Up your creative ante
When I first stared my career, publishing hadn’t been fully democratized yet. The process was still somewhat difficult, expensive and extensive. The powers that be actually had power.
Meaning, without some knowledge, resources and wherewithal, anybody couldn’t just become an author overnight. It took significant time and money and labor to put art into the world.
But then the revolution came. And now that creators are wired directly into the ecosystem, now that the need for the middlemen of the world has vanished, and now that there are nonexistent barriers to entry in all forms of the publishing world, it’s anybody’s game.
And that’s precisely the problem.
When anyone can do anything, they will. When scarcity goes the way of the dodo, value plummets. Which means, being an author of something doesn’t carry as much weight as it used to. Because anybody can do it.
And so, if we want to rise to the fore, we have to raise the stakes. We have to raise our voice, be on our toes, working smarter and faster than the pack, always showing them why we’re out in front. We have to raise our artistic level to where we’re never lost in the dust.
Are you the hero people remember or the legend that will never dies?