Five years ago, if I had said I was switching career objectives from becoming a published novelist to selling jars of my farts on the internet, you would have thought I was crazy.

Browsing through hand-blown glass jars, sealed with wax and cork, in temperature-controlled cellars at my sun-dappled Hudson farterie, you may be wondering if this is some sort of writer’s retreat. My passion for storytelling has not wavered—I’ve merely transferred it to a radically different medium.

Not long ago, after another day squandered working on my novel, I stumbled across an article about a woman who wound up in the hospital with a gastrointestinal condition after selling up to fifty farts per week. I thought, “Fifty farts per week?… That’s nothing!” I had failed to see the lucrative side hustle right under my nose.

At first, selling my farts online was just a way to support my dreams. Like most, I started in my spare time. Still, I was skeptical—here was a high-growth potential market, but could I turn this into a career?

As a responsible storyteller, I always ask myself, “Why am I the best person to tell this story?” When the universe manifested tens of thousands in profits within months of setting up my fart cannery, yet no money for the manuscript I took ten years to write, something inside of me shifted. People are craving a universal language. Now, I’m controlling the narrative—controlling the narrative with my farts.

… But it wasn’t enough to make money. I found myself thinking, “How can I improve this product?” Transferring a fart into a jar without diluting it is no easy task. So I engineered a proprietary fart-jarring method, and then an online course.

Not all manufacturers are honest. Big businesses like Amazon are peddling candles, air fresheners, and sprays laden with chemicals from ersatz boutique farteries. Others source their product from illegal fart mills.

Be it intellectual theft or a recession, my repeat clients keep me going when I face challenges. I reward their loyalty with fee waivers, subscription discounts, and influencer giveaways. Jarts are an ephemeral symbol of the avant-garde, worn as earrings and pendants at fashion week.

… But I didn’t break into the mainstream to be a passing trend. A fart in a jar can stay in the family for generations. Since retiring early on Fartcoin cryptocurrency, my greatest privilege is being able to give back.

When baroque fell out of fashion, J. S. Bach never stopped making sweet music, nor will I. Luscious Extracts, Farthäus, Potento Unicorn Fart Dye… these are just a few of the thriving start-ups founded by my former students and mentees. Together, we patented a home fart brewery kit, available at Bed Bath & Beyond.

Behold, the crown jewel of my research: a multi-shot aerial fart. Until now, it has never been jarred.

With each fresh fart I jar, I want this thing I’ve built to come from within. We’re the first to achieve a negative-carbon business model. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fartrepeneur still lingers on the business self-help best-seller list, inspiring future industry disruptors.

One jar of farts at a time, I bypass divisive literary themes and focus on what unites us. When you adjust to the market, rather than expect people to buy something they don’t want—like my self-published coming-of-age memoir that took ten years to write, with nothing to show for it but disgrace, ostracism, and a possible tax audit for mentioning cash wages from my after-school job—you build sales.

… And business is exploding. I churn out sixty units per day and discuss redefining success on my weekly fartcast. In this case, success means farting into a jar and selling it—on my terms.

Being profitable in a career I love may tempt others to do it for the wrong reasons, but consumers can smell the fakes.

Not to get political, but society punishes women for farting almost as much as it punishes us for writing. Maya Angelou bent to the patriarchy when she edited out the farts. Gloria Steinem went undercover at Playboy magazine to expose their practices, yet avoided the true controversy at the center of it all: the farts that happened but were never talked about.

Centuries from now, it will be the jars of our farts that give anthropologists clues to daily life. One moment of human integrity, captured forever, until you open up that hand-jarred fart and set it free. Is it free, or is it merely corrupted? Such is the question we have asked since our exodus from Eden.

Now that’s literary. I could put that in a jar and sell it. I don’t—not because I can’t, but because books are poop, which I cover in my next course, “Party Pooper: How I Changed the Publishing Game by Selling Jars of My Poop Online.”