I’ve spent more than eight years writing and blogging. I’ve been writing songs for 40 years. And I’m an author of a handful of books. Nobody has knocked on my door and handed me a huge check for all of my creative work. It’s not likely to happen in the near future either. The fact is, when it comes to selling my work, I’m a loser and I don’t care.
It’s Okay to Do What You Love and Be a Loser
Everybody’s looking for a magic button. Of all the blogs in the world, only about 9% make a profit. I’ve already been one of the lucky ones. In 2012, my book sales generated about $300 profit. Since then, I’ve been slightly in the red. I’m a loser. I accept that.
Okay, I don’t really see myself as a loser, but rather as someone who is making a good decision to not give a crap whether or not I ever make any money independent from my day job. Why should I care? Teaching is a great career. My retirement fund is in order. And who wants to stay busy making a bunch of bullshit blog courses and trying to sell them? Not me! Heck, I could be traveling the world instead.
But there’s something else I want to get at. If the majority of blogs and YouTube channels, and authors, and musicians, and artists, and any one else who is creative are financial losers, who are the winners? The answer isn’t always pretty. Sometimes it’s the hard workers. Other times it’s the lucky. But more often it’s the seducers and scammers.
That’s right! Over my blogging tenure, I’ve taken the advice of dozens of gurus. I’ve tried their methods, read their books, followed their rules, and guess what? I did worse than when I first started selling my own book without a clue of what I was doing. There is no magic button!
I’ve Resigned to Not Giving a Crap
For the last six years I’ve tried to create a blog that would create an income. But every time I get close to monetizing my blog, I stop short. You might say I shoot myself in the foot. Heck, I’ve created several blog courses over the past five years only to pull the plug. In fact, I have a subdomain with a blog course for this site right now. But I’m going to delete it. Why? Because I don’t want to be another schmuck selling shit that doesn’t help 99% of my customers.
Years ago someone put a classified advertisement in a newspaper that said, “Want to make a million dollars? Send $1 to 123 Smith Street, New York, NY, and I’ll teach you how.” Anybody who responded to the ad got this reply, “To make a million dollars, put a classified ad in the paper asking people if they want to make a million dollars and charge them each a dollar.” Newspapers caught onto the scheme and stopped allowing the ads. But that first guy might have really made a million dollars.
This is why I never press the start button on my courses. This is also why I’ve never paid to take anyone else’s blog courses. It’s just like the million-dollar want ad. A scam. Why should I take $10 a month from you when you could figure shit out on your own? Most of what I’d tell you is common fucking sense. Or you could buy a $20 book that would give you more insight than I could ever offer.
So screw making money! The bloggers who make money usually have to take a safe route. Their articles all start to sound the same. They lose any creative edge they ever had in the first place. Nope. I’m a loser and I don’t care. I’m going to write for sheer love of writing. Sure, I might publish and sell more books in the future. But I’m not going to bullshit you with any online courses or paid memberships that just reach into your pocket and take your money.
This Is Why I’m Killing Hip Diggs
And this is exactly why I’m killing my other blog, Hip Diggs. I started Hip Diggs because I love the idea of simple living. But I’d also hoped to begin to make a profit from the blog. However, the more I studied other minimalist bloggers who were making a profit, the sicker I got to my stomach.
Does anybody really need to pay for advice on how to declutter and live more simply? The Internet is so full of free advice on the topic that you could spend the rest of your life reading it. Every time I thought about monetizing Hip Diggs, I just couldn’t do it. And I started to understand that the people who are monetizing minimalism might just be taking advantage of other people.
Over the past five years I’ve written blog posts about nearly every minimalist topic under the sun. You can always go back and read the Hip Diggs archives. But who the hell wants to write about the exact same things over and over. It’s Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity. So here I am starting over again.
I’ll be wrapping my work at Hip Diggs up in mid-October. As that time gets closer, I’ll be posting more often here. I hope you’ll continue to follow along even if I am a blogging loser. Â Or maybe, those of us who reach this point of no longer giving a rat’s ass and write with more honest intent are actually the winners.
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