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Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

shant.nu

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Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#121

Post by htss2013 »

vitro wrote: post #67
gymbeaux wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have it reversed, a lot of fun things suck when they make you money.

..when they _have to_ make you money. I play a musical instrument for a long long time, nowhere as good as a very good players, but sometimes I get a small paid gig and it is actually a fun thing to do. My life doesn't depend on the income from playing so I just enjoy opportunities when they come and go.

Yes, exactly. It's not that adding money to your hobby per se makes you not enjoy it. It's that when you have to make money from a hobby, you lose agency over how you practice the hobby.

It turns out the freedom to practice the hobby how/when/where you want, isn't just a nice to have, but an essential part of why you enjoyed the hobby in the first place.

You might enjoy being with your wife, but if she controlled every aspect of how you were allowed to, or must, engage with her, on pain of starvation and homelessness, you probably wouldn't enjoy her anymore. You'd resent her as a slave resents his master, even if she is a relatively good master.

Agency is essential to enjoyment of literally anything.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#122

Post by jrockway »

a13n wrote: post #47
bdw5204 wrote: post #39

Where the author made a mistake was in trying to make "what the market wants" rather than just making stuff he/she actually wanted to make and trying to see if it was possible to make money from it. If you try to make "what the market wants" rather than what you want, you're going to make garbage and further saturate a market that is already filled with garbage that was designed to cash in on "what the market wants".…

Eh, at the same time, I think the problem a lot of entrepreneurs have is that they overfocus on "what you are interested in" instead of "what the market wants", and therefore build something that nobody wants. If you can find a perfect intersection, that's beautiful, but probably uncommon. Some of the most lucrative businesses are stuff like (anti)fraud/security/payments that is pretty darn drab.

I disagree with that. If you make what you want, you at least have one user. If you make what you think other people want, you might end up with zero!

Nobody wanted an open-source Unix-like OS, a keyboardless touch screen with third-party apps, a mini hard drive with a display and headphone jack tacked on, maps that could be infinitely panned instead of clicking arrows, etc. But they ended up being some of the defining products of our time.

The worst case of working on your own thing is that you make something nobody else wants. The worst case of working on something you think other people want is that nobody wants it, and you get burned out.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#123

Post by cardanome »

bdw5204 wrote: post #39

Where the author made a mistake was in trying to make "what the market wants" rather than just making stuff he/she actually wanted to make and trying to see if it was possible to make money from it. If you try to make "what the market wants" rather than what you want, you're going to make garbage and further saturate a market that is already filled with garbage that was designed to cash in on "what the market wants".…

> Where the author made a mistake was in trying to make "what the market wants" rather than just making stuff he/she actually wanted to make and trying to see if it was possible to make money from it.

People think they can get more cake by appealing to everyone but in the result make products that appeal to no one.

The main problem I see over and over again with creatives when it comes to marketing is not being specific enough. Nothing appeals to everyone.

You got to know you target audience. What age range, gender, general demographic are you aiming for? What other books are in the niche you are targeting? What do your reader like about them? What is your unique selling point?

You might think that marketing a book with broader appeal would be easier. No. The more specific you can get, the easier it will be. People will gladly throw their money at you for finally scratching their specific itch, you just gotta find them.

Chances are if you like something, there are other people out there who also like that thing and are willing to pay for it. Sure, there is a tradeoff, as smaller niches mean a more limited market and some niches can be too specific to be economically viable but let's be honest people overestimate how unique they are most of the time.

But yeah, marketing sucks and not everyone is or wants to be good at it.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#124

Post by z3t4 »

bdw5204 wrote: post #39

Where the author made a mistake was in trying to make "what the market wants" rather than just making stuff he/she actually wanted to make and trying to see if it was possible to make money from it. If you try to make "what the market wants" rather than what you want, you're going to make garbage and further saturate a market that is already filled with garbage that was designed to cash in on "what the market wants".…

You have to trust your own taste. If you do what you love you will know if it's good or not.

If you are very good at something besides singing (everyone can hear if someone is good at singing or not) there is no audition you can go to, you have to be your own judge.

The reality is that people will only read the top 10 books, or play the top 10 games, there's like a normal distribution curve where the most people gravitate towards the best sellers.

Embrace and welcome any good talent in your niche, they will grow the market for you, and even if you only get the scraps, you could still make some money just by being in the same niche as someone extremely talented, because if people really like the nr 1, they will also try 2, 3, 4 next best in that genre.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#125

Post by beachy »

bdw5204 wrote: post #39

Where the author made a mistake was in trying to make "what the market wants" rather than just making stuff he/she actually wanted to make and trying to see if it was possible to make money from it. If you try to make "what the market wants" rather than what you want, you're going to make garbage and further saturate a market that is already filled with garbage that was designed to cash in on "what the market wants".…

It's a bit of a trope, but real success often comes giving customers not what they want, but what they need.

As another poster noted, just chasing market fashions is a crap existence, better left to soulless corps that can burn workers in pursuit of the dollar.

The good thing is that those same soulless corps will very seldom invest in something visionary, something that no one has done before. So the field is wide open to the pioneers.

(Caveat: while I believe this strongly for software, I'm not sure how it translates to fiction writing, the OP's domain).

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#126

Post by moneywoes »

climatologist wrote: post #49

Let's think about what it means to "make money". The phrase itself is already misleading because no one can make money, money is "made" by the central banks by changing some numbers in mainframe databases. These mainframes are connected to some local distribution banks like credit unions which then enable economic activity by business loans and other kinds of "investments", e.g. local government services like street…

In that case what do you suggest, do we ( i.e. the less fortunate not gifted these networks and connections) just give up?

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#127

Post by anyfactor »

noelwelsh wrote: post #12

I think people who have never run a business believe that running say, a bakery, involves baking all day. Anyone who has ever run a business should know that is false. Running a business involves doing all the stuff around the main task (marketing! accounts! infrastructure! customer support!) so that the people doing the main task can get on and do it. If you understand this you won't turn your hobby into a business…

With hobbies the expectations are usually limited to your own ability. You account for the limited external influences and you are on it for the ride. With a business you can't avoid being hopeful. You can't avoid being subject to luck as the core factor of your success. It is a miserable experience to see that thing you are most passionate about isn't yielding any success.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#128

Post by climatologist »

hker999 wrote: post #118
climatologist wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give every child a library and see what happens. It could be electronic or otherwise.

They play games and watch mindless YouTube videos. This isn't a very good argument.

I didn't say give them internet access. The internet is already too far gone down the drain to be salvaged.

Re: Turning my hobby into a business made me hate it

#129

Post by cushychicken »

gadders wrote: post #71

Kevin Kelly recently published a link to "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" which is about making a sustainable (but not massive) living from your hobbies. Might be of interest to somebody: https://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf

The author of ISMM, Don Lancaster, just passed away earlier this week.

He was also an electrical engineer by trade, and made a good chunk of bread in the 70s and 80s by self publishing books like The TTL Cookbook and selling them by mail order.

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