"It's A Free Concert..."
Saw a headline that read, "What I’ve learned in the first year of running a subscription newsletter business" and shook my head. If there's money to be made on this blog and my newsletter, I haven't found it. Mostly because I'm not looking and because I have steadfastly refused to follow any of the rules of a money-making blog. I don't publish regularly. I don't stick to one subject. I don't build an audience. I don't link on social media. I'm not even on social media. I haven't turned the pieces here into a book. And, while I wouldn't mind extra income, I'd dislike having to make money writing this.
I haven't quit my day job.
In my old day job, I was supposed to be teaching but under almost impossible conditions. Writing was an escape from that depressing and destructive job. I wrote throughout the day with students as that's the best way to teach the craft. Still, the overall effect of that job was too much even for writing to balance.
In my new day job, I write grants, notes, and plans. I love it and spend hours a day writing in the organization's voice. It's a great organization doing great work. I don't need any counterbalance for that good of a job, but I still come home and write for myself. I mean, why not?
A day-job can be a luxury. Even the terrible old day job provided phenomenal healthcare, excellent pay, and retirement benefits all for the low, low price of crushing my soul. The new day-job provides passable healthcare, good enough pay, the option of a 401k, but does it all while also providing me with almost nothing but good feeling about what I'm doing. My boss called me a freak Monday when I was giggling and bubbly about coming back to work. She's not wrong. But then neither am I.
The luxury of a day-job that pays the bills is worth appreciating. The ability to publish a blog and newsletter for no other reason than I want to and enjoy sharing things with the small band of people who subscribe and the smaller band who click on links, well that's just excellent. I'd charge a subscription for the newsletter and blog, but I can't afford it and I'm the one who ought to be paying for the privilege. Since I can't afford it and can't imagine anyone wanting to pay for it, let's keep this free.
And now all I can hear is that Red Hot Chili Peppers song:
Give it away give it away give it away now Give it away give it away give it away now Give it away give it away give it away now I can't tell if I'm a kingpin or a pauper Greedy little people in a sea of distress Keep your more to receive your less Unimpressed by material excess Love is free love me say hell yes
The title of this post, by the by, is a play on the quote from Woodstock when John Morris announced, "It's a free concert from now on. That doesn't mean that anything goes. What that measns is we're going to put the music up here for free. What it means is that the people who are backing this thing, who are putting up the money for it are going to take a bit of a bath, a big bath. That's no hype that's truth. They're going to get hurt. But what it means is that these people have it in their heads that your welfare is a hell of a lot more important, and the music is, than a dollar."