Boring

I run what is, at its core, a very boring company.

I don’t do variant covers. I don’t have a lot of art prints. I don’t do a lot of merch.

My books sometimes come with back matter content, but it is all complete before I launch a Kickstarter.

My stretch goals are basically easily fulfilled, digital rewards from other creators.

I make beautiful books, that is true, and they are expertly crafted, but the process itself is quite boring.

However, that boring company just keeps putting out books, delivering on time, or before the expected date, without many moving pieces.

Other companies might look sexier, or raise more money, but I just keep sitting here, delivering, as basically a one-man shop with freelancers, and feeding my audience things they want.

I have now done that for five years. Find an audience, feed them new work consistently, make books that are such high quality that people take notice.

And not overextending myself.

Meanwhile, I watch the majority of creators I know overextend themselves with t-shirts, and merch, and other stuff before they are ready.

I watch them add 40+ pages to their book on a whim, because they think it will be cool, and then delay a campaign fulfillment by a year, breaking the truth they have with their audience.

Everything I do is worked out and managed at least a year in advance.

It is very boring, but predictable. The differentiating factor is that the books will be higher quality than anything else on the market, and they will be delivered both expediently and of the same quality every time.

The books themselves are amazing, of course, but the process is simple, repeatable, and boring.

Every time it is the same, and that means when I promise something, I can deliver it.

Yes, perhaps I should have expanded some years ago. Yes, perhaps I have shot myself in the foot at certain times because I haven’t chased a big deal and thrown my company into peril.

However, everything I’ve done is able to be handled exquisitely by a single person, or with the strategic hiring of freelancers.

Very boring. No surprises. No frills. Just beautiful books. No heartstrings tugging me in a direction that my workload can’t handle.

And I wish that every creator had a boring company, built on solid foundations, instead of the chaotic messes I find at every turn.