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Success is Waiting for You...
Jul. 24th, 2021 04:45 pm...to fall asleep, so it can rob you.
I've been looking at more innumerate analyses of how well you can do selling your own art. The general idea, as usual, is that some people do well, so you can, too. Too many people sell like this, because people want it. This guy's advice, like many others, follows the drivel given out by "The One Sentence Persuasion Technique:"
People will do anything for those who:
(1) Encourage their dreams,
(2) Justify their failures,
(3) Allay their fears,
(4) Confirm their suspicions, and
(5) Throw rocks at their enemies.
...and this uncritical advice causes a lot of heartbreak (and probably makes the world a worse place [see (3)-(5)]). I've talked about how this inauthentic method makes me wretch in my let's plays, and maybe I'll type something more general up at some other time, but
"Take advice from the people who have the results that you want."
This is good advice.
If you want to make money, look at how people make it. If you want to get a poem published, talk to people who publish poems. This is absolutely essential if you want to achieve success: know what the most common paths to success in your field are.
This isn't enough, though. Try other things, too. There are niches out there that you may find that aren't being explored, or are being explored poorly. Try stuff, it might work.
"Don't listen to anybody who tells you that you can't do it."
This is bad advice.
There are two kinds of people who have important stories, the successes and the failures. Unfortunately, we see the successes more than the failures, and miss out on the problems. Every step of the way.
Knowing how their failed, knowing their stories will both help you navigate possible hardships and gird you for failures, because it is definitely not true that...
"For every failure, there's a success."
This is horrible advice.
Especially in artistic and creative fields, but also in any field with a low barrier to entry and a high possibility for prestige, there are dozens if not hundreds of failures and unknowns out there. And for every success, there are ten that did everything right. And a hundred that did almost everything right.
As people are able to reach more and more people with their work, as there are more and more ways to sell that work, the top performers earn more and more. There are actors who make commercials earn more today than the best actors in the country made in the 1870s, even comparatively, let alone someone like Robert Downey, Jr. But, as this happens, two things occur: more people want to become actors and a greater percentage of the money goes to the top earners.
So, even if we're lucky and more people can earn a living through their art, an even greater percentage of aspirants will fail -- and many people who would have excelled in the past will fail now. Just look at the NFL.
And when the public loses interest in an art, like poetry and novels, the money for the mid-level practitioners dries up quickly.
I want people to succeed, but when people roll the dice and don't succeed at unlikely occupations, they often blame other people, they often feel other people are biased against them, and this leads to bad outcomes for themselves, and when there are enough of them, for society as a whole.
Dinnertime.
I've been looking at more innumerate analyses of how well you can do selling your own art. The general idea, as usual, is that some people do well, so you can, too. Too many people sell like this, because people want it. This guy's advice, like many others, follows the drivel given out by "The One Sentence Persuasion Technique:"
People will do anything for those who:
(1) Encourage their dreams,
(2) Justify their failures,
(3) Allay their fears,
(4) Confirm their suspicions, and
(5) Throw rocks at their enemies.
...and this uncritical advice causes a lot of heartbreak (and probably makes the world a worse place [see (3)-(5)]). I've talked about how this inauthentic method makes me wretch in my let's plays, and maybe I'll type something more general up at some other time, but
"Take advice from the people who have the results that you want."
This is good advice.
If you want to make money, look at how people make it. If you want to get a poem published, talk to people who publish poems. This is absolutely essential if you want to achieve success: know what the most common paths to success in your field are.
This isn't enough, though. Try other things, too. There are niches out there that you may find that aren't being explored, or are being explored poorly. Try stuff, it might work.
"Don't listen to anybody who tells you that you can't do it."
This is bad advice.
There are two kinds of people who have important stories, the successes and the failures. Unfortunately, we see the successes more than the failures, and miss out on the problems. Every step of the way.
Knowing how their failed, knowing their stories will both help you navigate possible hardships and gird you for failures, because it is definitely not true that...
"For every failure, there's a success."
This is horrible advice.
Especially in artistic and creative fields, but also in any field with a low barrier to entry and a high possibility for prestige, there are dozens if not hundreds of failures and unknowns out there. And for every success, there are ten that did everything right. And a hundred that did almost everything right.
As people are able to reach more and more people with their work, as there are more and more ways to sell that work, the top performers earn more and more. There are actors who make commercials earn more today than the best actors in the country made in the 1870s, even comparatively, let alone someone like Robert Downey, Jr. But, as this happens, two things occur: more people want to become actors and a greater percentage of the money goes to the top earners.
So, even if we're lucky and more people can earn a living through their art, an even greater percentage of aspirants will fail -- and many people who would have excelled in the past will fail now. Just look at the NFL.
And when the public loses interest in an art, like poetry and novels, the money for the mid-level practitioners dries up quickly.
I want people to succeed, but when people roll the dice and don't succeed at unlikely occupations, they often blame other people, they often feel other people are biased against them, and this leads to bad outcomes for themselves, and when there are enough of them, for society as a whole.
Dinnertime.
