... Create to Earn Money.
I have a theory. Maybe it's crazy, but I've been thinking about it for a while, and I might as well share it here:
I think a creative industry eventually dies when its members abandon the profit motive.
Just to be clear, I don't think you should create only for profit. I think you should also love what you do -- and you should try to have something worthwhile to say about the world and the human condition.
But I keep thinking about the covers of old comic books I love - covers that often announce point-blank Stan Lee's desire to sell "mags" - and I wonder.
One thing I notice about the creators who poo-poo the idea that publishing is a business like other businesses - the creators who bristle at the notion that they're really hot dog vendors - is that they're usually extremely focused on their own belly buttons. What's more, they act like writing isn't a means of communicating with many different types of people -- preferring instead to "speak" with narrow, rarefied audiences of like-minded yes-men. Despite all their talk of "empathy" and "compassion," they never actually bother to understand what the average consumer wants -- and consequently, their art comes across as parochial and time-bound.
Honestly, the works I prefer are generally works that were created because, in part, somebody wanted to earn some dough. The reason for this is, I think, pretty simple: you can't sell many books if you don't think of people other than yourself. Sorry, cupcakes, but unless you've led a truly amazing and unique life, nobody wants to read about you. They want to read about fictional people who face tribulations beyond the prosaic. They want to be transported. And, I think, they also want to read stories with verisimilitude -- something you can't achieve if you don't spend time engaged with the world beyond your own mirror.
I don't mean to suggest that you can't make money with trash. You obviously can. But in my experience, you're more likely to find a gem among those books created to pay the bills than among those created by folks who think the "starving artist" identity is some high ideal.
Just my $.02.
Actually finishing just about anything includes work that is not fun, and when there's no economic pressure, it's easy to just drop the project. I think that's the main factor operating here.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was at Microsoft, people used to talk about the morning your alarm clock rings and you realize that if you just turn it off, your life won't change a whole lot. That is, you could walk away from your job and not lose your house, not lose your ability to take vacations, raise your family--whatever. (Some people referred to this as "calling in rich.") People who were truly motivated to create things would keep working past this point. (Ones with extravagant tastes never reach that point, of course.)
So I guess I'd say that your claim is partially true, but it's not true for everyone. Some people really can do great work purely for the love of it. I wouldn't want to bet on that being a very large group though.
The idea of creating something for money isn't that you will be forced to finish it, though that does happen in most cases. It's that what you create will have to appeal to other people. People who create something just for their own pleasure are called hobbyists.
ReplyDeleteThat's not to say such work is useless. It can actually be quite good, if not great. The creator though, is more likely to come up with something pleasing if his ability to feed himself is dependent on it.