Celebrity stylists are, you guessed it, stylists that style celebrities.  They’re the ones that have their own product lines, who travel first class to all their top-notch clients.  In many people’s eyes, they are the cream of the crop and are treated as such.

Platform artists are stylists who are on the cutting edge of trends and teach others everything they know.  For a price of course.  They charge you to attend their workshops or classes, promising that you’ll make more money if only you knew this new haircut, or this new weave technique. 

The over-priced stylist is the stylist that has the chicest salon in the most upscale area.  You’re treated to champagne, neck massages while you wait, and the chance to name drop to your friends that you belong to the best salon in town.  The prices are exorbitant, and your hair looks average, but you get bragging rights.

The run-of-the-mill hairstylist is your everyday stylist.  The one in strip centers, and neighborhoods.  Their salon may be average, but their work is the same, or better, than the celebrity stylist.  It has to be because she’s the one that has to update the celebrity stylist’s work and bring it to the everyday masses.  She works hard, because she has to support herself.  She has no time to offer fluff to her clients, she’s too busy trying to get them in and out.  She pleases her clients, but charges them fairly, and for this, they tip her well.  She’s hustled to get every one of her clients by either passing out business cards or by getting her clients to refer her more clients.  Either way, each client was hard-earned.  She’s not rich by any means, but she’s not broke either.  She’s comfortable.

Writers are the same.  You have the New York Times Bestsellers, the writers who teach and host workshops, the writers who have fancy book covers and fancy names that everyone gushes over, but the book is total fluff, and you have the mid-list writer. 

Mid-list writers have to work very hard for every reader they have.  And yet, they have a following, albeit a modest one, but people are reading their books.  They are making a simple living off what they sell.  Their life isn’t glamourous, in fact, most would prefer it that way. 

But some mid-listers keep looking at everyone else’s writing and wishing for once their name was on that best-seller list.  Or that their books could be gushed and fawned over.  Why do we do this to ourselves, this constant looking at everyone else and wishing we could be where they are instead of enjoying what we have now?  Most of us started out wanting to just have a book published.  We say, “If I could just have my name on the cover of a book, that would be so cool!  I would be so happy then!”

But then jealousy and envy creep in, and we start comparing ourselves to other writers, beating ourselves up that our book didn’t sell as well as theirs, that our book cover is not as jazzy as that other one, that we didn’t get a book tour like that one… And on and on we go, until we’re left wondering why did we want to do this in the first place?

Let go of the envy.  Everyone has their place in life and we all can’t be first.  I am thrilled that I got my book published.  And I know that I did the best that I could marketing and promoting my book, with the money and knowledge I had at the time.  When my second book is published I’ll do better.  That’s it. 

I don’t write to be number one.  I never have.  So what’s your sales rank?  Are you happy with it?  If you’re not, can you learn to be?