I don't want to have a Bestseller badge anymore
Here's what I'm doing about it
Hi there!
I’ve been slightly quieter on here for the last couple of weeks. It hasn’t been intentional as I love to be in contact with you. But it has been necessary.
In the title of this essay I say that I don’t want to have a bestseller badge anymore, which is true. This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be a bestselling writer, because I DO. Oh YES I DO.
The seed for what I’m about to share was planted already a year ago, shortly after I launched the paid offering here on Substack. Throughout the months of growing a readership base from scratch things were flying. I felt creatively fulfilled, the metrics were in my favour and I literally exploded (or so it felt like).
The launch was exciting, but the experience that unfolded the following months was dauntingly similar to something I had already lived…
But I kept my head down.
I kept typing anyway.
I kept trying and experimenting with new ways…
I kept silencing my gut because “this is supposed to be the up and coming place” or “things will take time, you just have to stick with it long enough”.
The difference now compared to when I first started out as an independent artist nearly a decade ago, is that I have grown deeper roots. I have also developed a higher sensitivity to my gut and the messages it tries to tell me, which means I can’t silence it. I have to listen.
It may be a combination of age, experience and motherhood, but I’m just no longer willing to submit to the “shoulds” of how to grow or build a creative business if it doesn’t sit really well with me.
In other words: The energetics have to be aligned.
I need to feel fulfilled, not drained.
I need to feel inspired, not depleted.
I need to build from a place that fuels me and optimises in relation to the way my creative energy works and NOT how I am supposed to work. And most of all it has to be from a place of AGENCY.
I am obsessed with ownership and agency.
I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for the fact that I said no to almost all offers from large companies (like publishers, course platforms, brands) unless it felt truly aligned. The fact of saying no gave me agency and ownership, which in turn has led to leverage.
I own everything I produce, which means I have to sell significantly less to still make a decent living while retaining copyright AND the right to change my mind regarding how I position/market/sell whatever it is I’m doing.
This last bit is a concrete example of how I have consciously put effort into building a creative life that supports the way my energy and creativity works the best.
External pressure = internal creative death to me.
As an ex A-student, this has felt embarrassing to admit even to myself.
I am used to perform and achieve a lot of things, which has only added fuel to the burnout fire whenever I punish myself from the basis of external noise.
I thoroughly believe that the most revolutionary thing we can do today, especially as creative women and mothers, is to simply opt out. Not to opt out of making our art and making money. But to opt out of the narrative of how it has to be done.
What does Substack and the bestseller badge have to do with this?
Like everyone else, I started out with a hunt for the badge. I wanted to reach the bestseller badge as quick as possible to prove my theories and to myself that “I can do this”.
I guess I succeeded on that and I won’t lie that it felt really good at first. After a tough entry into motherhood, it was like a balm to my soul to know that I wasn’t a lost case. Maybe I’d even go so far as to say that it felt like a creative saviour.
But it didn’t last very long.
Customer service issues started rolling in and it slowly daunted on me that I had worked very hard to achieve a social status that I didn’t enjoy. Because once you reach the bestseller status the energy flips from excitement of growing to “I better not lose this now”.
It’s a massively different place to operate from and it applies to a majority of subscription based business. I know, because I’ve run a subscription model for nearly 7 years in one way or another.
It’s fabulous when you have little children to ensure a minimum stable income. But it will burn you out unless the correct system and structure is put in place.
It’s very easy to fall into the trap that more = more value. The only way to keep growing and attracting more people into our orbit (or so we think) is to keep adding things, when really… This isn’t what drives conversion.
Then why do we all do it?!
I don’t have an answer to that more than perhaps mass psychology? We’re all just humans trying our best, looking at the neighbour for support. We all want to belong because it’s rough to be the odd-ball. But in sustainable creative business, being the odd-ball is the only way forward.
I had spent 8 years holding onto my work like a religion, only to suddenly be in a position where the monetisation for my writing was tied to a third party platform.
I’ll be frank: This has pulled me down a HUGE spiral of self-inquiry. How did I let this happen?
What makes it all even more ironic is that about 6 years ago, I recorded a podcast episode with my husband about why we encourage all artists and creatives to not sell their products exclusively through Etsy. The main reason being that you don’t have control over how Etsy changes, nor over the way your shop and products are displayed in their system (+ you have no choice but to submit to their fluctuating fees).
If you do well, yes, you may gain from their internal recommendations network and be placed in front of potential buyers who wouldn’t have found you otherwise. But the reality is that the vast majority of artists don’t benefit at all. Instead they’re put into a shop-window on the high street where they feel as though they have to compete both in style and pricing with everyone else.
In case anyone dares to raise their voice and complain about the internal system, they’re met with the answer that “you just have to work a bit harder - you need to drive your own traffic”.
What essentially happens is that every time you link back to an Etsy store, you build on the digital authority of Etsy’s platform NOT your own shop. A new lead may land in your shop, but they’ll instantly be bombarded with “you may also like” buttons decreasing the likelihood of them actually staying enough to shop at your store.
Sounds familiar?
To sell our writing on Substack is like selling apples on an apple’s market. Everyone is selling more or less the same thing and only the one who screams the loudest gets the chance to give out some free samples.
It sounds really harsh and I don’t want to discourage anyone, but this is the reality of selling on here (notice that emphasis is on selling a Substack subscription not on writing at large). Readers are constantly distracted with buttons, recommendations and other widgets to keep people on the platform, but not to keep them on your page.
I’m not one who likes to be pessimistic. There are a lot of fantastic things with Substack.
This is not a Good-bye Substack post. I am not quitting.
I am changing my relationship to it and the role it plays in my creative ecosystem.
I enjoy the recommendations feature, allowing a built in flywheel that helps writers grow exponentially without more effort (this is smart!). I also enjoy to use Notes compared to other social media apps.
But I don’t want to keep feeling energetically impacted and out of control of my work or how the experience is reading/engaging with it. I don’t enjoy that Substack sends out emails to my list without my consent (like what Notes I posted etc.)
And mostly, I don’t want to nurture an environment that puts a badge as a measure of my worth as a writer. I don’t want a Bestseller Badge to be the basis and I know that now, because I’ve had a badge for one year.
I want my own truth to be the basis for my worth.
What this means in practise: I am working on setting up my own legacy website that I hope will serve as the foundation for my long-term written work.
I have already taken off the book-shop on here (which I initially thought was genius and which I know now wasn’t). I have also taken off my second publication “Embroidery Wanderlust” and I’m re-installing it on my own site for my embroidery art.
Substack will steadily shift its role from being the main event for my writing, to being the trail leading up to my cottage and I feel really excited about that.
I will keep writing on here and you as a reader will still receive the value you signed up for.
But I will slowly shift my monetisation to my own sites, which means I am consciously choosing to drop the bestseller badge that I worked so hard to achieve.
I want to believe that this will benefit my creative muse MORE in the long-run than to keep hustling for external validation.
Thank you so much for reading, as always.
Elin, xx
Ps. Maybe this comes as a big surprise and that’s ok!
Part of the experience of being an artist and creative is that we constantly must advocate for our own work, including experimenting and pivoting in accordance with shifts in energy… This may be the hardest part, because to change feels like a failure when in reality change is the only certainty we have. Nothing ever remains static, especially not with creative work and I want to believe that that is part of the beauty and excitement of it all…
Looking for 1:1 mentoring to start following your gut? Check this out
