Give up the lawn and flowers- Plant winners like crabgrass and dandelions.

Retirement is the time to become a winner

I can’t be the only guy who retired after a rewarding life and is doing his best to live an active existence, keep an interest in life and score a few wins. After the career ended, my income has noticeably declined. I think about money, but since future meals are assured, I write. Up until today, I was happy and comfortable with the Golden Years.

It hit me like a brick

That all changed this morning! Like every day I start by writing my blog in the hope that it will bring publicity and sell a few of my books. Writing’s a low-income hobby that I do for the love of the process. It adds structure to my mornings and coaxes whatever creativity I can out of my brain. But today was different. It hit me like a brick on the skull when I read about Mr. Ryan Kaji. Like me, he puts his stories together and submits them for publication on the web. He videos his creations sends them to YouTube where, unlike me, Ryan made $11 million two years ago and $26 million in 2019! Good for seven year old Ryan. He’s so enthusiastic and good looking you can’t resist him (Ryan’s World on YouTube)

But now I’m angry because Amazon/Wordpress sent an accounting for my book sales last year: I earned $3.75 for the whole year of effort. That’s not millions, that’s about three dollars after tax! There’s not a damn thing Ryan learned in his entire seven-year life that I have not seen or learned a hundred times. Yes, I’m jealous, but us capitalist believe the free market is a fair determinant of public value. Well, how do I make sense out of my $3.75 compared to filthy rich Ryan?

What’s wrong with this picture?

The disparity, the inequity the injustice is just damn wrong and I don’t have to take it anymore. Didn’t Bernie’s socialist crowd preach “From each according to his needs?” Ryan’s seven old, and lives with his parents. He has no friggin needs! Then there’s Marx’s other meme, “From each according to his ability.” I have decades of experience, an Ivy League Master’s Degree and abilities Ryan won’t know for another half-century. Marx wouldn’t put up with that. Am I on the right team here?

Dig up the lawn. Plant crabgrass

It is like I work all summer watering, cultivating and fertilizing my petunias while poisoning/cutting down the dandelions. Only a loser would mindlessly back petunias. They perish while dandelions flourish. The message is clear: Join the dandelions. Join the winners and dig up the lawn and plant crabgrass.

As a writer, I find myself competing with so many authors who flood the market with 73,000 original book titles every year. We do this in a market where hardly any books sell profitably? Books are petunias! Where are the dandelions? Look to YouTube and Tiktok to see where people are trending. It’s not like Ryan is a lone exception. Fellow YouTuber Felix Kjelberg has exactly 5 billion views on his blog. Some 2,000 YouTubers and Tiktokers grossed over a million dollars last year each while I made three dollars and seventy-five cents.

Top YouTubers Income in 2019

1. Jeffree Star: $50 million.

2. Daniel Middleton: $45 million. …

3. Colleen Ballinger: $30 million. …

4. Felix Kjellberg: $20 million. …

5. Jake Paul: $19 million. …

6. Logan Paul: $19 million. …

7. Sean McLoughlin: $16 million. …

8. Lilly Singh: $14 million.

Source: YouTube. …

Aug 9, 2019

Where are you Bernie, when I need you? Some of those socialists should shake down little Ryan and Felix; spread the coins among us, the 73,000 book publishers. By comparison, we’re all starving and living in cardboard boxes. It’s not really that we are living in poverty so much as we’re just choked up with the unjust inequity of publishing economics.

 Get me my 15 seconds on TikTok.

Checkout out another post of mine I think you might like that relates. Would love to hear what you think.