SquarePeg Books

I noticed there is a lot of talk about doing the creative thing, but only if your ROI is worth it.

Why do it, if it takes too much time, too much space, too many resources? Especially if you probably/don’t make money at it.

I guess the question about the creative thing is really–does it have to be a significant income stream for you to do it?

What is an ROI that is worthwhile anyway?

Are you looking to escape the typical work-for-someone-else grind and earn a living wage on your terms? Or do you just want to create? Do you want an audience, or do you need an audience? Is it for your own mental health, or do you want to use it to make a public statement of some kind? If you need to make your own left-handed wing-ding because it isn’t available commercially, does that mean there’s a market for it, or is there a reason the left-handed wing-ding isn’t a thing?

I’ve made a lot of creative, artsy things that people ooo! and aaah! over, but don’t buy. I’ll be told how reasonably priced my items are, how well-made they are, how much fun they are, but no one will buy them. I get told I should take them to festival X or faire Z, but the question for me becomes: If I can’t sell these at $30 each in related-but-smaller-venue 1, how is it that people suggest that I should hit a bigger market? Have they thought about how many of these widgets I would need just to make an entrance at a venue of more than 1000 people? To guarantee to the organizers that, yes, I have enough product and ability to survive the event duration as a vendor (be it 3 days or 3 months)?

What does “worth it” mean? What constitutes failure to you? What defines a success? What are you willing to settle for? How much are you willing to invest in terms of time and money? Are you looking to keep control of your work, or do you just want to get it out there in any way possible?

I’ve had to ask these questions myself, and some of the answers are uncomfortable at best:

“Worth it” means I did a good job, I delivered a finished product, and other people like it.

Failure means I never got it done. Success means the people who like it, really like it, not just “it’s nice” like it.

I’m willing to settle for just being another author, and not a living-wage success.

I’m only willing to invest the time and money that won’t endanger my family–so I can only save little bits of money each month to create a sufficient start-up fund to cover my anticipated first-5-years of expenses, and I can only invest the time that doesn’t take away from my family’s needs, which changes with the seasons.

I don’t want to lose control of my creative work, so that limits my options, because I’ve done scratch-the-surface research enough to know that I don’t like popular Option A at all, but popular Option B only works if I set things up from the beginning just-so.

My answers have defined the snail’s pace at which things are happening for me.

What are your answers to those questions?