Transcript
Speaker: Mark, are you staying warm? I am by, it's it's cold here, but it's colder in other places. What are you from Cape Breton now? i just i don't know. I just seem like the right thing to say.
Speaker: Okay. So here we go again. Well into the seventies, I think in the ah number of episodes that were. food it's very cool time I know what our topic of the conversation is today. So I thought I've actually got a really direct question for you. Okay. Cause I think most people have an answer to this. Who is your favorite Greek God?
Speaker: My favorite Greek god. Who's that one that showed up in that Star Trek episode? That's Apollo. Okay. Yeah. No, not going to go with. And you know I'm going to get my Roman gods and my my Greek gods mixed up.
Speaker: And Hercules was only half a god, wasn't he? He's a demigod. Yeah. i mean He's a demigod. I would i would accept it, but it's not really. You know what? I'm going to go with Athena was Greek, right? That is correct. Yes. The goddess of wisdom, I believe. Wisdom and warfare.
Speaker: Yeah. And crafts and craft as well. See, perfect. What ah an amazing combination. So yeah, I'm going to go with Athena. Yeah, I would have said Athena too, but I recently heard the story of Ariadne, which is the spider story. So Ariadne was a human who was amazing at at at the loom and she could create wonderful things at the loom. And she was so good, she said that she was even better than Athena.
Speaker: Ooh. And, and then Athena came down and basically said, I'm doing, I'm going to butcher this myth, but Athena came down and basically said, that is but not true, but you can try and prove it. And so they have a contest and Ariadne actually wins the contest.
Speaker: And as a reward, Athena turned her into spider. So henceforth, the spider is always able to craft these amazing webs. Yeah.
Speaker: So is it would this be considered a mean thing for Athena to have done? Yeah, I think so. I don't think Ariadne was expecting that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm just trying to decide, like, maybe Athena meant it as a compliment. i Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, the I mean, all of the Greek gods are horrible in their own special way.
Speaker: by the She's a pretty good choice. All right. So what about you then before we turn it? I think Athena. I mean, I would have said Athena for sure. Okay. Yeah. As a lock, just because, you know, she's, she's the God of the intellect as well as, you know, everything else that the Greek gods are up to. And she's not as rapey as mate most of the other ones. Oh my goodness. So like, I love Zeus. Zeus has got a a playful side to him, but he's, he's just hella rapey. So you can't go with Zeus. oh my god okay Anyway, I thought maybe our guests might have an answer that might be less.
Speaker: Miriam Shulman. And yeah I realized I should have asked the pronunciation of your name before we begin this. Do I have it correct? You do. It is Shulman. So when you guys started talking, I immediately thought Athena, but then when you both picked it, I was like, I can't say that. It's so boring, but I'm a nerd here. I'm assuming we'd all be in Ravenclaw too. Cause we all care about wisdom. Like that's our yeah i value. I did the quiz, but I actually, I came out, what's the, what's the one that Harry was in?
Speaker: He was Gryffindor. was gffindor Yeah. I came out Gryffindor cause I scored a bit higher on the loyalty, bravery thing, but yeah. yeah Are you sure about the Ariadne? Because isn't she the the woman who... Oh, I could have used the wrong name. like feet Oh my God, that's correct. That's the heroine of Theseus. i'm Of the King Must die She gets left on the island.
Speaker: Arachne, sorry, arachne. Oh, of course, arachne. Where we get the word arachnid from, yes. My apologies, everyone. Everyone was screaming at at their at their devices the whole time was saying Ariadne. But Ariadne, arachne, they're pretty close. So yeah, Miriam, you're going with Athena as well?
Speaker: Gosh. um Yeah, i might I might have to, but we can go with demigods. Will you take Cersei? I'd take Cersei. Sure. Why not? Okay. I'm going with her. Yeah, she's Especially in Madeline Miller's version, which since we're talking about the Greek...
Speaker: what we calling this? Mythology, mythos, yes. this Yeah, the constellation of books around Greek. I kind of did a ah big, fat um Greek summer reading project. Oh, awesome. Where I nerded out and I did Mary Renaud, which we're talking about today. um i did i read both Madeline Miller books.
Speaker: And then I also read, there's a Silence of the Girls, which is the Iliad, but told from the woman's point of view. o ooh that'd be grim. Yeah. It's rapey.
Speaker: they called it They called it a rape camp. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah, it's awful. Oh my God. Okay, now before we get too too far on though, let's ah explain to everyone who you are. Now, many people may already know who you are. And so I hope I have this all ah correct. You are a classically trained artist and art historian who traded a lucrative career in high finance for the studio.
Speaker: And you've become a bit of a leading voice for the artpreneur movement, helping creatives make a sustainable living without losing their soul and the author of the HarperCollins book, Artpreneur.
Speaker: Okay, it's mostly right. So um I actually didn't go to art school. I did study art history, but um my parents, my mother, because my father passed away when I was young, my mother did not want me to become an artist.
Speaker: So I showed her and became one anyway. Yeah. ah Without the training. But yeah, pretty much everything else is right. Yeah, i I wasn't I haven't always been an artist. And because I didn't believe you can make a living that way. And I took the practical route and went to Wall Street.
Speaker: But after 9-11 happened, I decided that wasn't for me. Do you mind if I ask you what happened? Like, were you um ah affected by that directly? Or because i apparently you did work in those buildings, right?
Speaker: I did. um I was in the building when the 93 bombing happened because that's how old I am. So I was working in several trade when the power went out and we didn't really have cell phones then, at least most of us did. And I went, I walked up 37 flights of stairs to return to my desk to look out and see, oh, it's not a con ed failure. failure there A bomb went out and the what went off in the trade center. our People were smashing the buildings and smoke coming out of the towers.
Speaker: But everybody in my office was just working at their desk, like as if nothing was happening. So when 9-11 did happen, i had that flashback to that moment. Like, oh, yeah, if I was working in this tower, I would have been one of those people who are dead now. So that's why it it was particularly personal for me. Right.
Speaker: Yeah. Understandable. Okay. So that's triggered a major shift in your in your life. Yeah. And you went um towards the, much more towards the creative side.
Speaker: Yeah. I took it as a sign for the universe not to do corporate Wall Street anymore. Which must've been something that you'd been kind of leaning toward. Do you think if, if 911 hadn't happened that you wouldn't have gone that route? um So,
Speaker: I had to actually take a break from Wall Street anyway, because I was pregnant with my second child and I was kind of disillusioned with it. So it's possible I probably would have gone that route anyway. But it was just when that happened, it was like, do you know, it's like the the do not pass, you know, do not go back. So i probably would have gone towards art anyway, but there was it was just that crossing of the threshold moment that I could not go back when 9-11 happened.
Speaker: The hero's journey of like that moment in time. i it' I understand that completely because I had that and i don't have the same I don't have the same connection you had with the place. I just watched it like everyone else did. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to go back to my full-time job. I'm going to quit that. So I have more time to write.
Speaker: Wait a minute. that This is something that I never knew this about you. Yeah. 9-1-1 had that impact on you? Yeah, it had the same impact on me because it's like, yeah, you know you never know. i mean, mortality I was aware of, but you know you never know. It could ah end any moment. And I really wasn't happy in my job.
Speaker: And so had a full-time corporate communications type gig. And i was like, yeah, I think I can. I'm going to give that up. And I did. And no, I ended up teaching to make a living. I didn't i didn't miraculously somehow make a living off my art. But yeah, unlike you, Miriam, it's not miraculous. Obviously, you've worked very hard for it. but And we'll talk about that. yes Yeah. So yeah, I had the same kind of insight, that same moment where i was like, yeah,
Speaker: I think a lot of people did. There's been a few like collective trauma moments that have led people to make those similar decisions. So 9-11 is one. The AIDS crisis is another. yeah um and obviously the pandemic, which we've all recently gone through, that's why we had the great resignation. There was millions of people walked away from their jobs because there's nothing like a crisis to lift the veil over what's not working in your life. And that could be a global thing, but it also could be a personal crisis like a diagnosis or a partner's illness or a divorce, something of that nature. Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm guessing that this is a decision that you have not regretted. Oh, yeah. No, I have not at all. It was not completely linear. Like on day one, I wasn't making art for the day I made that decision. I mean, I was making art, but I wasn't making a living for my art on day one. So it's taken time.
Speaker: and And yet you took eventually a lot of what you had, your financial skills, I think, and then applied them to the creativity very successfully, I think, later.
Speaker: Yeah, it's more like a a mindset of how, i think, you know, if I were to think about what was my greatest lesson on Wall Street was less about what I was doing in terms of the finance there, but just understanding how rich people think.
Speaker: So that's that's that's really what I teach my clients now is like, you know, what what what attracts a luxury buyer?
Speaker: Oh, I see. what How rich people think in terms of spending their money. Exactly. Okay. Yes. Rich loves crazy. Yeah.
Speaker: And does that cause you any discomfort at any point? Because we had Gerard Pah on the podcast, I think, in our first season. like It's all blurting me now, but he's ah quite a wonderful artist who lives here in London, Ontario, a Dutch artist. Yeah. And he's always had this discomfort with he's kind of a socialist. He's always had this discomfort of like, yeah, I can't sell my art to other socialists. I have to sell it to fabulously wealthy people. And he's always had this kind of like tension with that.
Speaker: Does it bother you at all? Or you are you just accept the way the world as it is? For me, it was learning how to set really good boundaries around people's entitlement.
Speaker: Setting boundaries are really good lessons for me to learn personally anyway. And that's something I've always said that building a business is the best form of self-development you can do. So like I really needed to work really hard on my boundary setting. Like, no, you can't treat me this way.
Speaker: So that that was what would, where I would have a trouble with. ah Can you elaborate on that? Because that it sounds like there's some stories behind that. some wisdom people can get from that too, I think. Oh, yeah. you know The one that's popping into my head right now, ah you know I would – so I mostly ah made my art career around being a portrait artist. So I would be invited to somebody's home to do the photo shoot for my portrait.
Speaker: And even though this may be the same town that I live in, It was like, no, no, you need to use the side entrance. Like that way of being treated like you you're the help.
Speaker: We're not equals. And I remember this one particular client, we spent a lot of time choosing... the outfits out. So, and I was complaining to my therapist about this whole thing. And she says, well, you you have very detailed about what you're charging once you begin, but you really need to be charging for that session as well. So things became more time bound in my contracts. Like, Yes, we do this consultation and ah and whatever it was, you know, and it's 45 minutes and then it's X dollars per hour after that.
Speaker: Yes, the children must have their hair clean and dry. When I show up to do the photo shoot, if I'm sitting around waiting for you to dry and fix their hair, the clock's ticking. So those types of things that were then built into my contracts that um people can act like jerks as much as they want, but there was a consequence to it.
Speaker: hu A jerk surcharge. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. which right And people respond really well to that because then they behave. Money makes people behave better.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. Now, before we get too far along, we know that you have picked out some really intriguing art. Yeah. I really want to about it. And so we'll get back to because I want to get back to all this, but we'll make the connection between the art that you have chosen and your own and your own work.
Speaker: Would you mind introducing that for us? yeah You know, I think there's a great bridge right here because Mark said that he's read The King king Must Die, which is the prequel. Which is probably why I kept saying Ariadne. Yes, correct. Because it was in my head. it was stuck in my head. Yeah. Correct. Instead of Arachne. And we will make sure the people listening gets kind of like the two cent version of the book. So they're not completely lost. Sure. So this is really the Theseus story um with Ariadne. So that's the guy who goes and slays the Minotaur.
Speaker: And Ariadne is the princess who cheats and helps him get through the maze and blah, blah, blah. so part two the bull from the sea it's It's part two the story, but this is really the consequences.
Speaker: So in Mary Renaud's version, Theseus is not such a great guy. And he's not really a great guy in the real version either. I mean, he leaves Ariadne on an island after she helps him. and We talk about avoidant male psychology. It's like fear of commitment. So it's like, yeah, I'm done with her. Let's just leave her on this island here. So part two the bull from the all about consequences.
Speaker: You know, in your email to us, I loved how you described it. Well, the way you put it was somebody dealing with them. It's like the resolution of the story has happened and now living with the aftermath. Yes. Yes. Consequences. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Which is, ah yeah, you don't see much. so yeah but there's some new stuff too, though, isn't there? Like, doesn't he go to the Amazons and woo Hippolyta? And doesn't that happen? Or does that not happen yes but there's still... Okay, so part one, he's this young guy He's hot. He leads everyone. you know He's a womanizer. He can hear when an earthquake's coming because the Sidon is somehow related to him. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: Right. And he follows every loophole. Like this is the thing. This is the difference between really Greek and then the monotheistic religions, like Judaism, Christianity is with the Greeks. Like, yeah, you know, if they wanted to do something naughty, it was like, oh well, there's a God of the wine. You know, there's a God of sex. so I'm just following this God now. So not there. That that was the whole thing with.
Speaker: Judeo-Christian thought is like, no, there's only one God, you can't get all these loopholes. So he's womanizing, that's part one. But in part two, like you said, he he meets the love of his life. Right.
Speaker: And they have a child's son and he cannot wrap his head around his son who chooses to live a chaste life. You know, here he was a womanizer. He's like, he said, when I was i was your age, um I had kids your age.
Speaker: You know, like, there was like a kid in every village that this guy had and he just couldn't wrap his head around that. like that he could have a son that would be pure. And that ends up leading to his downfall because he doesn't quite grasp that his son, he, so what I said, I would give the two cent version to our list. I think that's your job, Mark. Well, I haven't actually read this one. So I would just be going off of my half-baked memory of the mythology. Cause he's got a period.
Speaker: piro theos Is that the name of his buddy? He's a pirate. And they go off and have adventures together. Because I i incorporated that into my second novel, um which is ah called Marvelous Harry. And it's it's a remash of...
Speaker: of a midnight summer's dream, but one of the characters named is Theseus, so I kind of ran with that. And Hippolyta is a character, and so she's based on Hippolyta, the myth mythological character, not the character from the play. And I did include Pyretheros because he's an interesting character. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, like he's a bad boy. Yeah. So and in the beginning of Bull from the Sea, he's hanging out with his pirate buddy. And I was like, oh, here's Theseus the warrior. And by the end of the book, you know, you know, he's like this middle aged guy, like the stereotypical guy who's running around in his red Mustang. Because toward the end of the book, they're like, they're not calling him Theseus the hero. They're like, it's Theseus the pirate.
Speaker: It's like, oh, my God, that's what I am now. I'm the pirate. So. so Okay. So now, how does this relate to, um now I know that we forced you to pick this because that's what we do. Yes, that's right. Yeah, we force people to. Yeah, you're not married to it, by the way. we can we go to other books now too. Yeah. Yeah. yeah No, i'm prepared I prepared how things relate. yeah yeah But we can go whatever direction you want. Yeah. what yeah So make that connection for us So it's about consequences then, obviously. it So that was my bridge, though, from what talking to you prior. But what I think it it really is for me with the Theseus story. So Mary Renaud, she tells the stories, both stories, not as if there's magic in them. Like these are gods with real powers. And when I first started reading The King Must Die, I didn't like that.
Speaker: Because I am all in on magical worlds. i don't know if you can tell because I have so many Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter references. Like I'm all in on magic. Great. But then once I understood what she was doing, she was writing it as if, no, this really happened. And how did Theseus create a mythology around himself? Okay. And that's something we do as artists.
Speaker: it really is brilliant the way she's done it she yeah took a mythology and she humanized it and she placed it in a sort of anthropological uh, study essentially, like some of the scenes are really interesting. Cause like you read it, you go well, that's freaking weird, but okay. I know humans are weird and we've done strange things like that. Like some of the cults and stuff that he encounters. and that It's really, if, if, if anyone listening hasn't read it, the King must die has to be on your reading list. And I, I guess the the ball from the sea does as well.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's just for the sake of ah those listening in their cars might not, what is the name of the author again? Mary Renault is how you pronounce it, but it looks like Renault, R-E-N-A-U-L-T. We're in a French-speaking country. We'll figure out. All the Canadian listeners know what you're talking about, but the American listeners are like, what? Oh, thank you. Thank you for spelling that. Yeah. but now You guys have actually done – so i admitted to Mary at the ah the beginning before we started recording that I hadn't read it, and –
Speaker: As usual, Marcus is so sophisticated that he's he's read everything and knows everything. Well, I haven'vet read that i haven't read The Ball from the Sea, which, yeah. You didn't have to admit that. that but But anyway, you guys have done a great job of selling it. So now I have to add it to my massive reading pile. Thanks a lot. Along with Marianne's own books. Yeah. But okay, so now let's get back to to your work.
Speaker: So you had the career in finance and you always kind of had the the artistic work going on as well. But then you did that that pivot to the creative life, but then eventually married the creative life to your financial work.
Speaker: Can you tell us about that? So do do you mean how I'm a coach now? Is that what you mean? Or just how I've been able to be successful as an artist? What interested me was that you had, so and correct me if I'm mistaken, but my understanding is that a bit of the focus is on how you can actually be financially successful as an artist and nothing to be ashamed of and something you should aspire to. And just before you answer that, I'll just say that this is a subject that has come up on this podcast because we're creatives, we're writers, we have books out.
Speaker: I recently started podcast a publishing company. So I thought it was really interesting what you said about, you know, the one of the best things you can do to start your own company, because I've been beginning to doubt that. So having your own business is the is the best self development work anybody could ever do.
Speaker: Yeah, so I would love to hear more about that. And, and your thoughts around being financially successful as ah as an artist. Okay. So when i when I first decided, okay, there's no way I'm going back to Wall Street. Let's take that off the table.
Speaker: um i i still need to make money. ah And I took a job as a Pilates instructor. And while I was working for the gym, they taught me how to sell personal training packages because that's really the meat and potatoes for most gyms are are those upsells. So when they were teaching me these methods, I was like, oh, wait,
Speaker: I'm not that interested in selling personal training packages, but I can use these methods to sell my portraits. So that was my aha moment that these sales techniques could be used to sell anything, including art.
Speaker: So that was over 25 years ago. And then about when I started my podcast, which was 2018, people started asking me can i to share my story. People started asking can you teach us how to do it too? So I know what worked for me doesn't just work for me. It's worked for lots of other artists that I've taken over the six-figure mark.
Speaker: Gee, I'm not even sure which direction I want to go. i First of all, want to I want to categorize. So you can tell tell I teach in a library and information science program. I want to categorize the the kinds of artists that you teach and the ones who are able to make six figures.
Speaker: Because I know in writing, it's very difficult to get to that point, the way that the economics of it works. So what ah what other artists are, what kind of artists are we talking about?
Speaker: That's a great question. so the the artists that I help are all visual artists. Yes. Okay. Okay. So not just painters though. One of my clients makes headdresses for like Mardi Gras. So she yeah made 30,000 in the last five months. So she's well on her way to that six figure mark as well. And sculptors, have any sculptors that you- We do. We do. yeah we do have sculptors in the program. We have fiber artists, we have photographers, we have digital artists.
Speaker: So this is ah an art form that you can, I'm guessing the secret here is that you can find a patron in the sense that you can find someone with with enough money that they can afford to pay quite a bit of money for some piece of art that they connect with and they love.
Speaker: There's lots of people who are willing to pay lots of money for art. Yeah. And we were talking about earlier, the weirder, the better. art So one of the one of the best ways to, and and this this part is true for writing as well. We we said Rich loves crazy, right?
Speaker: So in Miami, Basil in Art Week, there were these robot dogs. Did you hear about this? Yes. Yeah. I did not. So I need to know about this. Robot dogs. I'm all in. Well, I love dogs and I love robots. I mean it could be robot monkeys. That's the only way be better.
Speaker: So Beeple made a dog park where he put these robot dogs in there. So they were they were dogs and they had heads of tech titans. So Elon Musk and okay yeah mark you know so bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. And then I think he also put in Picasso and Andy Warhol and himself. And these robot dogs, they would run around, but then every once in a while they would go into poop. mode. So they would crouch down and there was like a Polaroid camera and I guess in the front and it would poop out a Polaroid and then these were sold as NFTs. So he priced these robot dogs at a hundred thousand dollars each and all of them sold out in the first day. So that's $500,000 pooping robot dogs.
Speaker: Okay. but Okay. Yeah. So we're in the wrong line of business, Joe. Yeah. So then, yeah, because I'll be honest with you, a part of my thinking over the last few years, and and maybe you can set me straight on this, was wrapping my head around the fact that that i do my writing and create my books and I'm helping other people now write and publish their books for the, basically for the love of doing it, you know, for the joy of doing it and divorcing that from the from the financial side. Like this this podcast, for example, this this is not a sponsored podcast. We've never been focused on making money for it. We're just interested in in talking to people like you and we enjoy it. And we've had we have or have had day jobs you know that have given us enough money so that we can pursue this stuff without really worrying too much about the money.
Speaker: Is that the wrong attitude? Oh, wow. Wow. That's a's a tough question. That's a tough question. Yeah, I wouldn't say that it's the wrong attitude because there is for many artists ah needs to be that time where their art business is a baby and it's not going to support you as a baby.
Speaker: So I don't think there's a shame in having a day job. You do move faster though, if you are able to dedicate yourself full time to your your craft and monetizing it.
Speaker: Yeah. cause then And i and i again, I have to admit, and maybe I just have major blind spots around this, but like you know the marketing and selling side of it, largely eludes me.
Speaker: So I wonder if you could, what what are your methods and what have you learned and and what do you teach? of we can ask you that. There's five parts to which i which I go through in Artpreneur and I'll go through now. And this these foundations form the backbone of every business. So production, what are you producing?
Speaker: And it has to be something people want to buy So I'll get an email from someone that says, I'm having trouble selling my art because I paint on rocks and people don't consider that real art. And I go, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: So that's production. But poop's the robot. Well, okay. Robot poop out the out the rock. That might be something. Okay. So here's the thing is people are buying meaning, not medium.
Speaker: So you could sell a painted rock, but damn, that has to be a really, really interesting, clever painted rock for someone to be interested in something that's basically a paperweight.
Speaker: Right. People are buying meaning, not medium. Okay. Yeah. Correct. Now let's give an example from the commercial world. what what are What's Nike selling? Are they selling sneakers? Well, yeah, but not really. They're selling motivation.
Speaker: Yeah. And I can relate to that because I remember Reeboks had a series of ads and I largely, I think, at least consciously don't respond to ads, but I love their ads and I must have loved the meaning of them because then i the only sneakers I bought were Reeboks for a while.
Speaker: So with your painting then, your painting and and your work, you were selling meaning as opposed to the medium of the art. Okay. Well, that that is like really where the messaging comes comes in, which I can tie it back to Mary Renaud at any time, by the way. like over prepared for this. Please Okay. But I feel like we left a cliffhanger. So let me just clean that up. So yeah we have production, we have pricing.
Speaker: People have a lot of money mindset issues around pricing. Cheaper is not. Easier to sell. We can get in. That's a whole other podcast episode. But first, you have to make sure you're selling the right thing because...
Speaker: And then there's prospecting, building audience, which is not relying on social media, not certainly not in 2026. And next is, i i needed a P, so it's promotion, but I really, I mean selling. How are you selling it?
Speaker: And finally, productivity. And by productivity, it's what are the systems you have in place? I love how you wrenched the P in there. Yeah, I did. Yeah, that's good. It works though. It's perfectly valid. I need it. I like alliteration. Synonym is perfectly valid.
Speaker: Okay. So this has worked for your clients, many of your clients, except for the rock painting client. um Yeah, not a client. Yeah. right Could it work for books and publishing?
Speaker: Could it work for books and publishing? i mean, yes. Yes. Yes, it can. So, i mean, depends. So when you're you're doing not you're helping people not with the traditional publishing, you're kind of doing a hybrid model with them? No, no. We are strictly not hybrid. All the money goes to the writer. Okay. Okay.
Speaker: Yeah. And when I say I'm helping them, what I'm doing is we, um it's kind of by invitation only at the moment, although writers do come to us and and we we basically um make, help them make their book in the traditional sense as a traditional publisher, you know, editing the author doesn't pay anything. And and then ultimately the book is created and then we, it's out to market.
Speaker: And then we pay traditional royalties. Okay, fabulous. I mean, I know for from my experience, again, talking about what I'm really selling is my message. So for me, as an author slash artist slash what everything else I do, for me, it's not important whether the person buys the book from me or gets it from the public library.
Speaker: Because what's important to me is the is that they buy my message. When they've bought into my message, that's really how I make my money. So it's not off the sales of the book. And I think that may be true for many authors, whether their real income becomes their speaking career because now they have a new me new means of spreading their message or like me, I'm i'm coaching clients. Yeah, i can I completely get that. So it's the, yeah, it's kind of like their brand. Authors I know that that you would think are making a mint off their books have told me that really, yeah, they're making their money on speaking tours and and other arrangements. Yeah.
Speaker: And even in even in my case, You know, like, you know, the offers have come to, oh, can you do this course? Can you like deliver a lecture on on such and such a thing? And then you can see where, oh, I i see. Okay, so that's a potential revenue stream and and potentially even a greater revenue stream.
Speaker: But then I guess the danger becomes that that overshadows your core work, maybe. Yeah. It can. ah Sometimes it's I mean, I found when I was writing my book, it was the other way around. My my coaching business and my art business took a backseat to the writing process. So, that I mean, luckily I did get paid a nice advance.
Speaker: Right. Yeah. Because you were published with HarperCollins, right? Yes. Can I ask what what interests you most now about what you're doing? Because you have you've done the finance, you've done the art, written books, and then doing this coaching.
Speaker: Is it all of a piece or is there a particular part that interests you most? Yeah, it's all very related. I'm not doing as much of the visual art as i did prior to writing the book. So once I read, writing the book really um opened me up ah because, and you guys can tell me if you find this experience with writing, that I was able to channel ideas in a way that doesn't happen when i wasn't writing. So that whole process to me, i fell in love with that.
Speaker: i i want I do want to write another book. I've been spending the last two years working on a new process, a new framework, and that will be the foundation of the next book. So I do that in my coaching practice. So I'm really gathering up the research right now. i haven't so The book right now exists here, but for me, it has to exist here before it can go on page. You got to let your idea hamster have a go at it before you can actually start to write anything.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Like with my last book, it came, and not not that it was so easy, like it came out of me, but it was more like childbirth. Yeah. Yeah. That's the first book. like yeah That's the first book classically. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, okay. let Just blood involved, just screaming. yeah It's not easy. Yeah. Lots of therapy. No, it was not easy. I i almost gave my advance back several times during the process. Oh, wow.
Speaker: Yes. Even when it was finished and we're going through the copy edits, I was like, oh, no one in HarperCollins really even likes this book. I should just give back my advance. so i mean well First of all, that's it suggests a certain integrity for one thing. that um i don't know. It's like integrity or psychosis. I don't know. It has sold lot of books. like I've sold over 20,000 Yeah, that's great. Congratulations. Not paperbacks, but like audiobooks, Kindles. and Same difference. Who cares? I totally agree with your idea that it's the transition of the ideas that matter. It's the transition of what the message is that you're trying to get across. And I'm the same as you. I don't care if someone reads it from the library. I'm even – no, I don't like it when people have stolen the book. Yeah.
Speaker: But even that I'm like, ah, well, at least they're interested enough to read the book and the ideas are out there. That does seem important to me. mean, I, please guys don't, don't just like yeah authors don't get paid anything. So you're not getting, you're not sticking it to the man when you pirate a book, just now if you don't want to pay for it, just go to the library and lend library not sanction stealing books. But at the same time, it's important to me that if you're interested in my message, you read my message.
Speaker: So I get that. I think I really like that. Or give Mark a call at 555.
Speaker: So I'm interested in your ah in your writing process a little bit. So the act of writing helps you generate your ideas. You've got to have the the main concept in place first, but then the act of writing, you come up with stuff, right?
Speaker: Yeah, it's not so much the writing itself that makes me come up with the ideas, but because I am pregnant with a book, right okay using that same metaphor, that when I'm out in the world, suddenly I'll make a connection like that this gardening project here that I'm doing with my husband is a metaphor for something I'm trying to teach in the book. got These types of ideas, they don't come to me except that I had this writing project.
Speaker: And yeah can I ask about your painting? Because I actually looked at some of them and i quite like like them. I mean, I think you enjoyed them a lot because i I used to dabble in watercolors and I'm very impressed that you can do a portrait in watercolor. That seems like a technically a challenge to do that. How is painting watercolor different from writing?
Speaker: Like what's different in the process for you? I can, I can, what's coming to my mind right now is what is the same actually. okay. So sometimes if I'm in the zone and a sudden I'll look up and I'll be like, wait, where did that come from? Yeah. So that same sort of feeling that it just was like channeling. Yeah. Like from the divine that's that. Yeah.
Speaker: That's called flow. yeah it's Psychological terms, I think it's flow. But I like the fact that it's maybe coming from another place. Yeah, me too. You're kind of a rare guest in in a sense because you're a talented artist and you're a writer and you're an It seems like you're kind of the entire package.
Speaker: it's I'm quite jealous, actually. Triple threat. Or quadruple threat. Yeah, but she can't dance. No, I can't tap dance. Yeah. But now something else that you do, and and I'm guessing do well, is that you podcast as well, right? I do.
Speaker: Yeah. So tell us about that. I love that. So most of my creativity is going there these days, truth be told, since I'm not working, like I said, i admit, I admit it, I'm not really working on my visual art. I'm not currently um actively working on my book. I'm trying to get pregnant with it. I'm kind of pregnant with it, but you know, im not, I haven't pitched an idea yet. So a lot of the creativity goes into my podcast, especially now that we've put it on YouTube.
Speaker: So i have, I'm not doing the editing myself. I have a team who does it, but really there's so much of the art direction that goes into telling them how I want it to look and I'll be reviewing the videos and, and shaping the ideas visually as well as what we're saying. And what I love about the YouTube community is it really is a community because with podcasting, they don't talk to you, but on YouTube they do. So you get comments and you can talk back to them. And I like that dialogue with the art, having that dialogue with the artist. I like that. One of my favorite podcasts these days is ah The Rest is History, which is yeah history history podcast. I mean, yeah, I'm a nerd. We're all nerds. But they keep advertising. They advertise ah consistently throughout the podcast. They've got like a community.
Speaker: So one of the benefits of the community is you can join the discord and talk with other nerds about this thing that you love. And it sounds like they're really engaged because, you know, they have done podcasts based on what the community is talking about. So like, what are the, like they have this sort of metaphor of a world cup. So they did the world cup of best prime ministers and,
Speaker: It's a UK podcast or the World Cup of Greek gods, actually. are Gods, I think. All gods. um So, yeah, i I like that idea of connecting with your listeners. We don't currently do that very well, do we, Joe?
Speaker: yeah Well, there's probably lots of things that we don't do very well. Well, I know there's lots of things I don't well. Yeah. But yeah we we yeah, I think our mistake, if i you can call it that, is um we do what we like. We do what we want to do. Yeah, that's true. yeah yeah But um yeah, because so I'm guessing that you approach um your podcast also with a little bit of an entrepreneurial mindset.
Speaker: I do. i do. And I pay attention to trends of what's happening. And right now I'm getting a bigger audience on YouTube than I am with just the audio podcast, which is not just for me. i mean, I think jet Jenna Kutcher announced recently she's stopping her podcast.
Speaker: Yeah. So I pay attention to things because i I do rely on the income to support my art. Yeah. so the income from the coaching supports my business.
Speaker: all these things that I'm doing artistically and, you know, like you, Julia, and I get to help people at the same time, which is great. You know, i get to help other artists, but I, I, as I say to my clients, your art matters and your art can only matter to people if they see it and know about it. And that's why marketing is so important. So because starving artists art doesn't get seen or heard. Right. Well, I mean, I'll tell you. Well, I mean, if you're Van Gogh, eventually everyone knows about it. Wait, Van Gogh had a sister-in-law who marketed the heck out of him. That's why he's famous now. do you know that story? Yeah, i do. Yeah. But after he was dead.
Speaker: Yes. Yes. Yeah, because he he only sold what, three paintings? He hardly sold anything. Yeah, but if it wasn't for um Joe Van Gogh, you wouldn't know about him either. It's not because his art was so revolutionary, it's because she created meaning yeah around his art.
Speaker: I like to make things happen. yeah I mean, that's what Theseus did. He made things happen. And because I didn't get to make this point and I really wanted to, I'm going to be right now. Okay. So one of the things I love about the the the two the two books, if we're going to talk about both of them together, is Mary Renaud asks in the book, not who am i which is what a lot of books ask, but who can I get away with becoming?
Speaker: Mm-hmm. His thesis created his own myth. And what I loved, Mark, you didn't get to read this in part one. In part two, he actually hires bards to sing about him.
Speaker: So his heroicism is basically marketing. It's basically marketing. Right. right Yeah. right Yeah. It's like Churchill. I know what history is going to say about me because I'm going to write it. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, there's some things that are going to happen by chance.
Speaker: And yes, yeah, yes. And also you don't have to make a living on this show and there's, that's a difference You don't. Right. And I tell my artists that too, you you don't have to make a living from your art. You don't have to market, but then you don't have to make a living. for Yeah. So let me just ask you directly. but I'm really curious.
Speaker: Why are you on this podcast? Yeah. Okay. So um i at the end of last year, when I was high on cough syrup, i this is true, I attended one of those webinars where they make an offer to you and I bought the thing at the end. was like what And the next day, it was like when it all when the coding wore off, i was like, why did I buy um but that? But it actually has proven to be really good. So it's a database.
Speaker: of podcasts and conferences. they They don't sell it as a database, but that's basically what it is. So I can search in the database for every podcast with the word creative or creativity. And that's how I found you guys. That's what I assumed.
Speaker: Yeah. Right. what yeah Okay. we Creative is in it Yeah. And then I saw, I read the description how you had to come with an art. So I was like, all right, I liked this book. all that but That's what I'll do. Yeah. Wait, you didn't do that until I bugged you to do that.
Speaker: Oh, ah right. Okay. Okay. But you came back with a good one because I was immediately 100% Mary Reneau, let's do it. Yeah. Well, and I'll tell you, like we actually get approached by a surprising amount of people, and but they just want to sell their product, right? They're like, I want to be in your podcast so that I can pitch whatever it is I have to pitch. And I always go back to them. I'll answer them within a couple of hours and say, you can be on our podcast, but these are the rules. This is what you have to do.
Speaker: Most of them do not reply. And I don't care because I didn't want them on anyway if they weren't going to play ball. But you played ball. And I thank you for that. Well, I mean, also, it was an excuse to talk about this book. Yeah, this is a great book. Yeah.
Speaker: My friend, I'll tell you who it is, mike Michael Shine, he wrote the Hypan book. He's going to love that I shouted him out by the way. So he recommended I read The King Must Die. And I got it from the library. And my book had both The King Must Die and Bullfimus C in it. So I wasn't going to just read halfway. Well, my friend Michael, he's very good at recommending books, but not so good about wanting to discuss them.
Speaker: So I was like, I'm going to get to discuss this book now. for somebody Well, now, okay. So we're closing in on when we wrap this up, but is there anything more that you want to to say about it or or your work?
Speaker: Okay. Well, if you're listening to this and you like my ideas, there's more of that on the Inspiration Place podcast, wherever you're listening to Recreative. Excellent. Mark, what about you? Any closing questions?
Speaker: It's Ariadne. a You know, i was I was trying to save you there. i was going to go back and, you know, re-record and edit that out. It was a senior's moment. It's fine. It's fine. It makes you more human. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. Well, this is a very honest podcast as well. So we yeah we're not embarrassed by that. Also too lazy to go back and re-record.
Speaker: Thanks. Actually, no, it's Arachne. It's Arachne. I still got it wrong. Oh my God. yeah Miriam Shillman, thank you very much for being on our podcast, Recreative.
Speaker: Okay. Thank you for having me. It's lovely to meet you.
Speaker: You've been listening to Recreative, a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it. Recreative is produced by Mark Rainer and Joe Mahoney for Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with Monkey Joy Press.
Speaker: Technical production of music by Joe Mahoney, web design by Mark Rainer. You can support this podcast by checking out our guests' work, listening to their music, purchasing their books, watching their shows, and so on.
Speaker: You can find out more about each guest in all of our past episodes by visiting re-creative.ca. That's re-creative.ca. You can contact us by emailing joemahoney at donovonstreetpress.com.
Speaker: We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening. Music
