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Failing to Market The Autistic Me

Last updated on November 26, 2023

“You need to sell yourself as The Autistic Me,” is a refrain colleagues and blog followers have offered throughout the years. I’ve heard this after public speaking engagements and conference appearances. “Market your autistic experiences and expertise.” 

Though I do not wish to go on tour selling myself as an expert on autistic life, I do consider myself a minor expert on me. That’s really not a marketable proposition, I realize, and this narrow field of autistic expertise has limited commercial value. 

The reality of the job market with the extra challenges of my autistic traits is a common topic on this blog. It is a reality many autistic adults face. We want to do what we trained to do, we want to be more than autistic employees: we want to be writers, scientists, artists, and teachers. We want to be what we are good at doing and what we enjoy.

Autistic is not a career. Overall, autism isn’t how I want to pay my bills and contribute to our household.

Yes, I know there are people earning some income off the trendiness of autism over the last two decades. There are the memoirs, the speaking tours, and so on. Plus, there are the non-autistic parents, doctors, therapists, educators selling autism advice. And the hucksters. We cannot forget the charlatans selling to an autism marketplace.

I only have what I’ve experienced. This blog has a few thousand readers. We have almost a thousand followers on Facebook. Maybe a thousand people follow my Twitter feed. A couple of dozen paid for the book I need to update (working on it, I promise).

However, reality is what it is, and I need to do more to market this blog. The image for this post is my basement office — a dimly lit space in which I have a great many books and my computer desks (three of them) at which I work. You’ll notice the podcasting gear is ready for use. The blog will start in a week or two (January 2018) and I’m making a best effort to increase the frequency and value of blog posts. 

Again, I remind you to follow this blog and our social media feeds. Join us on Facebook to offer new ideas for topics. Tell me what topics are valuable.

To a more stable and secure new year. For everyone.

 

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