Author: admin

That’s right.

One decision.

The decision that moves the needle forward in whatever it is you’re pursuing.

I was asked last year what it mean to me, when it came to being an artist. Now that can be a complex answer in itself. Except for me now, it’s about being able to do the type of work I love, while sharing and inspiring others to also do the same things in their lives.

You might read my emails purely for entertainment or to know that there’s someone in your corner on the days you don’t feel like existing.

Or you might read my emails in hopes of following along in your own creative pursuits to do the same.

Being able to make a bit of $ while doing art, or even turning it in to your full time gig has always been dream for a lot of us.

So I’ll let you in on the little secret they keep holding from you and it’s not really a secret, but you’ll be like “duh, why the hell didn’t I think of that in the first place???”

It’s starting. That super simple decision of just starting.

It only takes one of those moments to get the ball rolling. Yes there’s a lot of little mechanical things (That are learnable) that goes in to building a super simple system to generate a few $, but the first decision is just about doing.

You can do it. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t.

Writing, selling prints or Mongolian throat singing…

Create some work. Share the work and get people in to your world. It’s that easy. When they’re in your world give them the opportunity to buy something from you.

Prime example is fellow artist and good dude Stephen Holder Art

Now what Stephen does is what he’s learnt from another buddy of mine, which in essence is just pure old direct response marketing.

Give people the opportunity to buy something at a very low cost, to get them in to his world (aka email list) in this case. Just super cool micro prints for $5 which covers the postage.

He also gives them the chance to upscale and get bigger prints framed or not. Either way, you’ve paid a few bucks to get some really cool stuff. If you bought the upsells even better for him and for you.

Now that you’re on his list. He will do what I do and that is mail the list as often as he can with his day to day goings on. Then also give people the option to buy original work or massive scale pieces. Which in turn when they do, they become collectors of his work.

This is all fairly simple to do, but it all starts with the decision of just starting and figuring it out as you go.

TL;DR version:

Decide to start today

Make some content and pick a platform or two to go all in on

Get people on to your list

Give them the opportunity to buy

When they buy, give them something else to buy

Be a good human

Share stuff to your list about you and the things you enjoy

Rinse and repeat…

You can do it.

Start today.

Stephen Walker.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

Been binge watching the Fallout series and there’s this scene that made me pause mid bite of my sandwich.

I mean it was a damn good sandwich and I rarely stop when I get going…

Ella Purnell’s character Lucy.

This impossibly optimistic vault dweller…

…emerges from her underground paradise into the wasteland above. She’s been raised on corporate propaganda about how Vault-Tec saved humanity, how they’re the good guys, how everything they did was for the greater good.

Then she discovers the truth.

Vault-Tec didn’t just profit from the nuclear apocalypse (I mean of course they did lol – the videogame was pretty epic tbh)

They clearly helped cause it. They sold people safety while engineering the very disaster they claimed to protect against.

This is direct response copywriting in its purest, most terrifying form.

Think about it. Vault-Tec identified a deep human fear (nuclear annihilation), positioned themselves as the solution (underground safety), created scarcity (limited vault spaces), and drove people to take immediate action (buy now or die horribly)

Direct response 101.

Classic direct response framework. Problem, agitation, solution, urgency.

Except they were literally creating the problem they were selling the solution to.

Now before you think I’m about to launch into some ethical copywriting sermon.

I’m not.

I’m not gonna do the dance between good versus evil. I mean we’re adults. I’m sure we can think about this logically.

This is about understanding the raw psychological power of what we do.

Every piece of effective copy manipulates emotion to drive action.

The question isn’t whether you’re influencing people. Clearly you are to a degree.

The question is whether you’re using that influence to genuinely help them or just to help yourself.

Vault-Tec’s copywriters were probably the best in the business. They convinced people to abandon everything they knew for the promise of safety. They made underground bunkers seem desirable. They turned fear into profit with surgical precision.

They understood something most marketers miss.

People don’t buy products. They buy feelings. Safety, status, hope, relief, excitement, belonging…

You might think the vault dwellers were buying real estate. Except they were buying peace of mind.

The promise that someone smarter than them had thought through all the scary possibilities and created a solution.

Sound familiar?

Every successful product launch, every high converting sales page, every email that drives action is tapping into the same psychological triggers Vault-Tec used. We identify pain points, amplify the consequences of inaction, then present our solution as the obvious path to relief.

Pretty boring if you look at it from this point of view, but we’re humans and this is how we operate on a biologically and fundamental level.

If you’re selling weight loss programs that don’t work, you’re Vault-Tec. If you’re selling business courses filled with outdated tactics, you’re Vault-Tec. If you’re promising results you can’t deliver just to make the sale, you’re fucking Vault-Tec.

Then you’re just using powerful tools for good instead of evil.

The techniques work either way. The psychology is the same whether you’re saving people or screwing them. The only difference is your intention and your delivery.

Lucy’s vault kept her safe for 200 years. The problem wasn’t the marketing. It was that Vault-Tec had ulterior motives they never disclosed.

Your copy can be just as persuasive without hiding the true agenda.

If you look around the online space right now from any of the creative industries you might be in. AI is being hyped and oversold and told it’s gonna take our jerrrbs.

It’s not.

Don’t let Vault-Tec mess with your head.

If you got good stuff. Write well. Give people the information they need and give them the opportunity to buy.

It really is that simple.

Fallout is streaming on amazon prime right now but go check out the IMDB page if you reckon that’s something you can get behind. I know I’m gonna finish off the last few episodes tomorrow cause it’s my birthday and I’m getting caked and coffee and doing nothing but being a lazy couch potato or whatever.

Stephen Walker.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

‘Tis my Birthday.

I’ve survived another year.

As I’ve gotten older I just have a grateful appreciation to still be here on this earth.

Today has been a day of laziness.

I waited for a few books to arrive. A nice meal to be had.

And a little later I’ll be watching The Thursday Murder Club

Maybe I’ll do a list of things equal to the number of years I’ve been alive, which tie into what people would consider life lessons…

But for now though. I’m off.

And everyone who has wished my a happy birthday. I appreciate you. You’re amazing.

Stephen Walker.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

Sometimes the best productivity hacks come from pure accident and desperation.

Just over 12 months ago, I did something spectacularly stupid.

Closed my MacBook lid down on the charger cable. You know that satisfying click when the laptop shuts? Yeah, that turned into an expensive crunch as the screen cracked like a spider web.

Fuck.

So there I am, staring at my dead MacBook, knowing I need to keep writing but refusing to drop another two grand on a replacement.

I grab this shitty Samsung laptop from Amazon.

You just know it’s gonna be ass but hey. I’ll wait for the new M chips to land before grabbing a new MacBook.

I decide this piece of plastic garbage is going to have one job and one job only: writing. No social media. No YouTube. No seventeen browser tabs full of “research” that’s really just procrastination in disguise.

Then I do something that sounds completely insane.

I set the entire display to black and white.

No colours. No visual candy. No bright red notification badges screaming for attention.

Just words on a monochrome screen.

And holy shit, my writing productivity exploded.

Could be placebo.

Could be the fact that this laptop runs so slow that opening Chrome would probably cause it to have its own existential crisis.

Could be that black and white makes everything look serious and focused.

Don’t know. Don’t care.

What I know is that when your screen looks like a typewriter from 1952.

You stop getting distracted by shiny objects and start focusing on the only thing that matters.

Which believe it or not, as a writer means putting words on the page or a really shitty quality screen.

Just text. Black text on white background. Like writing was meant to be.

Your brain stops looking for visual entertainment and starts looking for intellectual engagement.

The quality of my copy has gone up because I’m not constantly context switching between writing and whatever dopamine hit is waiting in the next tab.

Try it. Set your laptop or phone to grayscale mode for a week. Watch how much less appealing everything becomes when it’s not designed to hijack your attention with colours that trigger your primitive lizard brain.

You might write better. You might focus longer. You might actually finish the thing you started instead of getting lost in a Wikipedia rabbit hole about 18th century farming techniques or underwater basket weaving.

Or you might think I’m completely full of shit.

Either way, let me know how it goes.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. If you curious about how horrible the writing horse is. This is it right here.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

Something was definitely in the water this morning.

I wake up, grab my coffee, make the classic mistake of checking Facebook while my brain’s still soft and undefended.

Big fucking error.

It’s like I stepped into some alternate dimension where everyone decided today was the day to settle scores and flex their intellectual superiority. People dunking on each other left and right. Everyone trying to out clever, out moralise, out everything each other in the comments.

The energy was so toxic I could practically taste it through the screen.

Wild thing was…

I almost got sucked in. I was about to type a response to some bullshit that wouldn’t matter tomorrow or next week.

Then I caught myself.

What the hell was I doing?

This is exactly how they get you. You scroll past three reasonable posts, then boom…

Someone says something that makes your blood pressure spike, and suddenly you’re ready to engage in digital combat with strangers who probably agree with you 80% of the time but are arguing about the 20% like it’s life or death.

Social media turns everyone into their worst selves. Reasonable people become keyboard warriors. Thoughtful individuals become reactive assholes. Everyone’s performing their outrage for an audience that’s performing their outrage right back.

A dude who I liked in my space has also unfriended me cause I posted a meme he didn’t agree with, AFTER he decided to tell me about what country I’m IN and can’t comment on other countries cause I don’t live there (Even though I have got friends and family that live there) Yes, very sad. Anyway…

So I did the only sensible thing I could’ve done that day.

I yeeted myself right off that platform before I could get dragged into the mud.

The algorithm feeds on conflict. Every angry reaction and the like.

Na, today I just wanted to chill.

I wasn’t about the digital self harm for the day.

It’s also weird that when you log off of those places for the day. That your mental health and productivity seem to shoot up massively. Who woulda thought?

Social media doesn’t have to be your whole personality.

The ones who are chronically online, genuinely need to go touch some grass and read a good book.

On that note of staying off of social media for the day. I’m gonna go carry on watching this gem of a series.

Stephen Walker.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

As promised.

I’ve always said I’m going to do some more quick audio snippets.

So here’s the next short little ramble. It’s more about my process and how you can use it too if you’re interested.

Go here if you wanna listen https://stphnwlkr.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/prolificnessness.mp3

If not.

The regularly scheduled emails will continue tomorrow.

I’m heading out yet again to go enjoy the last few hours of this hot weather before we get rain tomorrow again probably…

Stephen Walker.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

John Kennedy Toole put a bullet in his brain in 1969.

Thought his manuscript was garbage.

Thought the world didn’t want to hear about Ignatius J. Reilly…

This sweating, farting, medieval philosophy obsessed manchild who rails against modern society from his masturbation stained bedsheets in New Orleans.

(The rejection letters piled up)

His mother, god bless her stubborn Southern soul.

She dragged that manuscript around for eleven years.

Practically holds a gun to Walker Percy’s head until he reads it.

And then? Pulitzer Prize…

Imagine someone today getting their sanitizing hands on Ignatius. This walking dumpster fire of toxic masculinity, casual racism, and weapons grade narcissism.

Imagine them trying to make him palatable.

You know what you get?

Nothing. A corpse dressed in Sunday clothes. A vampire with its fangs filed down to nubs.

Cause this is what’s happening in the literary world with all of these types of book burner folk. The ones who are trying to wipe away great work and not allowing people to read, understand and see how the world really works.

Books aren’t instruction manuals for living. They delve deep into the human condition.

Like in medicine. You sometimes need to see the disease to find and understand the cure.

Ignatius works BECAUSE he’s a monster. Not the fun kind with tentacles and teeth, the real kind. The kind you’ve met. The kind posting conspiracy theories on Facebook. The kind living in their parent’s basement at 35, blaming everyone else for their failures.

You’re supposed to recognise him.

But no. There come the protectors. The saviours. They’re the types of people who think you’re too fragile. Or maybe too stupid. Hell, too impressionable to handle what really goes on down the darker sides of humanity.

If censorship was a hammer they’d be swinging it all of the damn show.

Take Huckleberry Finn as example. Gets yanked from schools faster than you can say “that word makes me uncomfortable.” But strip out the racial language and you strip out the entire point. That’s a book about a kid unlearning his programming. About choosing humanity over society’s rules.

Anyways. The main point of this email is to just read the hard books. The ones that might make you wince.

If they’re banning it. It’s for good reason.

If you truly want to understand people. Those works will unravel everything at a visceral level for you.

Here’s a silly long link again that’ll take you to grab the book if you want it.

Stephen Walker.

If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe

Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom