On Rainy days the Monk Ronnie Feels Sorry For Himself

Self on a Bad Day 2016. Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20"

I am looking for advice from other producers of original material. How do you convert your works to currency? I am in earnest. The Internet has not helped, neither has peddling colored canvases and books in my neighborhood. I have had many solo shows, lawn sales, Internet posts. Nothing. Nada times nothing. For instance, last year I published a book that even my—wait… Not true. My mother did buy it. But she was the only one.
It’s not like I overprice my work. $14 for a book is not exorbitant. Last night I paid that much for red curry. And it’s already gone. Geeze, I didn’t even like it enough to keep it. Couldn’t tell you if there was basil in it or not. And it’s not like I had to have the curry because it’s food, and need it to stay alive. A foraged apple would have sufficed. Or I could have refrained from dinner, saved gaining a half pound, and awoke this morning able to button my jeans.
I have theories about this starving artist dilemma. Many spring from the field of social psychology. Here is one:

None of us are any good until many of us say that some of us are.

Each failed artist needs, more than talent, a promoter with Biblical outreach. If Beyoncé (accent on the e) wore one of my images to don her next Super Bowl outfit, I would be rich and known richly by morning. Target® would call for a wall hanging product line, and the New York Times® would best seller me. If Oprah.com® got caught reading less trite and inane crap, maybe some of you talented writers could afford rent as well as dinner, and miraculously the Media-CIA Industrial Complex would suffer sinking ratings of its perpetually popular “Let’s Dumb Down America”.
All fine literature, music, visual art, etc. is relegated to obscurity if not considered salable by a connected media entity. Here is a rejection from a book publisher I received a couple years ago, followed by a quote from Henry Miller who wrote meaningful desk chair philosophy at a time when art was the artist, and not bullhorn announcements from high-rise promoters about the “state of the art money”.

You do seem passionate and, as you wrote, “determined,” so I’m sure this won’t stop you at all from continuing your search for a publisher. I would like to suggest you consider self-publishing this manuscript. Just from reading the first sample parts you sent me I can tell you it’s going to be a very difficult sell to any indie press. Forget about even going to the majors via a literary agent. It occupies too much head space, in my opinion, and while that’s not a bad thing at all for some readers who enjoy that sort of thing, commercially this would be extremely difficult to convince anyone to spend any money on reading your words. Even if you have some clout due to your painting, it is pretty thick stuff to get into and stay into. I don’t mean this to sound mean at all. I just feel that this is the kind of book that may have a life as a self-published work. Save yourself the time and trouble of querying anyone else and publish it yourself, then I would suggest perhaps focus more on the marketing end of the book rather than getting one of us snobby publishers to approve it lol. I hope you’ll agree.

A nice, honest rejection. I agree with him. I prefer to self-publish. But to make me a marketer of my own work is like asking a corn farmer to peddle boil-in-a-bag on the street corner. Doomed to failure before the manure is spread.

My reply:

Thank you for a fast response and helpful criticism. Self publishing is the right way to go. Whitman peddled “Leaves of Grass” door-to-door, and look where that got him! No one then (or today) would publish Whitman’s work to make a living. For me, it has become some personal badge of honor to be an unread writer. Like threshing wheat over a storm water grate. Very nothing, and yet some thing very good too.
Just doesn’t pay the bills.

Here is Henry Miller on the bane of modern head space writing:

Most of the young men of talent whom I have met in this country give one the impression of being somewhat demented. Why shouldn’t they? They are living amidst spiritual gorillas, living with food and drink maniacs, success mongers, gadget innovators, publicity hounds. God, if I were a young man today, if I were faced with a world such as we have created, I would blow my brains out. Or, perhaps like Socrates, I would walk into the market place and spill my seed on the ground. I would certainly never think to write a book or paint a picture or compose a piece of music. For whom? Who beside a handful of desperate souls can recognize a work of art? What can you do with yourself if your life is dedicated to beauty? Do you want to face the prospect of spending the rest of your life in a straight-jacket?

I suggest all writers to read Miller, as Miller wanted to be read. Read me first. He’d dead. And I could use an art-paid-for loaf of relevance bread.