Forget About Creativity, It’s All About Selling

I have a friend who loves to bake. Her confections are delicious and creative. She came up with the idea to create low fat yummy healthy muffins, mostly a product that is notoriously fattening.

She loved creating these but now she has to sell them. Tedious, Frustrating. Sales = not her calling.
Another friend Malka is an artist – a graphic artist who has to sell her advertising graphics for her livelihood. Being a creative type, she came up with adorable knit purses, and a line of greeting cards.
Unfortunately, she has to try to sell her creative wares. Not fun.
Still another friend created delicious candy toffee. Her packaging is adorable, the product is delicious, but now she has to sell it. Sales does not come naturally to creative types. In fact, most of us hate this aspect of our trade.
Count me in. I love to write. I blog, I write, I share, and I would love to finish my novel except for one thing.
It’s bad enough having to sell my blog, sell my writing, sell, sell, sell. Push, hawk, sell. I hate it.
Recently a bit of paranoia set in that most of my many, many Facebook friends have tired of me promoting and marketing my blogs. and they have hidden my news feed. You can’t get hits if people don’t see your news feed! I depend on my FB page to promote, promote, promote and value all of my friends who actually read from my posting.
That paranoia as described above may or may not be real, but it shows how much I enjoy hawking my writing product. Simply stated, it is hell.  (Someone told me that FB decides who is in people’s feeds by some algorithm.  That makes my brain hurt.)
Every writer wants readers, but they don’t come automatically. Well maybe for Erma Bombeck, (RIP) but not for the rest of us. So we have to promote our work, and sell, sell, sell.
A couple of acquaintances wrote self-published novels. I want to finish my novel but I am avoiding it because then I would have  to sell it. My acquaintances LOVED creating their stories, but hate the selling of the book. It causes a lot of stress. That’s all they are focused on for the time being, sell, sell, sell. YUK.
I have people constantly pitching me on their stuff – to promote in my blogs. From cooking pages to fashion blogs, they want a mention in my blog to promote it. Sell, sell, sell. Forget about the creating.
A few of my lucky artist friends don’t have this problem. They create, create, create, and have a gallery sell their stuff. Oh how I envy that.

 

4 comments

  • Keep up your writing. I really enjoy reading. I am not hiding your newsfeed. Happy Hanukah to you and yours, Arlene.

  • I haven’t hid you, Arlene!
    Happy Thanksgivukkah!

  • I don’t envy this at all. People tell me all the time that I should write a blog(and I probably have a lot to say) but the selling aspect you describe is holding me back. I’d be too shy to promote anyway. My own business suffers from this sometimes. I should ask every customer who gives positive feedback if I can quote them on the website, but I never do. I’m happy when they refer me to a friend, yes, but I wish I had the confidence ..and ENERGY..to promote more. Selling is thankless and exhausting

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