Chad Sanders is a writer, podcast host, and creator. In his latest book, How to Sell Out: The (Hidden) Cost of Being a Black Writer, Chad brings deep vulnerability, honesty, and humor to a collection of essays that reflect on personal experiences from his career. He is also the author of Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned From Trauma and Triumph and the children’s book The Quest Cousins Go Camping. In addition to hosting the Yearbook podcast on The Armchair Expert Network and the Audible Originals podcast, Direct Deposit, Chad is building Hacking Hollywood, an online community to help outsiders build creative careers through modern and unconventional means.
Chad in New York City, where he’s lived for 14 years; photography by Tim Atakora.
The cover of Chad’s latest book, How to Sell Out: The (Hidden) Cost of Being a Black Writer; photography courtesy of Chad Sanders.
Your book, How to Sell Out, is an exploration of your journey in the media industry as a Black writer. How did you balance leaning into vulnerability while also protecting certain parts of yourself while writing the book?
I don’t think I balanced very much in that way in this book. I made a decision before writing this book that it would be my last entry in raw race-related writing for a while. That was a decision to protect myself from the painful experience of unearthing race-related trauma for profit. Once that decision was made, the next decision was to offer the audience, and the subject matter, as much as I could in that area so I could feel like closure after this book. I wanted to feel I had made a full contribution into the complex story of selling my Blackness for money so I could move on to the next story I have to tell without regret. I owed that to the book’s audience. I owed that to myself. So besides protecting family members and some names from people in my past, I think I leaned pretty hard into vulnerability. I enjoy doing the job of storytelling that way.
You navigate the theme of fitting in through personal stories. How have these experiences shaped your view of belonging and connection over time?
Fitting in hurts. For me, it usually requires emotional and spiritual shapeshifting that eventually injures my body and my voice. Sometimes it happens to me by reflex in an effort to find belonging in a tribe. Google. The tech industry. Social groups. Hollywood. New York. A society dictated by white culture. But when I squeeze myself to fit in, I leave so much of me that I love at the door. For instance, the joy that I have about living, my softness, my humor, the genuine belief and curiosity I have in others. Those are the real parts of me that connect, and they’re often the first parts to go when I’m trying to make myself fit into a paradigm or role that isn’t built for me.
I realized while writing this book that I have a voice for the exciting unknown in front of me and inside me, and I want to learn more about that voice.
What do you think is the most challenging part of creating from a place of authenticity?
There’s a natural connection between the brain, body, and spirit. Usually my most inspired ideas or creations start out with a strong feeling in the body. But my reaction time between feeling and expression was slowed down, almost deadened, by the process of assimilation for survival. For that reason, often my brain leads the creative process, when it should really be the last filter. There’s that scary thought that what I feel won’t be enough or may be too much for people to connect to, so it starts to water down the feeling that inspired me in the first place. I have to stay vigilant to let go of that sort of dilution. Here’s an example: when something feels exciting, the most potent way to share that is usually with a noise, or a short phrase. “Wow!” “Ouch!” “Yabadabadoo!” The brain should be there to explain where the feeling came from and why it occurred. But sometimes thought interrupts to try to control the message. I try to avoid that when I can, remove the blockages, so my heart can reach another heart.
What’s something you discovered about yourself that you didn’t expect during the process of crafting the book?
I realized that there’s an important challenge for me in writing about joy. I think I learned somewhere that it’s okay, even glamorous, to write about pain, disappointment, addiction, brokenness. I learned in those same places — church, school, office buildings — that to express excitement or happiness just as acutely can make me a target or an alien as a Black man. (I’m making a promise to myself now that this will be the last time I use the phrase “as a Black man” in this interview. It’s overused marketing in the race trauma industrial complex). I realized while writing this book that I have a voice for the exciting unknown in front of me and inside me, and I want to learn more about that voice.
“This is my old Google badge before I decided to go see what was out there for Chad the person (versus Chad the Human Resource),” says Chad; photography courtesy of Chad Sanders.
“This is me feeling happy after I spoke on NPR’s Weekend Edition,” says Chad; photography by Tim Atakora.
What are you excited about for the future, whether it’s creatively, personally, or in the industry?
I’ve given so much value to corporations by selling them my stories on enormous discounts. I have the creative ability to inspire people. I have the enterprising talent and marketing ability to build a connection to audiences directly. Every day, every hour, every minute I feel energized to build my connection to people directly, without draining myself for corporations. I’m obsessed. And as I learn, I’m going to tell the story so others can do the same. The age of creative people owning their own relationship to audiences is here and I’m a leader in that movement. I’m thrilled.
Thank you to my sister, Shannon Sanders, who is an author of fiction novels and short stories. She taught me to love reading, writing, and books.
