# Just how hard is 'making it' in some of the 'artistic industries'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 3, 2011, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762 "2011-07-03T23:12:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/21 "2011-07-06T03:28:35Z")
It depends on what you mean by “making it”. I mean, I haven’t had a day job in 5 years; I make my living as a pianist/keyboardist for the theatre. I live in New York City, have done several tours, an Off-Broadway show, several Off-Off Broadway shows, and any number of cabarets and regional productions. Having said that, it’s not like I’m living like a king. I make enough to have a small apartment and go out when I want to, but it’s not caviar and champagne all the time either. I’ve worked really hard to get to this point, and I feel that Broadway is right around the corner for me. Basically, making a living in the arts boils down to this: 1. Be good. 2. Be persistent. 3. Profit! Which, near as I can tell, is just like any other industry. The only difference is, we get a bad rap because people assume since we don’t work in an office eight hours a day, it’s not a “real” job. Joke’s on them; I’m doing what I want to be doing _and_ I’m getting paid for it. Not a bad way to live life. So to answer your question, yes it’s hard, but I can’t imagine it would be any harder than going through eight years of med school or something like that. And if music or painting or whatever comes naturally to you, then it will just be that much easier. Yes, there’s a lot of competition out there, but, again, it doesn’t seem to me to be any more competitive than working on Wall Street or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/22 "2011-07-06T04:40:46Z")
> [@andrew\_1](#): > > Obviously there are more variables than sheer effort and a lot more goes into the story than just ‘work hard, profit’, but I can’t help suspecting that part of the reason it is thought to be so hard to make a living off of music or any of the other arts is because the majority of people who try to do that simply don’t try hard enough. I think there’s a sort of Catch-22 here, though. How much effort should one put into a pursuit that is unlikely to pay the bills? I make beaded jewelry as a hobby, and have been doing this for about 15 years. I’ve put a lot of time into it, and have produced IMHO some very nice pieces. Yet while people often tell me I should sell my work, they aren’t exactly lining up to pay enough for me to make even minimum wage on the labor that goes into each piece. I mostly make things for myself or as gifts. I’ve sold some pieces to family and friends who wanted to give them as gifts to other people, but that’s about it. I’ve had some stuff in a friend’s booth at local craft fairs, and have sold exactly one piece this way. I consider this my only “professional” sale, since it was to someone who didn’t know me personally. I could sell more of my work if I put a lot more time and energy into marketing it, but there are only so many hours in the day and even if I really hustled I’m unlikely to ever see any significant profits. That’s why I prefer to think of my jewelry-making efforts as a hobby and not a career. It’s true that I’ll never “make it” as a jewelry designer if I don’t put more effort into getting my stuff noticed, but it’s also unlikely that I would ever make as much money doing that as I do in my current profession. The only person I know who supports herself entirely with jewelry-related work (including repairs and teaching classes at the community college) lives in her van and has no health insurance. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/23 "2011-07-06T13:10:44Z")
It took me about 15 years to finally gnaw through the golden handcuffs at my last corporate job and finally strike out on my own as a freelance CG artist (Married, two kids). During those years I worked the usually 9-5 (sometimes way later), then would moonlight clients at home, until I could build up enough clientele to finally take the plunge. I still work a lot of hours… but I’m freeeeeee! (sorta) It was a lot of hard work, for a very long time (still is). I think, some people just want a paycheck. So do I, but for me, there’s far more to it than that. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/24 "2011-07-06T13:30:46Z")
Huh. Here’s an amusing self-contradiction. Quote the first: > [@RealityChuck](#): > > Nope. Not in the slightest. How did J.K. Rowling market her work? She sent it around the publishers until it sold. And it was the publishers who marketed her work. Quote the second: > [@](#): > > Cite. Other than the shopworn cliche. I know plenty of successful authors, all of whom are sharks when it comes to handling the business end of their careers. Really, which is it? Do successful artists “not in the slightest” need to market, or are all of them “sharks when it comes to handling the business end of their careers”? I think you need to stick to _one_ position, if you want to make it convincing. Tyhe notion that the average run of authors do “not in the slightest” need to market themselves is, quite frankly, astonishingly incorrect. Certainly publishing success can strike, but this is not the normal or expected authorial route to success - which is, far more commonly, paved with lots and lots of extremely hard work at self-promotion; this holds just as true in the other arts, if not moreso. ---
**Author:** ![Dingbang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@Dingbang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dingbang)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/25 "2011-07-06T13:59:22Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Nope. Not in the slightest. How did J.K. Rowling market her work? She sent it around the publishers until it sold. And it was the publishers who marketed her work. Citing J.K. Rowling, or Stephen King, or John Grisham in this context is very misleading. The kind of deals they get and the marketing support they get from publishers are extremely unusual, nothing at all like what the typical “successful” author gets. Rowling can write the book and then sit back in one of her mansions while the publisher does all the marketing, but that’s not how it works for the author who is successful enough to make a living but not one of the top-selling authors of all time. That’s a common mistake that first-time authors make: Thinking that the publisher will do all the marketing. They will do some, but authors find out quickly that they don’t do much. Budgets for marketing are extremely small these days, and after a short time the marketers move on to the next project. Then the author realizes his book didn’t sell well and complains that the publisher didn’t market it enough. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/26 "2011-07-06T14:24:15Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It’s every bit as difficult to become an artist who makes a living at it professionally as it is to be a doctor. Maybe harder. This government site says [Physicians and surgeons held about 661,400 jobs in 2008](http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos074.htm). Were there that many artists supporting themselves? I doubt it. Can I use this reasoning to say it’s more difficult to be a home appliance repair technician (49,600 jobs in 2008) than it is to be a doctor? ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/27 "2011-07-06T14:44:35Z")
There’s a advice column I look at and one of the recent questions is what to do about a recent college grad (music performance degree) who is back home with the folks, depressed, student loans and other bills, and no job. I find it sad reading. (The symphony in my city just folded and I imagine things aren’t better elsewhere.) To find a job in that field now must be really, really hard. (or any field, actually. Anyone want to get my own kid an entry level job in the field of anthropology?) To make a living in the arts must be doubly hard, and I think it’s who you know and where you live, as always. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/28 "2011-07-06T14:59:19Z")
There is **one** artistic industry with minimal entry barriers. Got your own high heels and fishnets? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/29 "2011-07-06T15:01:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > There is **one** artistic industry with minimal entry barriers. Got your own high heels and fishnets? I’m not sure I’d make much money with those. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/30 "2011-07-06T15:20:31Z")
> [@Dingbang](#): > > Citing J.K. Rowling, or Stephen King, or John Grisham in this context is very misleading. The kind of deals they get and the marketing support they get from publishers are extremely unusual, nothing at all like what the typical “successful” author gets. Rowling can write the book and then sit back in one of her mansions while the publisher does all the marketing, but that’s not how it works for the author who is successful enough to make a living but not one of the top-selling authors of all time. _Now_ she can. Back when Harry Potter came out, do you really think the publisher marketed it any differently than any other book by a first-time author with a similar advance? Same for Stephen King – he got a $3000 advance on **Carrie**. Do you think the publisher spend millions marketing that book, or just did whatever they did for a book by any other first-time author? No. Once they established themselves as big names, then, yes, there was much more money put into the marketing. But King and Rowling and every other successful novelist became successful because of the quality of their work and the promotion the publisher put into it. If marketing were the key, then you should be able to make a best-seller out of a book of gibberish. You can market until you turn blue in the face, but if the product isn’t anything people are willing to pay money for, then > [@](#): > > That’s a common mistake that first-time authors make: Thinking that the publisher will do all the marketing. No, but they will do 100% of all the _effective_ marketing. They will get the books into bookstores, send copies to reviewers, and take out ads. An author can promote his book, and it doesn’t hurt, but it accounts for a minuscule percentage of sales and takes time away from writing. If it was all promotion, the best seller lists would be filled with vanity press books. Are they? > [@](#): > > They will do some, but authors find out quickly that they don’t do much. Budgets for marketing are extremely small these days, and after a short time the marketers move on to the next project. Then the author realizes his book didn’t sell well and complains that the publisher didn’t market it enough. The publishers are doing less than in the past (maybe – they’ve invested money in a book, so why wouldn’t they try to sell enough copies to make up their investment?), but it’s far more than what any individual author can do. Can an individual author get his book in bookstores 1000 miles away from where he ever visited? No. Author promotion is only effective – such as it is – with people the author has met face-to-face. You can shamelessly attempt to sell a book to every person you meet, and that would be a fraction of the effectiveness of the most desultory promotional campaign by a publisher. > [@Malthus](#): > > Really, which is it? Do successful artists “not in the slightest” need to market, or are all of them “sharks when it comes to handling the business end of their careers”? You may be unaware of this, but the “business end” and “marketing” aren’t the same thing (and what is being discussed here isn’t marketing; it’s promotion). For an author, marketing means finding people willing to pay you for your work. Business means contracts, payments, copyright protection, rights sales, etc. Authors quickly learn the business end if they’re going to survive full time. But I know of no full-time authors who spend any serious amount of time promoting their work, and they didn’t get the be full-time writers by wasting time with promotion. ---
**Author:** ![Dingbang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@Dingbang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dingbang)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/31 "2011-07-06T15:43:14Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > But I know of no full-time authors who spend any serious amount of time promoting their work, and they didn’t get the be full-time writers by wasting time with promotion. Just curious: Are you concluding this because you “know” a lot of authors or because you’re in the business? ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/32 "2011-07-06T15:48:18Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Many kids think at some point that they’d like to be a doctor. A much smaller percentage take the courses in college that are considered pre-med. Not all of them get into medical school. But the vast majority of those who get into medical school become doctors or succeed in some other professional field. Same for lawyers, architects, journalists, teachers, and other professional fields. > > The arts are different. Many more people would like to become artists in the broad definition of the term. But there is no real training and no sieve to sort out the people who have interests without the ability and allow all the rest to break through. A second but is that if you can’t be a lawyer there isn’t any call to do it on an amateur level. Tens of millions of people can casually play an instrument or write fan fiction. Well, you can always be an [amateur surgeon](http://games.adultswim.com/amateur-surgeon-twitchy-online-game.html)! There’s also the fact that paying for art is a whimsical indulgence of mainly First World citizens with money to burn, whereas those other professional disciplines are necessary for society to operate. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/33 "2011-07-06T15:48:33Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > But I know of no full-time authors who spend any serious amount of time promoting their work, and they didn’t get the be full-time writers by wasting time with promotion. John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow, Scott Sigler and the rest of the bloggy author generation are all tireless promoters. And it’s what helped them make the leap from “bloggers who also write fiction” to “authors who also blog.” ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/34 "2011-07-06T15:52:03Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > But I know of no full-time authors who spend any serious amount of time promoting their work, and they didn’t get the be full-time writers by wasting time with promotion. Well I do. My former professor of Criminal procedure, Alafair Burke, just released her lateast book, [Long Gone](http://www.amazon.com/Long-Gone-Novel-Alafair-Burke/dp/0061999180/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0) to excellent reviews. She is on book tour (publisher instigated of course) but not a day goes by she isn’t relationship marketing with her fans - organizing a giveaway on Facebook, emailing her lists of upcoming appearances, publishing short commentaries to her blogs, and all kind of other activities that create a fanbase. By the way, she doesn’t write full time. She teaches full time, and writes on the side. I don’t think anyone could accuse her of not being savvy to the publishing industry, though. Not only is Long Gone her 10th commercially published novel, her father, James Lee Burke was also a “name above the title” author. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/35 "2011-07-06T15:58:24Z")
That’s just one individual I can point to right now. I used to work in the Marketing Department for a major bookseller. The publisher has a few (very few) titles they are hyping all the time. The rest of the list, the overwhelming majority, is quite ignored by the publisher. To get their book out into the public view, the authors do most of the work. it really is little different from self-publishing in that regard. For example, when you see notices or reviews of books being published by alumni in your alumni magazine? There is zero chance that listing was publisher intigated. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/36 "2011-07-06T16:14:05Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Can I use this reasoning to say it’s more difficult to be a home appliance repair technician (49,600 jobs in 2008) than it is to be a doctor? I remember [this ad](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zZp0CiJwLXU/TMcW0oQclmI/AAAAAAAAAAo/PR06t3YmQac/s1600/QMJobCrop.jpg) vividly. “BE A QUANTUM MECHANIC even if you never finished high school. Study at home!” And look how few quantum mechanics there are! > [@Dingbang](#): > > Just curious: Are you concluding this because you “know” a lot of authors or because you’re in the business? Chuck and I are both published authors and members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. We have boards of our own and everyone talks to everyone else. Promotion is about the number one topic. > [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow, Scott Sigler and the rest of the bloggy author generation are all tireless promoters. And it’s what helped them make the leap from “bloggers who also write fiction” to “authors who also blog.” Yes, those three made it from tireless blogging. Can you name a dozen? Can you name a hundred? Many writers now have blogs, podcasts, websites, Facebook pages and all the rest of the apparatus. After the fact. The number of people who made it big by blogging is the same, in fact probably less than, the number of people whose first novel became bestsellers in the olden days. Their success just makes it harder for everybody else because it is presumed that writers will need to spend way too much of their time at blogging instead of writing. Chuck may have overstated by saying no one, but most writers would far rather spend their time writing than promoting. Just about everything that needs to be said about the new world of writing can be found in the amazing story of Amanda Hocking. In January a [USA Today](http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2011-02-09-ebooks09_ST_N.htm) article announced that this unknown self-published e-book writer had sold a half-million copies of her books. In a month. Yet by March, the [New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/books/amanda-hocking-sells-book-series-to-st-martins-press.html) reported that she was selling her next series to a traditional print publisher. Why? > [@](#): > > “I want to be a writer,” she said. “I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling e-mails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full-time corporation.” I’m not going to cry about running a buggy whip factory. I’ll either find a way to adapt or die. Writers today just need to know that the world has changed. Many fantastic writers of the past could not possibly promote themselves in this fashion. Some, Hemingway or Fitzgerald, e.g., would do fine. Going forward the world will be stripped of people who just want to write. It’s just the way it is. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/37 "2011-07-06T16:14:28Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > If marketing were the key, then you should be able to make a best-seller out of a book of gibberish. > . [Ulysses by James Joyce](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_%28novel%29) ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/38 "2011-07-06T16:31:41Z")
There is also the fact that businessmen tend to devalue jobs in the arts because “anybody can do it” and "everybody loves to do it.’ Some actually believe it – next time you see a particularly badly done bit of advertising art, it’s probably because some businessman or woman hired thier nephew who “really likes art” and has done some watercolors to do the job, because they buy into it the notion that anyone can do it – others just use that as a way of bargaining artists down to nothing or as close to it as they could get. And some artists will work for free. That has all kinds of good effects on the bargaining of artists who don’t want to. And just look at all the job ads for online writers from places like “The Enquirer” which promise nothing but “exposure” as payment. IMHO, you are being exposed as a fool if you work on those terms. If you don’t want to be paid, post it to a damn message board! Or on your own blog! On your own blog at least you MIGHT get ad revenues! So, yah, it’s a tough marketplace to compete in. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/39 "2011-07-06T16:32:17Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > Pretty much my experience. I burned out after a couple years of conservatory training. I could push myself to practice 4+ hours per day (with plenty of rehearsals and classes to keep me busy for the rest of my waking hours). But it didn’t take long for me to lose any enjoyment in playing. I was sort of a middling talent at a top conservatory, so even if I stuck with it I was probably going to spend my career scraping by with chamber music gigs, teaching, and maybe a part-time regional orchestra position. With luck and continued improvement, I was expecting to make a decent living only after a decade or two of really struggling. > > At the level I bailed out, the top 10% had a pretty good shot at modest success, and only the top 1% any chance at “stardom” in a solo career or a seat in one of the top orchestras. And even the most talented can’t make it without a great deal of dedication – the savant that can play brilliantly but doesn’t work very hard will be quickly surpassed by a more modest talent who has the dedication. > > Of course in music, much of the technique comes down to muscle memory which can only be formed with long hours of practice. The dedication issue is important as a common ethos as much as a necessity for quality work. Maybe more so. Music imposes an unusually high penalty - in terms of credibility and perception - for not devoting yourself _totally_. Enough players buy in that it raises issues if you don’t. The result is a kind of pernicious professionalism. Plodders and executants who are full-time are rewarded more than part-timers who might have something valuable to say musically. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762/40 "2011-07-06T17:07:08Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > If marketing were the key, then you should be able to make a best-seller out of a book of gibberish. You can market until you turn blue in the face, but if the product isn’t anything people are willing to pay money for, then False dichotomy. The same goes for _any_ product - you can’t sell a vaccum cleaner that does not actually clean, but that does not mean that marketing is essentially worthless for vaccum cleaner sales. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-hard-is-making-it-in-some-of-the-artistic-industries/587762.md?page=3)