First sale.
By Em | Published: June 7, 2010
You worked and worked and worked with the goal of selling something you’ve written for the first time. And you finally did it! Hooray!
Okay, maybe it’s not enough money to allow you to quit your day job. Maybe it’s not even enough money to pay your grocery bill. And maybe after the initial buzz wears off you’ll realize there’s a long road still ahead if you want to make a career out of this.
BUT.
Before you go down that path, I insist you stop and pin on the “first sale” merit badge and be really, really proud of yourself. In this moment, you’ve mastered alchemy.
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Note to readers of many nations: I know, I know. This badge is way U.S.-centric. I completely realize the rest of the world exists and that the first sale is an especially big milestone that everyone deserves to celebrate equally. But after not coming up with anything that amused me enough and would represent “first sale” around the world, I was ultimately seduced by the opportunity to draw little swirly things in George Washington’s hair. So here we are.
However, I hereby issue an Official Challenge: Anybody who’d like to see an international edition of this badge is welcome to make suggestions for what imagery such a badge should feature in the comments section of this post. Note that suggestions representing the currency symbols of specific countries are not recommended, since: A) that’s what got me into this mess, and B) there will always be more currency symbols than can fit on one badge.
The challenge will be open indefinitely—whichever entry is the first to inspire me to create a second version of the badge is the winner. (Yes, there will be a prize. [Yes, the prize will be a badge.]) If nobody enters, I will simply assume no one cares and stop feeling guilty. Pretty much a win-win.
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This is part of the merit badges for writers series, and may be posted on your site or blog. Have you earned this badge? Will you never earn it? Tell us why in the comments.
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4 Comments
Okay first, the picture of George is adorable. His swirly hair is too cute!
About the US-centric nature of the badge — I am from the US, so I won’t enter the contest, but will instead ask a question:
Would a check/cheque be appropriate? If so, it could be made out to “Pay to the order of: Badger Scout” (in the same spirit as the Namer badge, which is Awesome.)
Anyone from anywhere is welcome to enter the challenge!
I’m not going to make any comments about particular suggestions for at least a week, just to let things evolve on their own (or not, we’ll see) for the time being. Well, that and the rest of this week already has badges assigned.
That’s cool.
I hope you get lots of suggestions. It’s a tricky problem, and I would love to see what different ideas people have!
While I am not ready for the badge. I thought I would throw out an idea for the challenge. I thought about this one and my answer came to from from my love of the fantasy genre and Dungeons & Dragons.
Simply put, a bag of gold coins. I mean gold is a universal love for everyone around the world. So just a big fat bag of gold coins is my idea.