Ignore Everybody - MacLeod, Hugh [23]
I would like to say that the Web site took off soon after, the cartoons were a smash hit, and things improved dramatically right away, but sadly that didn’t happen. I just kept at it, day after day, building it up slowly. That’s still how it happens, for the most part.
The million-dollar contract has yet to arrive in the mail. That’s OK; somewhere along the line I figured out how to make good money off them, indirectly.
How? It’s pretty straightforward, in retrospect. I posted the cartoons online, and because I had a lot of free time on my hands, I then spent a long time tracking what happened to them, once they went out into the ether. This was 2002, just as blogs were beginning to hit the scene. This was the beginning of Google’s rise to the top of the search market. This was the heyday of Technorati.com, when people wanted to start seeing what was happening on the Web right now, not just historically.
Over the next year or two watching the cartoons traveling about, watching what other bloggers were up to, I started getting a pretty good feel for how the Internet actually worked, not just how the journalists and marketing folk told people it worked. After a while I started posting my thoughts about this brave new world online. And after a while people started e-mailing me, offering to pay me good money if I would share more of what I had learned online with them.
Sharing this information for me was a lot more fun and better paid than trying to sell ads to clients, so hey, I went for it.
So far I’ve managed to turn it into a pretty nice business. A lot more money, for a lot less stress and time than Madison Avenue ever offered me. Not a bad outcome.
The thing is, none of it happened on purpose. It just kinda sorta happened, one random event at a time.
I find having two strings to my bow, cartoons and Internet, helps the business out a lot. I like to play them off each other. Sorry, I can’t draw you a cartoon; I’m too busy doing Internet stuff. Sorry, I can’t help you with your Internet problem; I’m too busy drawing something for a client. I totally believe that if I gave one of them up for good, the other one would crash and burn overnight. It’s maintaining the creative tension between the two, an extension of the aforementioned “Sex & Cash Theory,” which keeps things interesting. For both me and the good folk paying my bills.
I never intended to be a professional cartoonist. I never intended to become an Internet jockey. But somehow the two got mashed up to create this third thing. That’s what I mean by “If you are successful, it’ll never come from the direction you predicted.”
It’s good to be young and full of dreams. Dreams of one day doing something “insanely great.” Dreams of love, beauty, achievement, and contribution. But understand they have a life of their own, and they’re not very good at following instructions. Love them, revere them, nurture them, respect them, but don’t ever become a slave to them. Otherwise you’ll kill them off prematurely, before they get the chance to come true.
Good luck.
40. None of this is rocket science.
If I had to condense this entire book into a line or two, it would read something like, “Work hard. Keep at it. Live simply and quietly. Remain humble. Stay positive. Create your own luck. Be nice. Be polite.”
I HOPE SOME OF THIS WAS HELPFUL. HOPE YOU find what you’re looking for. Thanks for reading. Godspeed. Seriously. Rock on.
Acknowledgments
My sister, Sarah, who always loved me, even in tough times. My mother and father, who taught me how to take a risk. My grandparents, who taught me the importance of character. Mark O’Donnell, who inspired me from an early age. My third grade teacher, Miss Lucity, who encouraged me from an equally early age. Nick Barbaro and Louis Black at the Austin Chronicle, who first published my cartoons. Jonathan Gillard, who taught me how to make a living. Jeffrey and Jillian, who edited this book. Seth