I find it fascinating how easy it is to create a brand identity. You can print your own business cards, address labels, and letterhead. You can put your logo on hats, t-shirts, and water bottles. Anything that you can imagine can be printed with your own name and logo. You can print your own book and publish your own website and blog. It is all very easy and inexpensive, and pretty amazing. So where is the line, or does there need to be one? What makes someone official? The logo? The certification? The experience?
For some jobs they ask for four years of school or four years of equivalent experience. They are considered equal. However, way too many people go through four years of school and they still don’t know anything when they graduate and get hired. Another person at the same job can have four years of experience behind her, but no diploma. So what does the diploma mean? Somebody else thinks you might know how to do something? You test well?
Maybe there is something to just doing it anyway and not waiting for someone to give you permission or certification or credentials. They say the suit makes the man, after all. So maybe the book makes the author.
Maybe we have entered into a time when people don’t have to do it the old way. Maybe we have entered into a time where self publishing doesn’t have the air of desperation it used to. It used to be called a “vanity press”, but now famous people are self-publishing and essentially giving the finger to the big publishing houses. They are doing it all themselves and taking all the money.
Maybe people have just gotten tired of waiting for someone to invite them to the dance and they decided to put on their favorite shoes and go and have a great time. The more you do for yourself, the more control you have over it.
I sold beaded jewelry I made on my college campus. I had all my creations in a metal Bahlsen cookie tin. I did fairly well, and learned a lot about human psychology. It was amazing how many women were so proud of my creativity and entrepreneurship. It was also amazing how many men wanted a piece of the action.
Several men said they could “help” me sell my jewelry, for a cut. They said would show off and take anywhere up to 25%. They never volunteered to help me for free, or take the time to help me make the jewelry in the first place. I felt like they were being pimps. I’d do all the hard work and they’d get some money. This hardly seemed fair. I always said no.
So maybe it is the same with schools and credentialing. Maybe they just want their cut. You do all the work and they give you a piece of paper for all your trouble. Maybe it is the same with publishing houses. I do all the writing and they get all the money.