“Let Me Break Down Exactly How We’ve Screwed Over Creative People”

Some provocative reading from Medium.com that will be of interest to anyone from writers and musicians to code demons and public speakers.

The best part of doing creative work online for people is when they email you to say “you used to be good but now you’re a loser.” Or another of my favourites this week, “Fuck off you marketing scum.” Or “websites aren’t real businesses. Go build software asshole.” All of these for people who are consuming work that you’ve done for free.

But hey, at least you get offered speaking and performing and writing and creative gigs!

…until you tell them you want them to pay for your expenses or even a fee. Then they disappear pretty damn fast.

Which is your own fault for violating the golden rule — bloggers and writers must never try to get paid.

Once you try and get paid everyone thinks you’ve sold out. And they send you lovely messages yelling at you for it.

How dare you!

And when they read your free content they think they’re doing you a favour. And tell you that, too. “I gave you 5 minutes of my time reading your shit, so you owe me one.”

I love publishing. But it’s a tough racket. And there’s a lot of crap you have to be able to handle from a lot of people. With not a whole lot back. It’s the same for almost any other creative industry.

Keep reading. (Via Andrew)