When the Ground Moves
July 5, 2023
Current location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Reading: Quantum Supremacy by Michio Kaku
Listening: Only You by Yazoo(if you have a moment, reply with your own 3-item status via email or in the comments)
When the Ground Moves
I've been working for myself, running a collection of publications and small businesses and "weird internet projects," since 2009.
That's a long time ago! Smartphones were still a new thing, the world was still recovering from a global financial crisis, and I was 24-years-old, trying to figure out how to convert my experiences up till that point and small arsenal of skills and know-how into something that might sustain the sort of life I wanted to live.
As it turns out, while stubbornness and sturdiness can help, it's often more valuable to have the sort of wobbly resilience that comes from not being too precious about any particular way of doing things.
When I started traveling full-time way back then, I mostly survived on freelance design and branding projects I could take on from the road.
Then I transitioned, not without trepidation and some amount of initial financial pain, into writing books and doing some freelance writing projects, on the side.
I started to attract some small speaking opportunities not long after that, and was able to cobble together a few small publishing-focused business efforts.
I taught some online classes and some in-person workshops.
I consulted on various things.
I wrote more books, presented more talks, and started up some podcasts, propping the latter up with a combination of membership offerings, ad-slots, and sponsorships.
I've at times done pretty well with donations through PayPal and Buy Me a Coffee, and in some blessed moments paid most of my bills with Patreon and Substack, alone.
But these sorts of things ebb and flow, controlled by complex variables far beyond my reckoning, much less influence.
It's possible to sustain an unusual, you-shaped lifestyle with just one thing, one primary project, but that generally requires that you also spend the majority of your time and effort on just that one thing, and ideally it’s one thing that has mass-appeal potential and that will not collapse around you as trends and preferences shift and evolve.
The 1,000 True Fans theory posits that you can survive with a relatively small number of supporters, but that theory requires all of your fans pay you a certain amount of money on a regular basis and never leave (“churn,” to use the industry parlance)—which is not realistic for almost every “creator” making almost every type of thing: fans change, creators change, and the economy (and a fan’s concomitant ability to support creators whose work they enjoy) changes.
I'm incredibly fortunate to do what I do, to have the globally dispersed audience I'm able to share with, engage with, and learn alongside.
But the reason many people taste-test this sort of lifestyle before ultimately returning to the paycheck-predicated world is that it can be a stressful scramble, a tumultuous ride bounded by uncertain prospects, worrying trends and projections, and roiling, rock-strewn rapids that can knock even the most-veteran of makers from their seemingly stalwart, cozy perch.
It’s not boring, that's for certain.
And it requires an unusually high tolerance for unknowns, risk, and failure.
It also requires that one always keeps five or so other irons in the fire, just in case the heating element under one’s primary iron(s) starts to fizzle and disappear.
This isn’t what people like to hear, as the dream of running one’s own thing, turning a side-gig into a full-time gig, is supposed to be difficult, but in a fun way—and believe me, it often is fun and rewarding and all the other things you imagine.
But the satisfaction of doing non-standard, passion-centered work almost always comes at the cost of some amount of stability because of how the economics and incentives are built and oriented, because of how difficult it can be to stand out (and continue to do so), and because of how easy it is to lose your footing when the ground starts to move and your heretofore firm foundation becomes anything but.
Pop down a little further (just below the Interesting & Useful section) for a new thing I’m trying out that’s relevant to this essay, but also possibly for your own side-projects / efforts / experiments!
Interesting & Useful
The Top 50 Most-Visited Websites in the World
“Estimates vary, but there are upwards of two billion websites in existence in 2023. If we were to rank all of these websites according to their traffic numbers, we would see a classic power law distribution.”
A free, online, interactive “textbook” of sorts, meant to teach visitors about probability and statistics.
The Museum of Retro Technology
Stop by for the section on “unusual revolvers,” stay for the Cyclogyro.
Classifieds
I enjoy the classifieds in other newsletters I read, so I’m experimenting with the same, here.
I’m making slots available cheap for newsletter readers in the hope that it will allow folks with small, personal projects to get their book/newsletter/knitted-mitten shop/new album/shout-out/job listing/etc in front of more, hopefully interested eyeballs: you can grab one for $10 here.
Also! I’ll give you a free one if you’re a paid supporter of this newsletter—drop me an email if that’s you and you’re interested :)
Here’s what the classified section in the next newsletter will look like, populated with examples I made up:
Lifelong-learner? Interested in everything? You might enjoy Aspiring Generalist—subscribe here, free
You Probably Don’t Need is a weekly email that analyses the world of buying things from a consumption-skeptical perspective
I use Publer to help me curate links to interesting things across social platforms without having to directly engage with those platforms (which stresses me out)
Curious About Everything is a brilliant newsletter full of interesting things written by the ceaselessly curious Jodi Ettenberg (subscribe!)
Some Thoughts About Relationships is a short book for people who want to do relationships better
Outro
I’m looking at doing classifieds in this newsletter (and reintroducing sponsorships for some of my other projects) because memberships and Patreon patronage have been on a serious downswing for about two years, and that’s made some of my projects a lot less sustainable than I’m comfortable with.
And as I mentioned in this week’s essay, this is something that happens periodically to all sorts of business models that work until they don’t (often because of changes to the larger, macro-scale economy), but it’s uncomfortable every single time, and in the coming months I’ll be throwing some things at the wall, seeing what works and what doesn’t, until I figure out a new, healthy balance (probably one consisting of several smaller things, since the wave of direct creator support we saw during the height of the pandemic seems to have crested for the time being).
All that said, thank you thank you thank you to everyone who’s supporting this or any of my other projects.
And if you’re not in the position to do so right now, that’s okay: we’re all doing what we can, thank you for being here :)
What’re you up to this first week of July? If you have a moment shoot me a quick hello and tell me something about yourself, what you’re thinking about, or whatever else is on your mind. Reply directly to this newsletter or send a fresh email to colin@exilelifestyle.com. I respond to every message I get and would love to hear from you!
Prefer tangible missives? Send me a letter, postcard, or some other physical communication at: Colin Wright, PO Box 11442, Milwaukee, WI 53211
Or hit me up via the usual methods: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or cars designed in the styles of famous architects.
My other projects: Aspiring Generalist / Brain Lenses (podcast) / Climate Happenings / Let’s Know Things (podcast) / Never Not Curious / Notes On the News / One Sentence News (podcast) / You Probably Don’t Need