genius-like moneymaking scheme

What about a syndicated column... on being a dilettante? I could call it "Oooh, shiny!" and it could just be me rambling thoughtfully about something interesting along with my process of learning the Interesting Thing. A different thing every week. Hell... every day.

*sigh*

Surely there is somewhere where my odd range of knowledge and skills (and I might add, brilliance, quickness, enthusiasm, passion, intensity, & energy) would be useful, ornamental... appreciated. Paid, even.

Every once in a while it seems possible for a moment... and then, not.

Comments

[Madeline F]

You put out so much writing each day, and it's interesting writing with thoughts in it... Surely you must be able to write, like, articles and submit them to places and get paid for that! The sheer butt-in-chair-typing diligence you have puts you in the top percentages.

[Vibrating Liz]

I've been facing the same dilemma for ages. People say, "Oh but you can write! Get paid to write!" as if all I had to do was hang out a shingle and publishers would line up around the block. My problem is, the things I love to write, the things I'm good at writing, nobody wants to pay for. But I'll utterly incapable of writing the kinds of pieces magazines would assign.

Now Jon Carroll, for example, is someone who gets paid pretty well to write about being a dilettante. But it's not like there are thousands such positions just waiting to be filled. I've come to realize I'm about as likely to get paid to do Sodukos at my kitchen table as I am to get paid for writing the kind of random bloggy stuff I want to write. And not only does it not pay, the benefits suck.

[badgermama]

I know... it doesn't pay... A lot of people have the idea that someone will pay them to blog. Not too likely at this point! BlogHer is an exception.

I think I could hack the magazine route, I just need to learn to pitch articles to places that want them and approach it systematically. I like research and interviewing. So that seems like an option. Also I like teaching quite a lot, so I might try to make a job out of that.

[badgermama]

P.S. Liz I wish I could fly you out here and put you up in my house and take you to Stanford hospital... even though I complained about them, they rocked. I have so, so, been there with the charity hospital. But not in a situation as bad as yours.

[wired]

I have an account on Guru.com, and there about eleventy-billion want-ads for people who can write one-off articles and web content. It has an entry cost, but it's pretty low, and it's an interesting model. I keep getting invitations to write quick tech things, but am bound by contract not to do so.

[Madeline F]

Oo, thought: I have a friend who for several years made a living from home writing stories to go along with gothy/murder porn pictures for a fetish website. There's always money in writing porn!

[Prentiss Riddle]

The sad fact is that, except for the principle of "there's always room at the top!", content is grossly underpaid. Not just artsy creative workers like musicians, actors and fiction writers, but also many hard-working nuts-and-bolts professionals like journalists and architects, get paid far less than you'd think.

I've often wondered why. Is it because the allure of being a creator of culture rather than a consumer is so strong that the supply exceeds the demand? Or because economies of scale have made everyone expect to be able to buy culture at WalMart prices? (Rather than back in the day when if you wanted to hear some music and couldn't play it yourself, you had to pay a troubador. A day's worth of living expenses for a few songs! Amazing that anybody could afford to pay for culture at all.) Or the related point that technology subjects creative work to a power curve, so a few people with market share get more market share and everybody else languishes in the long tail? Probably it's a combination of all three.

No, the money isn't in creating culture, it's in selling the dream to wannabe culture creators. As the saying goes, if you want to make money in the music business, sell band uniforms.