, with unprecedented ability to bypass traditional publishing, it’s a mixed emotions thing for most authors who, still, alas, just want to create.
True confession time. Was writing The Well-Fed Writer and The Well-Fed Self-Publisher real labors of love for me? Did it light me up? Make me blissful and rapturous? Not really. Did I enjoy the process? Yes. Did I have fun with it? More often than not.
Has it made me some good money? Yes. And that was a worthwhile tradeoff for not being to write only what, when and how I wanted to. I just woke up one day and realized that if I was to share the how-to of my successful forays into commercial freelancing and self-publishing, others might very well find that useful to the point where they’d pay for the information.
As jobs go, writing about something you enjoy doing and building a paying business and community around sharing that information in a variety of ways (books, ebooks, ezine, blog, coaching, speaking, etc.) was, methinks, a respectable and enjoyable way to make a living. Especially if it kept you from having to work for The Man.
So, I feel I’ve crafted the balance Jonathan talks about between doing what you enjoy and doing what’s commercial viable. It’s given me a decent income, along with lots of freedom and flexibility. No passion required…
Guess my point is this: passion is fine. But, don’t NOT follow some path simply because, at first blush, it doesn’t happen to make you all giddy all the time, have you lose track of time, where work becomes play, and all the other clichés part and parcel of any discussion of “Finding Your Passion.”
Consider this: Finding something you pretty much enjoy doing most of the time, would be an enormous improvement for most people.
And, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with just doing what you totally love, with no thought of making it appealing to others. As long as you understand that it may never be more than a hobby.
Have you waited for the “Passion Pixie” to deliver your life’s calling (or book subject)? 😉
Do you feel you’ve crafted a good balance with your books between writing what you love, and writing what sells?
If you don’t have books out yet, have you contemplated what it would take to achieve this balance?
Any other thoughts or comments?
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Thanks Peter for featuring this excerpt from our interview with Jonathan Fields. He certainly has a lot of smart and important perspective on what it takes to succeed as a modern author.
All the best,
Matt
That he does! 😉 He’s a great example of how to do it right – and successfully!
PB
Wow, Peter, it’s like you’re giving me a well-deserved verbal spanking!
I just abandoned an e-book project that IS VERY commercially viable because I didn’t think I’d be “interested enough” in the subject to finish the darn thing. The subject is SO ripe for teaching and coaching — heck, I’ve successfully coached folks in this subject, which gave me the idea for the book in the first place.
To successfully market the book would mean that I’d have the financial cushion to build my highly niched FLCW specialty (branded web series script writing).
Food for thought!
Hey Mele,
Thanks for weighing in, and glad you found it to be a different perspective! Sure, if you don’t care about it much at all, and can’t stand the idea of doing it for a long period of time, then I certainly wouldn’t. But if you were applying the “passion litmus test” to it, and finding it coming up a little short, that might not be enough of a reason to abandon the idea. Only you know where you stand.
To wax philosophical for moment, I do think we live in an age where many people judge everything they do by “Do I really love doing this?” and if they don’t, they don’t do it. Last I checked, life wasn’t supposed to be one long fun-fest. Of course, what the “do-I-really-love-doing-this?” question has often come to mean (again, in this shortcut-hunting society of ours) is “Is it easy?” Because if it’s not easy, it probably isn’t much fun, and there you have it.
If there’s something, as I say above, that I pretty much like to do most of the time, that’s a great place to start. Especially if it can generate a good income stream, thereby giving me the time and space to pursue other interests. And especially if I can fine-tune it over time more toward an ideal situation.
More food for thought! 😉
PB
I hear you, Peter! As Jonathan said, we need to TAKE THE TIME to explore that “sweet spot”. So it’s not about doing something you hate.
But I understand the passion mindset. Some of our parents and grandparents toiled away at jobs they hated because they had a family to support. If the gig’s paying the bills, how dare you even THINK about searching for your “workplace bliss”. That stuff is for your black-sheep older brother.
Then came the self help movement, where, FINALLY, you were encouraged to put your needs first. So parts of our society went off to the other extreme. We just need to balance the scales a bit.
One last point. According to some psychological study, there’s a personality type — nicknamed the Creative — that tends to FAIL when they’re performing tasks they don’t enjoy immensely. So I guess they have an excuse. 🙂
Peter, there’s people out there literally broke because they only do what they are truly passionate about . . . and the crazy thing is that they think they are more noble than everyone else. For most people life goes on a long time. A positive approach to life is to follow your bliss while also supporting yourself financially. Life is a balancing act and it is possible to achieve both.
Thanks Diana,
You speak the truth! And I guess what I’d add is this: I say it’s better to be doing something you enjoy for the most part (if not blissful and passionate about) that can make you a living, rather than doing something you don’t care for (or perhaps, even hate) that pays the bills, just so you can do something you love on the side. Because what often happens with that scenario is that the day job saps all your time, energy and creativity, leaving you little for your bliss.
It’s obviously a personal decision, but we both definitely agree that a lot of people live lives that are bittersweet – they may be doing what they love, but if you can’t make ends meet, that’ll only be so fulfilling for so long. Though, I suppose it’s better than staying in work you hate, waiting for the perfect thing to come along.
Thanks for weighing in!
PB