If Selling Were an Art Practice

Photo by Anna Friss

Dear Reader,

This week you’ll be inundated with sales. Some will feel like scams; others will feel like generous tethers into a new world. As someone running a creative business on my own terms, I keep circling one question:
What if selling could be an art practice?

If you’re already searching for the unsubscribe button I assure you, it’s at the bottom. I understand this might be a spicy take in a week when many folks are striking from shopping, boycotting Black Friday, or wrestling with how to participate (or not) in the capitalist currents we’re all swimming in.

When I work 1:1 with artists, one of the most common sentences I hear is: I hate marketing.
What they usually mean is: I hate selling.

Marketing, at its best, is a creative practice — writing good copy, making images, inviting people into our worlds. Selling, though… selling is vulnerable. It includes saying out loud: This is for sale. I made this. I’d love for you to buy it.
It feels embarrassing, even when we’re honest and transparent. It can feel like a stark exposure.

But what if selling deserved the same thought, care, and imagination as our paintings, quilts, essays, or classes?

You are a lone reed, standing tall, waving boldly in the corrupt sands of commerce - You’ve Got Mail

What if selling was simply another moment in the ecosystem where we say:
I’m inviting you in.
If you come closer, I will give you something I’ve worked hard to make.
Exchange as care. Exchange as reciprocity.

When I created Cody’s Big Week of Sales, I genuinely had fun. I made a little website in Canva. I chose offerings I believed would actually support people. I asked folks to opt into a separate list so the sales emails didn’t ambush anyone. Every email includes a one-click opt-out.
Choice is part of the art.

Selling isn’t bad. Manipulation and coercion are bad.
But transparency? Consent? Clear invitations? That’s all part of an ethical, creative ecosystem.

I have also found classifieds or ads in other people’s newsletters or podcasts is an excellent way to market myself, which can lead to more sales. Usually selling directly to a new audience doesn’t work as well as inviting them into something free where you can then cultivate a relationship and eventually sell them something.

I put so much care, improvisation, and trust into my art practice. I want to extend that same care to selling — not as performance, not as pressure, but as part of being in community with the people who find meaning in my work.

And even though I’m not buying much during Object Study, I do want to see what you’re selling. Because what you sell — your art, your guidance, your research, your gifts — is often a threshold into the great mystery.

What if selling were a kind of composition?
Not a pitch, not a funnel, but a shape we make in time.
When we sell, we’re arranging elements the same way we would in a poem or a quilt:
intention, pacing, texture, pause.
A sales page is a form of storytelling.
A checkout button as a doorway.
An invitation is still an invitation, even when money is involved.
Selling becomes an art practice when we treat these moments with the same devotion we bring to our studio table — asking, What feeling am I trying to create? What is the arc? Where do I want the reader to breathe?

There’s the attention of my inner world, and then there’s the attention we owe outward — the responsibility of witnessing harm and refusing to look away. Even when I’m writing about creative practice, I’m inside a world where people are fighting for their lives.

Selling is also attention work.
We’re asking someone to pause in the flow of their day and look at something we made with our whole life behind it.
That’s not extraction — that’s attention exchange.
It’s a chance to say:
Here is a small piece of my world. If it lights something up in you, you may have it.
When we approach selling this way, we’re not chasing people.

My attention is never just personal. It stretches outward — toward ongoing genocides, toward trans safety and liberation, toward the collective storms shaping our shared future. Part of my practice is learning how to hold the world with care without collapsing under it.

We’re co-regulating with the audience who already feels resonance.
Selling becomes less about convincing and more about attunement — listening for who is meant to be in the room and letting the rest drift away without resentment.

Everything I choose to put on sale this week had one hope behind it : that it would uplift and empower the buyer to be MORE abundant, find ways to make more money, more art, and more connection. So that they may be more generous in a world of scarcity.

May this big week of commerce be one of opting in and opting out. May your values as an artist and business owner stay in alignment with your values as an individual. May money flow toward you and away from you in the swirl of not knowing.

P.S. A part of my selling practice always includes redistribution. A portion of this month’s paid newsletter subscriptions goes to The Northwest Food Coalition and a portion of profits from Cody’s Big Week of Sales goes to

These are all imperfect acts in imperfect times, I’d love to know what your relationship with selling or consuming is like this week.

MY NEXT BOOK IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

→ The Practice of Attention : Cultivating Presence in a Distracted World (March 2026, St. Martin’s Essentials)

Pre Order Bonuses include : The Attention Audit Workbook and No Signal : A digital detox email course and workshop Jan 1-7 2026

THE PRACTICE OF ATTENTION

→ Offline Practice registration is open. Not sure you’re ready to jump in? Add yourself to the email reminders here. Dec 7, 14, and 21 with special guests, office hours, and more!

→ Cody’s Big Week of Sales starts today with 30% off classifieds : Click here to opt into the list to hear all about discounted classes, or click here for the website

→ December Online Pilates Mat Class Mondays in December • 3pm PT / 6pm ET • 60 minutes with Jessie Young : sliding scale $60-120 for all 5 classes • email jessiealexandra@gmail.com to sign up. Jessie is who opened the door of Pilates for me and totally changed my life! Cannot recommend enough.

→ Butch Is Not A Dirty Word’ Is at Risk — Help Us Protect It! This archive only becomes possible if they hit Milestone 3: $15K — help them preserve 10 years of butch history !!!

Want a calmer relationship to your menstrual cycle? A Guide to Reframing and Releasing PMDD is a neuro-affirming zine made just for you 📖OUTERLANDS - a film about addiction, chosen family & coming home to ourselves - comes to Prime Video/Apple TV on Wed 11/26. Watch the trailer for this award-winning indie & please help support LGBTQIA+ film!Clients can't hire you if they can't see you. Let's change that. Join Safe To Be Seen and bring your business out of hiding. Early Bird Enrollment ends November 30th.

Want to book a classified ad for next week? They’re 30% for the next 24 hrs Click here