Profit-motive pressures?
April 9, 2010 8:23 AM

I want to read a book about how profit motive... warps things. As in, I want to make money doing what I love, but I'm afraid that the need to pay the bills would "force" me to pander and water down my ideas.

By "force," I mean the subtle, almost subliminal pressures that will start shaping my ideas as soon as I make the decision to try and make money off of them. Please recommend well thought out books and essays to me: How can I make money doing what I love without corrupting what I love? Solutions and compromises only, please. I'm assuming it can be done, in some capacity, with caution, introspection, and the right mindset. I want to put my work into the world and be fairly compensated for doing so.
posted by zeek321 to Work & Money (15 answers total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
Not a book but my philosophy is as follows:
Do what you love because you love it.

Do for money what you do for money.

Don't confuse the two.

You should enjoy what you do for money if you can, but not so much that your enjoyment of doing it clouds your ability to make money.

You should get paid to do what you love, if you can, but not so much that the money corrupts it.
posted by MesoFilter at 8:26 AM on April 9, 2010


Not a book but my philosophy is as follows

Thank you. Yes. But, I want to mix the two, for a variety of carefully thought out reasons (that I'm not sharing here). And I'm looking for smart, personal discussions on dealing with the messy reality of mixing them.
posted by zeek321 at 8:36 AM on April 9, 2010


Are you looking for smart personal discussions, or book/essay recommendations?
posted by box at 8:39 AM on April 9, 2010


Artist Hugh Macleod talked a lot about the intersection of art and commerce on his blog. It was popular enough that they turned it into a book, which might be helpful to you.
posted by sharkfu at 8:59 AM on April 9, 2010


Artist Hugh Macleod talked a lot about the intersection

This is fairly on target. More!
posted by zeek321 at 9:09 AM on April 9, 2010


Are you looking for smart personal discussions, or book/essay recommendations?

Both. And/or smart personal discussions within books/essay.
posted by zeek321 at 9:10 AM on April 9, 2010


The best book I have ever read on this topic is The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde. Hyde talks about the idea of "a gift" in multiple contexts: 1) the gift, or talent, that you were born with or developed that is your art and 2) the giving of that gift and what you get back for it. He delves into the myths behind what different cultures have valued (and traded money for) and how true art, in many ways, does not fit into the market economy. This is maybe too general for your purposes, but I highly recommend it.
posted by mattbucher at 9:46 AM on April 9, 2010


You should consider the opposite hypothesis as well. Shakespeare, Dickens, and many other greats wrote for profit and it could be that the profit motive made their work better.

See what happens whenever you have a director's cut of a movie or an established author who thinks he's too good to be edited -- it rarely matches up to the more commercial stuff, artistically.
posted by callmejay at 10:00 AM on April 9, 2010


The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde.

I'm going to have a look at this! What else?
posted by zeek321 at 10:01 AM on April 9, 2010


Most of David Mamet's plays deal with this.
posted by grumblebee at 10:24 AM on April 9, 2010


I was a corporate girl for a long time, getting a regular salary for work that was meaningful and important in my view. I was very, very fortunate to get paid to do what I love (writing and editing). Then a relocation forced me to change careers, and amazingly I got to do something else that I love too (therapeutic massage). However, the second career is a self-employed one, and I found, after a few years of doing it, that I had started looking at every person, every interaction, every hour in terms of how much it would earn me. I was thinking about money all the time. By nature I'm not motivated by money, but by the idea that what I'm doing is helping another person/people. When I worked for "the man" I was able to focus on the work and its effects. When I was working for myself, it was necessary for me to be all about the money. It was less than ideal to say the least.

Now I have a day-job and I do my massage therapy on the side, with lots of giveaways and discounts and barters. It's the best of both worlds.
posted by headnsouth at 11:16 AM on April 9, 2010




as a working musician (and not some superstar who can follow his muse, but a guy who plays hotels, weddings, bars and nightclubs with strict music policies) this can be hard to reconcile. i love my job, but there are times it's frustrating to tailor my creative muse to the requirements of the job. however, i think this is almost always going to be a part of making money in the arts. even led zepplin had to worry if the punters were gonna send the next album platinum or not, rothko was pretty much obliged to paint fuzzy squares of colors his whole life, etc etc

however, i continue to make time to create music for myself and my friends that has nothing to do with any of my jobs, just for the hell of it - much like when i was working a regular ol day job. with the added benefit of already being generally better at making music due to lots and lots of practice, and having all my work tools set up and ready to go at all times...
posted by messiahwannabe at 9:23 PM on April 9, 2010


I'm currently reading "Drive" by Daniel Pink. I'm only in the first section, but early on he writes about some examples of research into motivation. One research result implies that people are naturally motivated to play, but when money is added in as an incentive, it lowers their playfulness. It's an interesting book so far, and I hope it gets better.
posted by TheOtherSide at 4:24 AM on April 10, 2010


But, I want to mix the two

And people in Hell want icewater.

for a variety of carefully thought out reasons (that I'm not sharing here). And I'm looking for smart, personal discussions on dealing with the messy reality of mixing them.

Well, without sharing them here you're not going to get much in the way of responses. There are all manner of issues to consider and without specifics there's not much other than generalities to offer.
posted by wkearney99 at 5:09 PM on April 10, 2010


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