There is a special kind of suffering that comes from making something good and then realizing the next quest is not “share it.”
It is marketing.
Apparently, being a writer, artist, creator, and small business owner is not enough. Now you must also become an advertiser, strategist, content goblin, trend scholar, video editor, algorithm translator, and part-time wizard of online visibility.
This is magic I have not mastered.
The Marketing Dungeon
Making the thing and advertising a small business online are not the same skill.
Making the thing is art. Yes, art that steals your time and life force and sometimes makes you scream into the void. Art.
Marketing the thing is crawling through a cursed dungeon built by platforms, ad demons, and people who say things like “optimize your funnel” with a straight face. It takes longer, is slower, and sucks away your soul.
You are told to:
- make content
- learn SEO
- run ads
- understand analytics
- build an audience
- be consistent
- show your face
- make videos
- spend money
- somehow remain alive
- talk other creators into selling for you
- pay gold for apps
- learn how to make websites
This is not one job. This is an ambush.
The Paid Ad Goblins Took My Gold
I have attempted to fight the monsters of paid advertising.
The results were deeply educational in the way being hit by a brick is educational.
I spent gold.
The ad goblins nodded.
They accepted my offering.
Then they disappeared into the fog and returned with approximately nothing.
Maybe a few clicks.
Maybe some vague activity.
Certainly no glorious victory.
Then they came back for more gold.
For a small creator or small business, this is one of the worst parts of online marketing: everything costs money, and many things act like they are helping while quietly eating your budget in a ditch.
The Online Demons Give No Quarter
The internet does not care that you are tired.
The algorithm does not say, “this creator seems sincere and under-resourced, perhaps we should help.”
No. The feed wants more.
More posts.
More consistency.
More experiments.
More money.
More time.More energy you were already using to keep your actual business from collapsing into a flaming sinkhole.
This is why marketing overwhelm is real.
You post something and then have to guess why it failed:
- bad timing
- weak hook
- wrong format
- bad platform mood
- cursed moon phase
- ad demon interference
Nobody knows.
Everything Costs Gold
This is another delightful feature of small business advertising.
Want better tools? Gold.
Want better reach? Gold.
Want email marketing? Gold.
Want video apps, design apps, website apps, SEO tools, scheduler tools, ad boosts, keyword tools, subscriptions, upgrades, and mildly enchanted features that should have been included in the first place? More gold.
It is amazing how quickly creator burnout starts to smell like monthly billing.
Maybe the Dungeon Is the Problem
A lot of creators assume that if marketing feels impossible, the flaw must be personal.
Maybe you are lazy.
Maybe you are inconsistent.
Maybe you are not confident enough.
Maybe you just need a better strategy, a better mindset, a better posting calendar, a better face, a better nervous system.
Or maybe this is simply a badly designed dungeon.
Maybe marketing feels hard for small creators because it is hard.
Maybe it is especially brutal if you are underfunded, tired, neurodivergent, introverted, or trying to learn everything while the internet screams twelve conflicting instructions at your head.
Maybe the problem is not that you are weak.
Maybe the problem is that the dungeon was built by maniacs.
Still Fighting
I am still in it.
Still making the posts.
Still learning the cursed runes of online marketing.
Still trying to keep my gold away from useless boosts and suspicious ad merchants.
Still dragging my strange little brand through the visibility swamp with whatever HP I have left.
Not because I enjoy this.
Because the work matters.
And if you are also trying to survive small creator marketing, paid ads that did nothing, online visibility, and the general blood sport of promoting your own work, I regret to inform you:
You are not imagining it.
The dungeon is real.
The ad goblins are greedy.
The online demons do not sleep.
But if you are still here, still making the thing, still trying, still crawling forward with one functioning spell slot and a half-burned torch?
That counts.
That is progress.
That is survival.
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