Creatives Just Wanna Have Fun

The problem with most creative creatures is that all we want to do is play. If you’re a graphic artist, you want to spend all day drawing. If you’re an actor, you just want to stand in front of the camera. Musicians just want to make music. Okay, there may also be some drinking and chasing of the opposite sex involved, but you get the picture. We just wanna have fun.

When I was talking to my editor about the market for this book, I told him it would apply to a wide range of creative arts. I immediately followed that with a caution that this was not nearly as big a market as one might think. I would be surprised if even 10 percent of creatives were willing to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, educate themselves, and do the work required to take control of their careers. Nonetheless, it’s that small sliver of motivated people whom I greatly admire, and it is therefore to people like you that I dedicate my efforts.

This gives you a massive tactical advantage. No matter what art form you work in, you’re going to have competition. And yet, most of your competitors will simply sit there doing nothing and waiting for the world to be delivered to them on a silver platter. This reduces the number of people with whom you have to compete to a fairly small and manageable amount.

Without readers for my books, listeners for my music, and users for my software, I’m nothing but a guy with some gear in his house. So, I embraced the business side of things. As a result, I discovered that I actually enjoyed a lot of it. More importantly, I’ve been making a living doing the creative things I love for many, many years. When I was first getting started, I worked in factories, dug ditches, and even cleaned toilets. Let me assure you, doing creative work is much more fun, even if also involves the business side of things.