Working to Make Money is not Evil or Shallow

Working to make money is not evil or shallow, in the same way that working for free does not guarantee that something is a great work of art. We need to get past this idea that a project having mass appeal and making money, is not artistic. Art that entertains while promoting new ideas that are progressive to a society do a lot more towards changing the world than passion projects seen by a few elite folks sitting in a 200 seat theatre. The former usually makes it to Film or TV where billions of people are watching it now and will continue to watch it on different platforms for the next century. The latter gets seen only when it's produced and only few people at a time in tiny theaters. It rarely makes it to the big theaters, because big theaters need to produce work with the ability to put butts in seats or it will fail.

What is a Passion Project

Anything that is created that emanates solely from the creator's mind, life, and experience is a passion project. And here's why: if the creator has not yet determined whether or not there is a paying audience for this story, then he/she has no idea if it will make money or even get seen.

If it doesn't make money, it means the audience is too small and you're not making work that the masses can connect to emotionally. And without this connection to the masses, how do you change the world. How can work change the world if only a handful of people see it?

Why is this important right now? Because for the first time ever, becoming the kind of artist whose work changes the world is completely possible. All the ingredients for this formula are now at our fingertips: the internet gives you power beyond to create your own audience and build stories that makes money.

There are many examples of people like you who are acting in successful stories that reach the many instead of the few: Kerry Washington, Lupita Nyong'o, Uzo Aduba, Viola Davis, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard, and Idris Elba. Their visibility makes it easier for folks to connect to them. The stories they're apart of have successfully engaged an audience whose vision of the world is affected just by seeing these folks every week. So, note to self: make sure the story you're apart of evokes a world that you want to see more of.

The other reason that work with mass appeal is important is because for the first time ever, there are a plethora of artists who are successfully creating work that has mass appeal: Shonda Rhimes, Katorie Hall, Tyler Perry, Lee Daniels. Notice the long list of actors and the much shorter list of creators with their own production companies? My question is why aren't the folks who are acting successfully investing in creating institutions with these creators that will last beyond their lifetimes and continue to make more high visibility work for themselves and for the life of their careers? But that's a story for another day...lol...

All of these actors, writers, producers, directors look like me in some way or another. Either we share the same race or the same gender, but we also share a strategy to produce the kind of money-making stories we want to exist in the world. Once a story demonstrates that it has a powerful audience, it begins to make money which in turn gives the artist the opportunity and more importantly the power to create more stories that we want to be told.

How do money-making projects give you power?

My second play, Good Bread Alley as well as all of my movies: Gun Hill Road, Night Catches Us, Blue Caprice and Mother of George were all passion projects. They were made primarily because the story and the art were amazing.

But that doesn't necessarily translate into money (although, if you've had previous major artistic success it can, but it's not guaranteed. What is guaranteed, however, is that projects that are created with a goal of appealing to a larger audience do translate into money. Once your work demonstrates it has a large audience because it makes money, that artist is now in the driver's seat. You have power. Once you have that kind of power, you can make or star in artistic passion projects forever if you like, because you've established your money-making track record.

It's important to know this before you spend hours acting, writing or producing for free. As an early career actor, writer or producer, your focus should be on work that will put you on the map. Writing, producing and acting in work that makes money will do that. You should be molding your brand: your look, audition material, web presence, reel to look like the kind of work that makes money. That will draw money-making projects to you. And you only need one money-making success to put you on the map.

Once you're hot, offers start to come your way because other producers want to hire someone with a following. You should be paid to write, act or produce from the very beginning which ensures you're working on projects that will have a measure of success and that builds your brand just because they will have more visibility. You can learn while you write/act or produce, but doing any of those for free is what keeps you trapped in needing someone's approval in order to act, write or produce work that changes the world.

How can work that never gets seen change the world?

How can you have the greatest impact if no one ever sees the work which is exactly what will happen if it has no pre-existing audience who feels connected to the work? Money is the barometer by which we learn that our work has meaning to the larger society. That is one of the measures of success. The second one is: Does the previous work have enough of a money-making track record, to allow the next project to be a passion project? If the answer is no, then you're probably not acting, writing or producing work that has the ability to change the world.

How Money-Making Projects Change the World

That's the focus of my work as a coach right now, work that creates money, power, & freedom and to do that, it must have the broadest reach. Because I believe black folks and women (the two groups I'm a part of and the two groups who have confused activism with complaining) need to create their own institutions and the only way to do that is start making work that will generate income. And in turn, use that money to create institutions or in this case production companies that serve as the home for the work we want to see more of.

​At the risk of sounding a little heading, in a capitalist society, you can't work from a place of power and stability without money. Money is an indicator of the size of your audience. When there's lots of money being made, it's because there's a big audience. If you don't want to work in a capitalist society: you can leave or you can change your life's mission from being an artist to changing the system. Pick your battles, otherwise, you accomplish nothing.

How do you create work that generates income?

This applies to producers, writers and actors.

The result is that you create good will, as well as loyalty from your audience when you create great work that sheds new light on problems and issues that have been plaguing them. People keep coming back for more when you speak to the things that are most important to them.

Black folks (and women) have been doing passion art, passion politics, passion complaining since slavery ended, it is time for something new. We now have enough black power players in the industry, as well as, the power of the internet to create our own shit. If your goal is to make art that changes the world in a deep meaningful way, now is not the time to rest on processes that exist only for the artist to work out their personal stuff. But rather to make story that combines the artist's personal politics along with a story that will reach huge amounts of people. This is absolutely possible if you get away from the idea that entertaining your audience is shallow. When you can entertain and subtly educate, you build your audience which translates into money and the power to do whatever the fuck you want down the road.

Why is institution building important
Recently a brilliant student sent me avant guard (meaning non traditional, non linear, playing with form) work inspired black women intellectuals writing in that form. Love Andrienne, Love Audrey, Love Susan (if you're in the know, you know exactly who I'm talking about and if you don't, then that's my point. If you've never heard of these people, then they're making work that reaches only a few people: upper middle class intellectuals in liberal arts institutions.

So how do you create change when the only people who can relate to your work are folks with an upper middle class, liberal arts education? It's preaching to a small choir which is why I left academia and the non-profit world. I wanted to stop worrying about being tenured, getting the grant or fellowship and my writing being dependent on that. I want little black girls to be able to pick up my work, digest it and for it to have an immediate impact on their lives now (not once they're in college). I want to stop relying on white people, corporations, and artists to tell the stories that define who my people are. Because the ones they created are so limiting and the ones living in my soul are far more complicated and true. I want to create stories with mass appeal and sustain my living while I do it.

We're not moving forward, if ultimately our work relies on corp structures whose foundation is historically white folks doing all the storytelling. And asking to be a part of these structures to change their fundamental values is one way to do it. But it's not the strategy that will continue to work when I'm dead and buried. It's not the way I'm interested in working.

That ultimately feels like a glorified version of slavery. Will all of my work be independent? No, I'll write for folks whose politics are similar to my own whether it's a theatre or a foundation regardless of their color. Because it's shared values, not necessarily race that draws me to work. I'm currently writing a play and being supported by a white institution with white collaborators.

But guess what? This play is about social justice for black people and has a huge audience of Black and white folks and by collaborating with white folks who have similar values and a much larger audience than I do, my work will be seen by many of the people in a society who need to hear these stories the most. Writing stories that only preach to the choir does not change the world. Writing stories that gets folks who normally wouldn't pay money to watch this story is a smoking hot moment of social change work. So this story about social justice is totally inline with my vision. And it already has huge appeal because I've surveyed my audience. My content is hot off the presses and is trending everywhere, thus, tons of audience. So it has a chance of making enough money to at least pay me for my work. But more importantly, it will reach the masses and create powerful change that will live beyond me.

So, in short, it's totally okay, to work on your passion projects. But at some point, you'll need to revamp your strategy to pay attention to what the audiences are drawn to. If you're an actor, look at the folks in TV shows, and films. What's their brand? Is your brand as clear, sexy and glamorous enough? Do you look like the people you want to play? If not, you're not going to get a chance to be apart of some world changing work because you don't have the tools (actors arsenal), the brand and the uniform that you need for the job.

If you're a producer or writer, I can't begin to tell you how you'd like to play with form and create something new. That's passion project producing or creating and I'm not interested in teaching that. I'm interested in changing the game. I'm interested in being a powerful artist/entrepreneur and build institutions.

That is my journey. What I can help you with is learning what Shonda learned: the structure of a well-made story that will have such a far reach, that it will give you the power to write anything in the future and get paid for it. I can teach you how to interpret the work that's already out there so you get more acting jobs that create more visibility and give you power. I can teach you how to brand yourself in a way that the industry is not just paying attention to your physical type, but also your emotional type which will double the amount of work you get to play.

And in order to do these things, you must learn to write the way the game is currently being played (with your own voice/interests guiding the writing) and build your actor brand to shape you into the money-making magnet that the industry is currently enamored with and willing to pay millions of dollars to see. Which ultimately gives you power, freedom and ensures that you'll work for the lifetime of your career; And more importantly, high visibility in money-making projects gives you the ability to change the world, to change mindsets, to expose folks to new ideas about who and what you are and what you stand for; It also gives you the power to create a legacy for those coming behind you by investing in institutions that hold your values close and pass them down from generation to generation.

I can teach you to write story that builds audience. I can teach you how to build a brand that draws the industry to you like bees to honey. I can teach you how to build audience and get that audience to invest in the future of your career right now, so you can quit the day job that is standing in the way of your greatness. I can teach you how to keep building that audience by virtue of the fact that the stories and brand is feeding your audience what they so desperately need. Once you provide them with that, you create an emotional bond that will keep them coming back for more.

And that, in short is what all institutions in a capitalist country are built upon: creating a work that fulfills a deeply felt need in a lot of people.

There's power in that.

There's power in being able to change the conversation...

There's power in institution-building...

That is what I can teach you to do...xxox

Love, Light & Power,

April & TheWritersRoom Team

P.S. Stay tuned for the next WritersArsenal where I'll discuss inciting incident and plot points.

Crime Fiction Writer/Screenwriter​ Erik Small's Writer Tip

Read your manuscript backwards. It’s easier to see inconsistencies in your story. Example: The main character in your manuscript's name is Justin in the 10th paragraph and Justin doesn’t like junk food. In chapter 3 we see his name is Jason and he’s sucking a lollipop. Read your manuscript backwards.