I am exhausted

Online life can be to demanded sometimes.

Hi everyone,

I did not write a public post here since something like the beginning of April. And then, I disappeared.

Since the beginning of the year, I feel like an online fatigue. I don’t find the energy to post, to communicate, to promote, to sell my work. I am exhausted.

I don’t know if it has something with getting 50 but I am tired to spend most of my time communicating online. And when I say MOST of my time, I really mean it.

For a bit more than two years now, I decided to slow down client projects to focus on my own products. I created fonts and prints for which I spent a lot of time. But it is almost nothing regarding to the time you need to spend online to sell them.

As I already said several times: If you don’t promote, you don’t sell.

And you can be online everyday and make reals or stories, if these don’t promote your products, you don’t sell. People need to see them and be reminded everyday that they exist. And this is something I totally hate.

But it goes further. Because once you start telling people you have something to sell, the algorithm will hide your post because it wants people to stay on their platform. They don’t want them to leave to buy something and not come back. So let’s be honest.

Social Medias want you to entertain people. They don’t want you to sell them stuff.

So when you spend at least 3 months to create a new font and feel like your 59k followers won’t even see it, it can be frustrating.

This is why I developed this newsletter: to be nearer from my people so they can see when I sell something.

Let’s be honest here again: I really like to share my processes, my ups and downs on a regular basis, like a blog. But I also need to pay my bills. So I did invest time here so I have a more direct relationship with people that at some point could be interested in my Art. (Let’s call it Art and not products…).

But this is also exhausting. For people not to forget you, you need to post regularly. For growing your mailing list, you need to post regularly. And this is time I could spend making stuff.

I understand being an artist is making Art but also selling it. Communicating is part of the job. But what if the dice are loaded? First by the social medias platforms and then by people receiving too many emails?

I even went on the paid subscription model, where I “need” to create more posts, more content, videos, and send people prints or t-shirts for the money they give me. I really sucked here, suffering to deliver. Yes, because this is just one thing over another, and another and another. And if tomorrow another social media comes out, we will jump on it to build another community with the hope it could be the one.

Again, I am exhausted by this situation. And since the end of last year, it makes me think a lot.

I developed my painting activity. I sold for 5000€ at my first exhibition just by inviting friends and creating an event on LinkedIn where I did also invite many people from the Basel area. It took me half a day and more than 80 people did show up.

It might just be one shot. My friends are not going to buy my Art each time I do an exhibition :D But it made me think to something else: how long and how much online promotion did it take me to sell 5000€ of prints and fonts online? The answer is scary.

It is even more scary when you know that again, algorithms don’t want you to sell stuff on their platforms. They want you to be there everyday, sharing fun stories, videos and more. And the stats will be not so bad until you post something you want to sell.

Where do we go from here? I did spend a lot of time creating a community on Instagram. Until now, I had great projects with great brands because of that number on my profile. But today I am not even sure if it is worth to continue to invest there. I am not sure I am able to post weekly here. I am definitely not going to continue the paid memberships.

People will tell you: start a podcast!! I even tried that. But again, this is not healthy. This is something above something else, above something else.

Being a creative right now is really tough. And we were served AI on top of that.

I am going to move in 2 months. I will cross France to go live at the seaside, in Vendée. A more quiet environment for a more quiet life? Not sure I am able to relax enough to have a quiet life. But I am thinking about spending more time with people around me. I mean physically around me. I may want to collaborate locally with people. Go to vernissages, exhibitions, galleries, surf shops, surf schools, etc, and see if I can develop my business there.

Something I learned over the years is that being online with a large community gave me the chance to work with large companies. It does really please my ego. But I realise today that companies who paid the most were the ones that found me by networking, in real life. Sometimes they do not even know about my social medias and they do not care. And that might be what I want to develop in the coming months.

Right now, I have to sell my house, pack my stuff and move to a more iodised fresh air. So please don’t be upset if I don’t post regularly.

Before leaving I have quick updates for you.

1. Soon hopefully I will put on my website the last 2 recorded workshops I did, so you can buy them if you could not attend them. Those who attended will get access for free.

2. At the end of this week I will speak at TypeParis. So if you are around, come and say hi :)

   typeparis

   

   A post shared by @typeparis

3. I will have an exhibition in Basel during Art Basel in June at Martkhalle, Basel. You are invited to come to the vernissage on the 17th of June or to come during the week.

   

Oh in my long post I forgot to say how I love to spend time painting or doing collage. This is so rewarding. Also, this is where I realized that I did not want to spend my time documenting my work/process/life. I am here in my home studio, alone and happy to be with myself. And I don’t feel like I have to post pictures or videos of everything I do. I did try but quickly I realised it did break my state of mind. A kind of anxiety was back with that voice telling me “do it that way so people can see and understand what you do, and then you do the reveal that way”. Blablabla. It really killed that moment I had with my creativity.

Well, enough with it. Don’t hesitate to tell me what you think in the comments:

Take care my friends and talk to you soon :)

Francis