Monday, August 17, 2009

Crass Commercial Announcement

(and a little whiny moralizing, too...)

I will be officially off contract tomorrow.  That means I'll be available starting in September for seminars, private lessons, consulting and I will consider contract work. 
rory@easystreet.net

This is weird- I've never charged for teaching before. Seminars were either an honorarium, which rarely covered expenses, or just expenses and a T-shirt (though John Darby always insisted on giving me money.)  Classes were a small mat fee left for the person who owned the space we were using.

There's been a lot of ethical armor in that concept- accusations of self-promotion don't fly as well when there's no money in it.  No accusations of watering stuff down to keep students because I didn't want to keep students, I wanted connections with people who were willing to work to be extraordinary.

No plans to do anything any different, but I am curious how the dynamic will shift. Internally and externally.  Or I could just hunt up another contract and table this for a year or so.

9 comments:

shugyosha said...

Good luck.

Travis said...

Hope the changes go well for you. I recently moved back out of the Portland area but do plan on being around there every now and again. I'll try and conveniently time a trip to coincide with a seminar if you do some locally there.Please keep the crass commercial announcements coming when you have them.

Molly said...

Having spent the last 10 years making a meager, yet livable income off charging people for doing what I love, what I am good at, what they need - I have to say that the crassness of your announcement lies in your obvious embarrassment in requesting "just remuneration" for your talent.

Your niece is starting her first commercial venture. When attaching price to her work we went over cost of printing, shipping materials, etc. Like most artists, the price she started with left her with less than minimum wage for her time, and no consideration of her TALENT.

If you can't make a reasonable living off what you LOVE, there is something deeply wrong with the world. Especially when what you love has actual value to society. You could ask for a cow and a bag of corn for each lesson, but your students would have to buy them from somewhere.

Steve Perry said...

It's always a crapshoot, going into business for yourself, but you have a skill set that is unique, and a best-selling book that is a great marketing tool. Once word gets out, I wouldn't be at all surprise if you had folks willing to plunk down money to have you show them some of what you know.

I'll put up a note of my blog, see if anybody who reads my blather might be interested ...

IRTBrian said...

Good luck Rory,

As an author, martial practitioner, seminar teacher, etc., myself. I can honestly say that this life style is challenging. (it is great fun though) However, if you do what you love and you can make a difference for someone then this life style is absolutely fantastic. Good luck!

Brian

Jason said...

Here is one of those that reads Steve's blather stopping by here.

Although, I also read your blather so that is probably not that fair of a metric of his marketing impact. ;)

That said, if you are going to teach in the pacific north west I would certainly be interested.

Master Plan said...

I'll second Jason on that one fo' sho'.

Rory said...

Thanks for the encouragement and the references. FWIW, I'm based just outside of Portland, Oregon, so NW is in.

Master Plan said...

The part about near-Portland I knew, so the next obvious question becomes:...uh, when is the seminar? ;-)