I wasn’t going to send out a Black Friday promotion in 2025. I had skipped the event in 2024 for the first time, and it actually felt…nice. Back then, the reasons were less than great: My business was falling apart, and I simply had bigger fish to fry. Like finding a job, for example.
When I explained those reasons to Blinkist, my promotion partner of choice for pretty much a decade, I heard…nothing. I sent emails to multiple of their staff, partially to inquire about a role with the company I had applied for. No one responded. That’s after I generated over $500,000 in revenue for them over the years, by the way. I did get the automatic rejection email for the job, though. So it goes.
To truly prove they were tone-deaf and not just busy, they did reach out to me about something else: Black Friday 2025. “Hey, wanna make us more money again and get a small cut?” Nope. No thanks. You can see why I was ready to skip everyone’s favorite sales event yet again.
But then I saw a small prompt on Gumroad, where I host my books and products: “Run a promotion, get featured!” It wasn’t a massive carrot dangled in front of my face. More like a tease: “Wanna join the fun?” I realized that, after a year of full-time work, removing most monetization from my websites, and focusing only on the creative work I wanted to do, I actually had nothing to sell except the stuff I had made myself. Stuff that I was proud of and would be glad to promote on any day, let alone Black Friday. So I did join the fun.
I told my subscribers the same story I just told you. And I gave people 30% off everything from a position of gratitude, happiness, and kindness rather than a scarcity mindset bent on getting the most out of a sales opportunity that only happens once a year. I set the coupon, sent the email, and went to bed. I think I made $700 or so. Just enough to cover that month’s bills for my business. It kind of made me happier than when I made $3,000 in years prior.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Black Friday, but I always thought it was cooler to be on the seller side than the buyer side on the world’s biggest consumerist event. I believe more people could, and should, experience it. But of course I also buy gadgets and deals if I need something. So technically, I’m simply on both sides of the equation. That feels like a balanced place to be.
Gap year notwithstanding, perhaps I’ll continue to promote stuff on Black Friday. It might just be for better reasons going forward. Life has a funny way of carrying those to you, you know? If you just keep doing, that is. Follow the path, and new reasons to stay on old roads will find you—and when they do, you’ll know you were never completely off track.
