Discover how authors can balance creative integrity and financial success by understanding the difference between using money as a means versus an end.
"The goal is not to accumulate wealth for its own sake but to create a virtuous cycle where financial stability supports better work and better work leads to greater impact."
I definitely see money as means, but it's led to me being a little too precious with the work, I think. May also be a little perfectionism hidden in there, but I find myself always trying to find the purest essence of what I'm creating rather than creating it... because it means so much. As I type that, I see it's an avoidance tactic. I love the idea of creating KPI's for tracking growth....
It's interesting how saying a thing reveals something you didn't know you knew. I don't think using money as means and forcing everything to have the most meaning are the same. One is mindset and the other is a procrastination technique. All it means is that you care about what you make more than you care about how much you make from it. I also don't think either is right or wrong, necessarily, but each have their own pitfalls, you know? Like you said, money as ends means you are less precious with your work, but at the risk of putting out work you don't believe in just to get it. It's a balance, but everyone has a core, I think.
Ohhh, procrastination technique. You’re so right. Eek. 😱 Also, I agree - neither is wrong, it’s just really soothing to hear someone articulate where I land because so much of the growth advice out there just doesn’t resonate for me. The 1,2,3 of it all… Thank you!!
I'm a 10+ year Desert and love scoping out trends but in the process, I feel I've lost the 'spark' of writing something just because I feel like it. Because my analysis hat turns on and I guilt/second guess myself trying to run all the numbers and only choose the most 'profitable' ideas, but that leads further to me not publishing much at all lately because there's just too much overwhelm and too many ideas.
This makes total sense, and I have a lot of the opposite problems in never taking the most profitable option.
I think one of the best tactics for this is to take the idea you love and the idea you market and say…
…”okay, how can I take this weird idea and make people like enough that it makes sense.”
The example I give is in cozy mystery. Does your main character have to be a habidasher, or can they be a baker/barista because way more people like that. Do they have to be a necromancer or can they be a witch, because more people will like it.
There are all sorts of ways to take a very weird idea and make it more marketable without breaking the concept, which is what a good forest would do. They would have a list of red lines they won’t cross, and then try to make the rest of it as marketable as possible without breaking the thing they love.
"The goal is not to accumulate wealth for its own sake but to create a virtuous cycle where financial stability supports better work and better work leads to greater impact."
Exactly.
I definitely see money as means, but it's led to me being a little too precious with the work, I think. May also be a little perfectionism hidden in there, but I find myself always trying to find the purest essence of what I'm creating rather than creating it... because it means so much. As I type that, I see it's an avoidance tactic. I love the idea of creating KPI's for tracking growth....
It's interesting how saying a thing reveals something you didn't know you knew. I don't think using money as means and forcing everything to have the most meaning are the same. One is mindset and the other is a procrastination technique. All it means is that you care about what you make more than you care about how much you make from it. I also don't think either is right or wrong, necessarily, but each have their own pitfalls, you know? Like you said, money as ends means you are less precious with your work, but at the risk of putting out work you don't believe in just to get it. It's a balance, but everyone has a core, I think.
Ohhh, procrastination technique. You’re so right. Eek. 😱 Also, I agree - neither is wrong, it’s just really soothing to hear someone articulate where I land because so much of the growth advice out there just doesn’t resonate for me. The 1,2,3 of it all… Thank you!!
I'm a 10+ year Desert and love scoping out trends but in the process, I feel I've lost the 'spark' of writing something just because I feel like it. Because my analysis hat turns on and I guilt/second guess myself trying to run all the numbers and only choose the most 'profitable' ideas, but that leads further to me not publishing much at all lately because there's just too much overwhelm and too many ideas.
This makes total sense, and I have a lot of the opposite problems in never taking the most profitable option.
I think one of the best tactics for this is to take the idea you love and the idea you market and say…
…”okay, how can I take this weird idea and make people like enough that it makes sense.”
The example I give is in cozy mystery. Does your main character have to be a habidasher, or can they be a baker/barista because way more people like that. Do they have to be a necromancer or can they be a witch, because more people will like it.
There are all sorts of ways to take a very weird idea and make it more marketable without breaking the concept, which is what a good forest would do. They would have a list of red lines they won’t cross, and then try to make the rest of it as marketable as possible without breaking the thing they love.