When I decided to make my passion for writing stories into a business, I wondered how long I had before someone gave me “the look.” If you work in a creative industry, you know the one. The raised eyebrows, pursed lips, and head tilt all point to one unspoken message: good luck, sucker.
We often tell children to follow their dreams. It’s a common theme in popular fiction, but it seems like few actually pull it off. Many people watch their dreams die slow deaths in the face of poisonous cynicism disguised as practicality. The dream seems too good to be true. There must be a catch. All too often, we decide that the whole idea is a catch – that only peolpe who are unstable, flaky, and flighty-as-pixies think the world will cooperate with their dreams, particularly if those dreams are artistic.
As we get older, people begin asking, “When are you going to settle down and get a job?” And job doesn’t mean a passion or a dream – a job is a terrible set of tasks which someone pays you a monthly salary in order to accomplish on their behalf. Make no mistake, when people ask when you are going to “get a job,” they mean the kind of job you’d have if your life was Officespace.
Lots of people go through life doing jobs they don’t particularly want to do, but must do because they depend on the income. And because they don’t think they can follow a creative dream and have the house, car, and 2.5 kids we were all promised as well. But this is a lie. Dreams don’t simply come true – you have to build them.
When I began this writing journey, I didn’t simply write a book and then put it in the Kindle store as soon as I finished a rough draft. I paid an artist to make an incredibly beautiful cover, I hired a freelance editor (hi, Jason!) to fix my wording and make everything consistent, and I learned best practices for writing and promoting a fiction book. I wasn’t afraid to learn what most would consider boring business stuff if it meant I could do what I love – writing stories.
The ultimate goal for me is to earn enough income from published stories that I won’t need the support of a “day job.” But that’s a long way off. As exciting as it was to push the ‘publish’ button on my first book, as thrilling as it was to hold the paperback in my hands and smell its pages, and as awesome as it felt when the first reviews from readers were positive, I would not say I have achieved my dream. Not yet. And truth be told, I don’t know if we should even think of dreams as things to be achieved, as though they are nothing more than items on a to-do list. Dreams are paths, not destinations.
If you have a dream that doesn’t align with getting a standard 9-5, don’t just follow it: build it. Find a way to make it profitable. This is going to take work, and it will probably mean doing things that don’t come naturally to you. But at the end of your life, are you really going to look back and wish you hadn’t spent so much time and money doing what you loved?
I don’t have anything to sell here, for anyone who’s expecting a sales pitch. I write and sell Fantasy and Science Fiction novels to people who are interested. I wrote this because I wish someone would have told me all of these things much sooner in life. Maybe I can be that someone for somebody else.
If you’re interested in following your passion, in building a business around something you care about, here are some resources that I use that might be able to help you, too.
- The Seanwes Podcast – Sean McCabe and Ben Toulsen have down-to-earth conversations about transforming passions into businesses. They approach business from a practical, experience-based perspective while refusing to compromise their personal values. They’re currently approaching their hundredth episode and have a wealth of practical advice for business-minded creatives.
- Gary Vaynerchuk – I first read “Crush It!” back in 2011, and while it took me a few years to put its principles into practice, I can’t deny that it changed my life. Gary continues to be a huge influence on social media and internet marketing, and a lot of the truths in this book are downright prescient in how applicable they still are five years after the book was initially released (most bits of internet marketing advice from five years ago have not held up near as well). He focuses on general principles in this book, which I find much more helpful than trendy tactics. Really can’t recommend it enough.
Hope you enjoyed this post! Now get out there and build your dreams! And most importantly, don’t let anyone convince you that it’s impossible.