This morning I’m lighting a candle for all the projects that begin with a half-sentence in a notes app, a stack of sketches on the counter, a voice memo too shy to finish.
Witnessing Practice begins today — a three-hour class on shaping the things you already notice into something more tangible. A zine. A booklet. A website. A PDF. A practice.
I’ve been self-publishing for over a decade in many shapes and forms. Here’s a little of what that’s looked like:
◎ The Art Of — a zine that began as a column in GR Screamer, chronicling my early sobriety
◎ Feel Better — A risograph zine/postcard collection made with the help of George Weitor of Issue Press
◎ how a photo and video-sharing social networking service gave me my best friends, true love, a beautiful career, and made me want to die : a zine about my social media addiction written EIGHT years ago (it's a journey people)
◎ Have Company Issues 1 & 2 — small zines about domesticity and care
◎ How to Not Always Be Working —I wrote the first version TEN YEARS AGO (!!!) as a ten page zine in the back of Have Company. I taught a class at Case for Making in San Francisco and left a single copy behind. A book agent picked it up, tweeted about it, and I emailed her. That zine became a book — and that book has now sold over 40,000 copies and was a bestseller at Powell's and Skylight.
◎ Personal Practice — a dance documentation project on Instagram
◎ A Sacred Shift — a catalogue of said dance documentation project that was then featured in The New York Times, Dance Magazine, and Vanity Fair
◎ Look About You — a pocket-sized book of 366 daily prayers
◎ Friendship Village Radio Show → became Friendship Village (the book)
◎ Public Access Pilates — a single-page Cargo site documenting my movement practice
◎ The Quilt As Archive — a zine created alongside my first solo show
◎ The Practice of Attention Website— a holding place website for my upcoming book
◎ Other Self-Produced projects include : The Have Company Residency and Podcast, Common Shapes Podcast, Center Residency, Window Place Residency and probably other things I am forgetting :) Stickers, hats, etc :)
All of the above projects had $0 to EXTREMELY limited budgets or I worked with a pre-order or crowd funding model - investing in yourself today is a huge win, I wish I would have had a class like this when I was getting started with these projects.
Another thing that is vry fun - building a team of collaborators.
OK ALSO NOT TO BE A CHAOTIC GEMINI IN THIS FINAL SALES EMAIL BUT - CLASS IS GOING TO BE SO FUN!!!!!!!!
Today I’ll show you how I made these things, and how you might begin to make your own.
❁ Class is TODAY July 19 from 12–3pm EST / 9am–12pm PST
$55 or two payments of $27.50
☽ It’s recorded if you can’t make it live
If you’ve been carrying an idea without knowing where to place it, this is a space to begin.
Warmly,
Cody
P.S. I am around this morning from 10:30 am-11:30 am EST if you have any last-minute questions or requests for class! - Just respond to this email!
P.P.S Thank you for riding the wave of a
Cody launch week - if you opened these sales emails I trust you were interested in either - this class, learning more about how I write sales emails, or you just like reading what I say. I don't take real estate in your inbox lightly so it means a lot when you jump in with me! If you are a paying subscriber to
Monday Monday you'll hear more about the behind the scenes of the launch of this class - and how over 130 people signed up without social media!
Also - bring your notebooks and journals you've been working with recently to class, we're going to search them for ideas <3