Subtitle: Reflecting on my (not) selling stuff This weekend, there’s a sale on all my products, including my Blender add-on course. There you go. That’s the plug. For my second add-on course I’m working on, I interviewed a couple guys talking about the business side of Blender products. “What it takes to sell a Blender add-on,” that kind of stuff. Listening to what things to do, what not to do, made me realize I’m doing a lot wrong. I’m sure if I hired a marketing guy, they would ask what the heck I have been doing the past seven years. I’ve had customers even tell me, “Why aren’t you doing this campaign or that affiliate?” To put things in perspective: my total profits from my Blender add-ons and products, over the past seven years, only recently passed what I currently make from my real job, in a month. Sure, digital sales have been rough for everyone the past couple years. No doubt due to the rocky economy, the prevalence of AI, and the subsequent discouragement of many artists. Stock image from Growtika But I know creators living off of making Blender add-ons and assets, full-time. My lack of success in that is totally on me. So why aren’t I rolling in the dough of a facetiously called “passive income” that is maintaining Blender add-ons? I’m selling stuff, but for what? Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a dime. This is not me having a midlife crisis. I think I just don’t care enough to be a “real” product seller. There’s a power in not caring about making money off something. Frankly, it’s a privilege. I don’t struggle paycheck to paycheck. I’m not in a position where selling add-ons is my only option. Anyone’s ability to be casual in a “side hustle” is a gift. I still put time in. I’ve setup automated testing on many of my Blender add-ons. I check in whenever Blender has a big update. New features are rare, but I’m consistent to check for bugfixes. I just don’t have the desire to go from 50% to 100%, let alone 90%. I’ve thought about this with my YouTube channel. I’m quite proud of some of those videos. And having a thousand subscribers makes me grateful for a small audience. But I’m not doing any real “YouTuber” efforts: super clickbait-y titles, second-by-second engaging edits (“but what happened next, would knock Ton’s socks off”), or topics based on analytics and trends. It’s just a place for me to share knowledge and have a little fun editing videos. I can’t even monetize my channel right now anyway. So why bother doing it then, you ask? Let me pick a different path to walk you down. Feeding the Birds A year ago, on a whim, we bought a bird feeder. It was cute, from a local business, and a (somewhat) reasonable price. We filled it with bird seed, got a hook to hang it from, and waited. It took a while to get any birds. But then we started getting some.’ Birds at a bird feeder, stock image by Lidia Stawinska Every once in a while, the wind would get too strong. We’d sadly bring the bird feeder in. We felt bad, seeing birds on adjacent roofs, seemingly waiting for our food. But when we brought it back out. A bunch of giddy birds gather within an hour. It is so sweet to see. Being able to give freely is a nice feeling. Turn Down (Your Ambitions) for What Now, the open source community will ask, “So why bother selling stuff? Why not just make it all free?” It definitely would be simpler. But I do it for a few reasons: Maintenance cost, both time and money. EchoFeed just posted about soon shutting down due to costs and time spent being too high. I only sell stuff that takes more time to maintain and fix. The rest can just be free. Perceived value to customers. In my experience, customers’ expectations are better set with paid products than free ones. A price tag gives customers an expectation in value and support. Many of my fellow product creators get more headaches from customers of free products only, compared to those paying for paid products. Something about a free product sets some people’s expectations irrationally high: “I use Blender 6.0 alpha and it broke the add-on, why is this bug not fixed?” Perceived value to me. Some add-ons I spent several months developing and rewriting, like nView. I think a few dollars in return is fair, and it helps me know how many appreciate the work. If no one buys the product, then I know it’s not worth maintaining. For something free on GitHub, I get next-to-zero feedback on who’s using it. 46,000+ downloads for Light Painter, but no idea how many active users. I’ve even had someone complain, “Yeah, this free add-on is dead, Spencer hasn’t touched it in years.” I replied back to them with: well, no one messaged me about it in years. If you don’t communicate with your favorite products, they won’t know you exist. Paying for a product is a surprisingly non-invasive way to do that. It’s good practice. I have learned so much about marketing and business just from selling a few small things. Again, I’m in privileged, low-risk circumstances where I can just practice. But for younger artists and content creators, I recommend trying it. It may not replace a real job, but you’ll learn a lot from the experience. If I really wanted to be a seller, I would be selling everything. Ironically, my highest maintenance add-on, Light Painter, is free. And I have a dozen add-ons freely available on GitHub and Codeberg, also on my personal extension repository. Let alone all my free tutorials on YouTube and now PeerTube. I like creating and sharing stuff. Some of the time, it’s free. I also like not having it take up all my downtime (or become my full-time). And I’m cool with that.