What's the difference between a hobby and a job? A job and a career? And where does a calling fit in? Is it a matter of a paycheck? If so, how large? Job satisfaction? Goals? Recognition in your field?
These questions might sound like navel gazing (not nearly as much fun as Naval gazing on Fleet Week), but they're valid and important to people who blog. On Monday, over on GalleyCat, Ron posed the question, "What If The Blogosphere Decides To Pack It In?" He points to a few blogging reviewers who have been so overwhelmed by ARCs and review requests that what started as a fun hobby has become a chore.
I know this feeling. Before I started any of my businesses (all of which, by the way, started as hobbies before they became jobs), I should have read Seth Godin's The Dip. Instead, I got lucky for the most part. Godin says that despite the old adage about winners and quitters, the truth is that winners quit frequently, and without guilt. They do it when they realize that they are in a "cul-de-sac", where powering through will only leave them running in circles, rather than just in a true dip, where powering through will lead to "mastery."
Guy Kawasaki has a great interview with Godin on his blog that gives you the "Dip" philosophy.
It’s time to quit when you secretly realize you’ve been settling for mediocrity all along. It’s time to quit when the things you’re measuring aren’t improving, and you can’t find anything better to measure.
Smart quitters understand the idea of opportunity cost. The work you’re doing on project X right now is keeping you from pushing through the Dip on project Y.
...What’s the worst time to quit? When the pain is the greatest. Decisions made during great pain are rarely good decisions.
But back to blogging and books.... Publishers, according to Galleycat, among others, are leaning heavily on the Internet for low-cost advertising and reviewing, especially now that the traditional means and methods are either gone or very expensive. Can't send your authors on tour? They can go on a blog tour. Can't find a hardcopy reviewer any longer? Go for a bookblog with a substantial following.
But it's not just reviewers who find some aspects of this strategy tiresome. I hear from authors that they don't want to take the time out of their schedules to blog. I hear from bloggers that they're sick of being the "next stop on the self-promotion express," even for people they generally like. (And from blog readers, I hear that they're sick of seeing the same person "guest posting" on every blog they read.) I hear from forum and listserv members that they feel as if authors are taking advantage of them by popping up out of nowhere to promote their work.
"New media" may be changing the way publishers and authors market themselves and their work (and, yeah, they're tied together), but I don't think we've gotten through The Dip yet. I suspect there's a lot more change before things stabilize. At least I hope so, because I fall into more than one of the above categories myself. It's a long slog through the change, but if you're willing to do what's necessary, there may be a brighter future at the other end.
And then, over at Dear Author, Jane has a post about the things publishers could do to make it easier for genre readers--unlike those Jonathan Karp assumes will disappear--to find the books they want, buy them, read them. None of them are expensive, either. In direct opposition to Karp's assumptions, the Janes believe genre readers will continue to be a viable market, even after The Dip, and that publishers, if they work at it, can come out even stronger on the other side stronger than they are now.
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4 comments:
This is thought-provoking stuff. At first blush, I'm with the Janes on genres, but I'm going to read and think about all this. Seth Godin's a bright guy for sure.
As I've been hinting and carping about here, I've been retooling my writing direction based on where the markets are and where I think they're going, because my goal is to be a published fiction author first. I agree with the value of reassessing and quitting if necessary. Changing tack is a required skill in sailing, cutbacks and jukes are the running back's forte, and in good diplomacy, you try to stop digging holes once you find you're in one. Why wouldn't appropriate reversal be important in any other grand endeavor? Stopping what isn't working is a virtue.
Thanks for the great links. Plenty to chew on.
Hhhhhmmmmm,
As to the questions, I've had hobbies, jobs, a career and a calling. Paycheck and recognition never matters. Job satisfaction does. My only goal is to complete the task at hand. Then move to the next task.
I like how Seth Godin looks at things. So many people waste so much time doing things in which they really only have a half hearted interest.
Going to see if the library has the book.
Terrie
My only concern about my "work" (writing and promoting my mysteries) is that if I sell a mystery series I could end up with a lot of work that MUST be done, and deadlines made by someone else.
I like being in the dip now. It's possible that I'll unintentionally build a ladder of work and end up climbing up and out of the dip and into the blazing spotlight where there's no place to hide.
Such, they say, are the vicissitudes of life.
Write ON!
Nan
Terrie -
What I meant by the questions was this: if you start making money from your hobby, is it a job? If you don't get a lot of money for your career, deliberately doing something you get paid below what you COULD be paid to do something else, is that a calling?
Clare -
I'm right with you. I was lucky in one of my business ventures not to lose money. I stayed in it too long and thought I could just keep going...that one, in particular, I should have read The Dip before I started!
Nan -
I think that's part of the question one has to ask oneself before starting. In the Kawasaki interview, Godin says, Smart people can see Dips in advance and plan for them. If you want to be a doctor, the time to decide is before you get to the organic chemistry midterm, not while you’re taking it. I'm betting the requirements and deadlines are different between various publishers, etc. It would be worth keeping that in mind before signing a contract!
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