Don’t judge your writing by Hearts

“To put a value on the digital world by only tallying the money that changes hands is a little like trying to place a value on sex by simply measuring the amount spent on prostitution.” — Rory Sutherland

Don’t judge your writing by Sales. Or Likes, Hearts, Views, Shares, or any other type of metric. That’s a difficult idea to reconcile, because these metrics can influence how much energy you spend on your work. For example, if your work generate enough Sales, then you can draw a Personal Income from it, which then makes you a Full-Time Artist. (Congratulations!)

Hell, one of these metrics might even be the reason you started making work in the first place. Maybe you started your creative practice as an attempt to escape your full-time job or as an added income stream. These metrics were the point!

Of course, at some point, your Sales might decline, and you’ll start to worry. Even if the market was tanking, you’ll feel like the work is responsible for this. You’ll feel like your back is against the wall, your desperation will grow, and the work will suffer. You’ll suffer.

Businesses used to be able to cross-subsidize less popular work. William Deresiewicz writes:

In the past, one of the principal ways that the culture industry supported more subtle or thoughtful or artistically ambitious work was through…