creativity and TV shows you love so much it hurts
🌀 tiny ramble
Hello my internet friend,
Snail mail* went out into the world earlier this week and I was asked by a couple people how I can do it for free. Since I love hearing about and talking about the behind the scenes of running a business, I thought I would share my answer with all of you.
There’s two things that are making this a feasible venture for me:
1. I have the number of people who can join capped at a number that is financially feasible for me. (The original 20 spots just filled up, but I just opened up ten more spots for next issue.)
2. I’m putting the expense of it in my marketing budget. I’m fine with spending some money on an idea that I hope will build community with my audience. I think we’re so used to “marketing” meaning posting on social media, or paying for ads. I consider snail mail to be an experiment in a fun third option.
Important note: If all I do is create a list of people excited to receive mail from me every month then I’m so happy for that. That's absolutely enough to warrant the time, energy and money going into this project.
But long term, I do think there are a few ways it could end up paying for itself:
1. I have a tip jar and people can tip the cost of postage if they want. (Absolutely not expected, but super appreciated when this happens)
2. People could end up buying a paid offer. (I’m not doing it directly for this result, but it’s worth acknowledging that it could be an indirect result.)
3. Maybe one day it has like a “community billboard” page where people can pay a few bucks to advertise to something they’re creating. If I were to do this, it would have to still feel really fun and work towards the goal of community building.
4. I think might sell past issues of snail mail as little mini zines for £1-2 + postage. Or sell bundles of them or something.
But essentially right now, my business is just eating the loss in the short term so that I can play and experiment with different forms of connecting in really genuine ways with folks. And I also view it as building a body of work, committing to a practice of putting my thoughts on paper in a fun, creative way. And honing my craft of zine making which I really want to do more. All of that makes it totally worth the monetary expense of sending each issue out for free.
*If you have no idea what Snail Mail is, it’s essentially a free little zine that I’m hoping to send out every month. This month there’s a tarot pull, a mini essay of my thoughts on creativity and capitalism, and a maze, and a tiny craft for people to make.
📝 wanderings aka this week’s big questions
What’s the value in playing and being creative? Is me even asking that question just a sign of the extractive values of a capitalistic society? I know play and being creative is valuable and helps us unlearn perfectionism and allows us to reconnect with our lost parts, but how do I know this?
Are our businesses just replicating the diet industry? A big problematic part of the diet industry is that it succeeds because diets don’t work. It makes money because something like 97% of dieters fail and therefore come back and keep feeding money into the industry. Essentially, the diet industry wins when the customer fails. And I sometimes wonder if some of online businesses in the coaching/money mindset/self-help industry are doing the same thing. Everyone wants their clients to keep working with them, and there’s so much advice about how to market to people who already bought from you. Which I don’t think is necessarily problematic, but I can see how it can be. How unconsciously a coach could want to keep feeling needed and that could lead to running their business in an unhealthy way. (And also, just to balance this out, I also worry sometimes that the industry is TOO tied-up in getting Instagramable results and clients end up feeling that pressure to be “good clients”. You know I’m all about the “unsexy” wins like getting divorced, or making less money, if it’s in pursuit of the bigger win — your happiness.)
⚡️ what’s got my attention
Twenty-Five Twenty-One: I’m afraid I don’t have the right words to describe how much I love this show, how it wormed its way into my soul and changed something inside me. It’s a Korean drama (on Netflix) about friendship and first loves and determination and growing up. It’s beautiful. (It wasn’t a perfect show, there are some edits I would make, but I almost think it would have been worse if it was perfect. My heart couldn’t handle something that perfect existing.) You know how when you have a crush on a person, you just keep accidently bringing them up in conversation? That’s me and this show. I’m desperate for anyone else to watch it so that I can talk about it some more. I want to write a whole essay about this one quote: “Don’t ever forget how you earned a new opportunity. Whenever you’re having a hard time, remind yourself how difficult it was to start.”
Human Design: I had my second human design reading last week and I’m fully down the rabbit hole down. I mean, I’m a Leo so I do love being told about myself. But there’s something about human design that’s just hitting extra hard lately. I think I need the reminders that I’m not designed to seek out compliments and reassurance as proof I’m doing the right thing. If it lights me up, that’s proof enough. And that’s hard. I’m a sucker for praise, I was raised on gold stars and A+’s after all. Nothing mattered more than getting a good grade. There was no consideration of if I enjoyed what I was doing. So this feels like a pretty scary new way of doing things, but I’m really working on it.
This YouTube video on digital gardening: I’ve heard this concept talked about a few times and was already bought in, but I hadn’t ever heard someone talk about the how part. So I found the middle part of this video really useful.
🗝️ what I’m putting out into the world
10 more spots are open for Snail Mail! This is such a fun project for me to do, I’d love to have you on the list and send you some mail.
Want to explore play and make a zine with me? I’m running a zine making workshop this month. It’s aimed at anyone who wants to tap back into the idea of being creative for creativity’s sake. You’ll learn they how and why of making a zine, with plenty of examples given to spark your creative side, and then we’ll get making! The idea isn’t to make something good, but instead to use play and zine making as a form of self-discovery. You get a PDF with inspiration so you’re not staring at a blank page as well as tips and ideas for how to fill the page. The workshop takes place Friday March 21st at 12pm GMT, but a replay will be available if you can’t make it live. The cost is £10, though if that's not accessible to you for any reason, a pay-what-you-can option is available.
Tarot Readings are back! My tarot readings are designed to help you get clarity about why you're stuck, and what you need to know or consider in order to start moving forward. Each reading includes: a picture of the cards, a written summary of my thoughts, an audio recording plus transcript. Cost is £33, with a pay-what-you-can option as well.
🧶 wrapping up
If you want to continue the conversation, hit reply and tell me something that made you happy this past week. I love hearing from y’all.
Talk soon,
Joeli
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P.S. If you enjoyed this or found it helpful, I would super appreciate it if you shared it with a friend. Take a picture and post on social media or forward it to someone or mention it over coffee. If you want to share a link, buttondown.com/joeli is the one to send people to.