I'm learning from 50 Cent

HE'S SHOWING YOU HOW TO BUILD YOUR CAREER

It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years since Get Rich Or Die Trying came out. I still remember how excited me and all my friends were, waiting impatiently for this album to drop.

When it finally hit the shelves (Yes, I mean shelves. We listened to CDs back then), the album set sales records and became one of the most celebrated hip hop debuts of all time. I was certainly one of people doing the celebrating. I know every song on that album word for word, including “Many Men,” which is one of my favourite songs of all time.

Fast forward to today and 50 is touring this album for the last time. I was at his show in Toronto and what amazes me the most is how music made twenty years ago is still such a valuable asset.

There’s a clip of Busta Rhymes, who is one of the opening acts for 50, saying that 50 sold over 800,000 tickets for his tour in six days. Do you understand how insane that is for someone who will be rapping songs that are twenty years old?

It made me think about something though. Actually, it made me think about a couple of things. First, when you take the time to produce quality art, you give yourself a chance to own a life-long asset. Let’s just make a basic assumption that 50 Cent’s ticket cost an average of $100 (I paid $150). That means he made $80 million in revenue, and that’s likely much less than he actually generated. And that’s for someone who hasn’t put out a new album in ten years.

My mind then started shifting to authors. I think we limit our monetization opportunities, not only in variety but also in duration. By variety I mean that we don’t do a good enough job finding ways to leverage the success of a book to create other revenue streams. By duration, I mean we promote our books for a year (many authors only promote for a couple months) and then leave the asset dormant. We do nothing to revive it, even though we know it resonated with readers when it first came out.

Now I’m obviously not saying go sell 800,000 tickets. What I am saying is find a way to mimic that success relative to your situation.

Think about the anniversaries of your release. One year, five years, ten years. What can you do to commemorate those moments? Then what can you offer, in addition to your book, that reflects the themes or narrative? And then how can you blend those offers into current cultural trends?

As writers, we always underestimate our impact on popular culture. We think in terms of readers instead of fans. And while I preach the importance of building a core readership, broad cultural impact occurs when we transcend being relegated to literature or publishing and move outside of those boundaries to connect with the general population. These people may not be avid readers, but they can still appreciate something connected to your story. Your job is to figure out what that something is.

Writers are superstars. I’m going to drill that in your head till you’re sick of hearing me saying it and actually go out and do something about it. Own your stardom and insert yourself into the cultural conversations that are happening around you every day. This is how we obtain the type of longevity that allows an artist to tour on an album made when I was still in high school.