Author: Dan Blank

Two years ago, I introduced the model I use to help writers get clarity in their work, develop an audience, and launch their work in a meaningful way. It’s called The Creative Success Pyramid. Today I want to share an update to it, which I’ve spent three months working on.

This is it, you can click on the image to download a full-sized PDF:

It’s composed of five basic parts, you start at the bottom and work your way to the top:

1. Get radical creative clarity on what you create and why.
2. Build your platform to open pathways to your work.
3. Create and share with your authentic voice.
4. Connect with your ideal audience.
5. Launch and market your writing.

This methodology is meant to tie together the many disparate aspects of what it means to share your work and engage an audience. But what’s more: it is focused on finding a sense of personal fulfillment and creative growth in the process.

I’ve used this model for years, but a few months ago, I wanted to revisit it with fresh eyes as a part of my own creative reset. I took the pyramid apart piece by piece, and then built it back up again, keeping the following in mind:

• I stress tested every piece against the work I do every day with writers. This is the practical, in the trenches stuff that works, not high-minded theories that sound good on paper, but fall apart in real life.
• This may sound silly, but part way through the process, I realized the old pyramid wasn’t as elegant of a pyramid as it could have been. Compare the old (left) with the revised (right) :

Here is a 15 minute video walking you through the pyramid:

As you look at the first level of the pyramid, what questions do you have? Let me know.

Thanks!
-Dan

Today I would like to talk about two different ethos in marketing your writing. These are the underlying structures that drive how to approach getting people to know more about what you create, and consider engaging with you and your work. Let’s dig in…

The Excitement & Fear Marketing Spiral of Doom

Yep, that’s what I’ve started calling one type of marketing that I see all the time. Or just: The Marketing Spiral of Doom, for short. The kind that is constantly hyping up something to get you excited, or warning you of something dangerous.

The Marketing Spiral of Doom is basically trying to get people to become emotionally engaged by either:

• Encouraging excitement or even celebration
• Encouraging fear. Often, this is based on logic and wanting to be super smart by avoiding something.

I mean, that sounds fine, right? Celebration? Fearing things that are logical to fear? And it is. I see people use marketing like this all the time, and they are good people, with good intentions, trying to help.

What does that look like for authors? Articles, podcasts, courses, products, services with headlines like:

• “The hottest new trend to finally get an agent to read your work!”
• “Did you know that Amazon made this small change behind the scenes, and only savvy authors are taking advantage of it?”
• “I talked to 100 bestselling authors and uncovered a remarkable 3-part system that made their books fly off the shelves.”
• “These are the 5 biggest mistakes authors make with marketing. Number 3 will cost you years of your time, and could even be embarrassing.”
• “Email newsletters are the best way to sell more books! Also: email newsletters are dead!”

The connection point with all of these randomly made up examples are to always make the reader feel that they are on the cusp of missing out on something. This has writers ping-ponging between:

“OMG! Look at this great thing! I don’t want to miss out! I’m so smart and savvy by being a part of this. Yay!”

vs

“Ack! Something is potentially dangerous, and could cost me time or money down the road. I must take preventative action now! And spend hours and hours and hours researching it to make sure I get it right. Whew, I’m smart and logical for worrying about this.”

Now, there is no doubt that this kind of marketing can be very effective. It can even be fun — people enjoy getting excited, or being alerted to trends, or worrying about avoiding mistakes.

But… I don’t love this style of marketing. I know so many writers feel pressure to market this way; to fill their feeds with hype of celebration or fear, even when neither resonates with who they truly are. They don’t like the idea of everything having to be dramatic, or what they write to be optimized for the most social media ‘likes.’ Instead of looking forward to releasing their books, they resist it. They assume it means they have to become a carnival barker.

Much of the Marketing Spiral of Doom relies in this concept of “fear of missing out,” or FOMO. It’s this idea that you don’t want to be a fool by missing out on a hot new trend or opportunity, nor do you want to make an obvious mistake that you could avoid. That’s why I said I see this type of marketing all the time, and why the people who use it are often genuinely trying to help others. There is nothing wrong with that. Use elements of the Marketing Spiral of Doom if you like. But, as I said, I don’t really love this kind of marketing. Let’s explore an alternative…

The Daily Work of Human-Centered Marketing

So I spend every day working with writers on marketing, and have done so full-time for 10 years. I’ve come to call my process Human-Centered Marketing, and it consists of:

• The practical side of marketing focused on authentically sharing who you are and what you create, and forging meaningful connections to like-minded people
• Sustainable practices that can be done either in a big time sensitive launch, or in tiny actions each week that slowly builds up.

What’s more, I have found that this work feels personally fulfilling. To spend one’s time in how they connect their writing to readers to be filled with moments that matter, a sense of creativity and expression, and as though your work is truly resonating with others.

To me, this kind of marketing doesn’t rely on little “tricks” to encourage extreme emotions in those you want to reach. Instead, it is about the fulfillment of what many writers and readers look for: how writing brings us closer to what we dream of for ourselves and the world.

What does Human-Centered Marketing look like? I’ve shared some case studies for the work I’ve done with different authors:

• A book marketing case study, with Amanda Montell
• An author platform case study, with Judith Fetterley
• A book launch case study, with Leigh Stein
• Growing an engaged social media following, with Alison Taylor-Brown
• What to do 8 months before a book launch, with Pamela Toler
• A season of book launches for 3 authors: KJ Dell’Antonia, Sarah Hays Coomer, and Nicky Mendenhall

Now, of course this can include excitement and fear if you like. Human-Centered Marketing need not be boring. But, it also can be boring if you like. Working from home with my family around me this past year, I’ve often looked at the marketing work I’ve been doing as a “lovely boring daily task.” It includes:

• Outreach: sending an email to one person. I think of it more like traditional letter writing.
• Reading: focusing on the work that truly inspires me to learn more about the market, to become inspired, and to then identify how I can support these creators.
• Helping: making it a habit to consider what supports the creators I’m inspired by, and trying to help people learn about their work.
• Honing: my own craft. This means doing less and less variety of tasks so that I can focus my energy on the deep work that matters most.

Then, I take a tiny action each day to do this. I literally have a recurring calendar item each day for this. Some days, I spend a half hour on developing a bigger marketing idea. But many days, I send a simple email, then move on to the rest of my day.

Small steps, each day.

Too often writers hesitate to do any marketing for their work. But what if you took a tiny action each day or week? Something that felt iterative and meaningful? What if, over time, it really added up? That is the most basic way to do Human-Centered Marketing. It, of course, can be scaled up to big promotions, which what I do what many writers I work with.

I’ll be sharing more practical parts of the human-centered marketing process in the coming weeks here in the newsletter. In the meantime, please consider checking out some of the advice I share over on Instagram.

Thanks!
-Dan

As a writer, how do you put creativity first in your life, and ensure your platform as a writer is infused with inspiring and meaningful connections to others? That is what I want to explore today. I want to share personal examples of how I have been trying to do this, and share how I have been going through my own social media reset.

My 10 year old son has been learning how to do animation on his computer. The other day he was showing me an animation he liked, and as I left his room, I called back, “Don’t forget to create.” It was my reminder to him that while it is great to get inspired by the animations of others, to see useful examples, and support his peers, that he shouldn’t spend the whole day doing that. He should work on his own creations as well.

So many adults have a challenge with this too. It is too easy to just keep reading the work of others, to just keep scrolling at amazing art on Instagram, or watch videos, or listen to music, or so much else. To consume consume consume because, my goodness, don’t we deserve a break from all of our daily responsibilities?

But if you are reading this, you are likely a writer. Or an artist. Or a creator of some sort. You have made the choice to make your creative vision a priority in your life. For some of you, it is a very part-time hobby. For others, it is a full-time career. And for all of you, you are doing it amidst a cacophony of responsibilities that have only gotten more complicated with the pandemic.

If you want to grow as a writer and reach more people, I want to encourage you to focus your intention on:

1. Making creative work a priority, and being sure to reserve some time and energy to create each week.
2. Connecting with like-minded people who appreciate the kind of writing that you do. To be intentional about reaching your ideal audience and building meaningful professional relationships with colleagues.

As my family approaches a year of being home together for school, work, and all of life, there has been one constant: creating.

While opportunities slipped away amidst lockdown, we tried to be mindful to replace them with creative energy. My 10 year old gave up taekwondo and in-person piano lessons. He instead put that creative energy into learning how to code, how to using digital illustration tools, and more recently, how to animate. He’s created dozens of games and illustrations and shared them online.

My wife has never been more driven to create than this past year. She has always been an artist with a rigorous work ethic, but this year she has been in overdrive.She decided to master the art of watercolor painting, and I’ve seen her day by day, month by month, churn out painting after painting. Watching her progress has been astounding. She also learned how to make clothes. I’ve watched her go from one homemade clothing project to the next, mastering various aspects. Each week, more fabric and vintage buttons arrive in the mail. So. Many. Vintage. Buttons.

For myself, even though I have put aside some creative projects temporarily (such as finishing writing my next book), I have ensured creativity has stayed central to my weeks. This has mostly been through music, playing guitar and dabbling with my synthesizer and digital music.

This same kind of creative intention can also apply to how we connect with others around our work. This past year, I have been working on a social media reset. I joined Twitter in January of 2008, Facebook a couple years after that, and Instagram a few years later.

What am I optimizing for with the reset? A feeling of connection with those I follow. To open up Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and feel a sense of caring about what each person shares. To be quick to engage with them with a like, a comment, a DM.

This reset felt necessary because for awhile, opening up social media felt like being on the receiving end of a firehose. Over the years, I would follow people one at a time. But before I knew it, I was following more than 1,000 people on Twitter, and nearly as many on Instagram.

As I looked through my feed, there were names and faces I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t remember who they were, why I followed them, or when I started. Invariably it may have been because 7 years ago I was researching a conference, and followed some of the speakers. Or perhaps I met them briefly at an event. Or I liked what they shared on a random day in 2014.

I began imaging a reset. What if I only followed a few people who inspire me in some way. What if my feed was short, and where nearly every post was something I wanted to leave a comment on or click “like” to? What if this allowed me to support these creators with greater depth, instead of an infinite scroll?

To optimize my social media for a feeling of deep connection, I had to do something I have resisted for years: unfollow people. In some ways, this has been an arduous process.

So much of being on social media is about wanting to be liked. To hope that others care about what you share, and that in the process, you get to validate the work of others. To unfollow someone feels like the antithesis of all of these things.

As I considered this, I looked around at others. Hmmm. Brené Brown has 3.3 million followers on Instagram, yet she only follows 537 accounts. Brit Bennet has 28,000 followers, and only follows 427 people. Alyne Tamir has 328,000 followers and only follows 337 people. Maybe it was okay to follow fewer people so that I can engage more.

So, I started unfollowing people. This was so difficult. I’ve spent months on this process, slowly unfollowing people in small batches. I started first with big brand accounts. Then to people who didn’t seem to update at all. Then to people whose I couldn’t remember why I followed them.

But then, it got more difficult. People who I recognized and knew and liked. Now, this doesn’t mean they aren’t wonderful people, sharing great stuff! They are.

I kept reminding myself of my goal: to fill my days with a deep sense of connection. And I can’t do that following 1,000 people. Too often, I scroll through Instagram or Twitter and don’t click “like” or leave a comment because there is simply too much to engage with. I want that to change.

With each person, I worried that the moment I clicked “unfollow” that they would be alerted to it. They would be offended by it. Deeply. That they would feel attacked or dismissed. That they would wonder what they did to cause such an extreme action. They would reconsider why they liked me, and my intentions. They would talk badly about me.

As I went through this process, again and again something funny would happen. I would hesitate over the “unfollow” button, with all of my fears, then click it. Then I would realize, “Oh, they don’t even follow me.” That didn’t bother me. Instead it was a reminder that while I was worried they would be offended that I chose to unfollow them, they were already being intentional about where they put their own focus and intention. They can’t follow everyone either. That was very freeing.

This process of unfollowing got more complicated as I unfollowed more people. Choosing to unfollow them is not to meant to remove them from my life, but simply to not clutter my feed. I kept reminding myself that social media is not reality. These relationships and connections do not solely exist on a social network.

Doing it in batches helped. If I just unfollowed one person, I feared it would look like I was targeting them. But if I unfollowed 10 at a time, it was a reminder that none of this was personal.

This is one of the strange ways that social media can come to feel suffocating. When you feel you have no control over your experience of it. But for me to fill my day with creative intention, then I need be able to choose my focus. This social media reset is not a rejection of anything, it is quite the opposite. I want my connection to others to be filled with intention. With energy. With more direct engagement, and less obligation. To open a social network and have it feel calm, manageable, and inspiring.

I’m curious: have you felt the need for more intention in putting creativity first, or connecting with others with more intention? If so, tell me about why this is challenging for you, or solutions you have found that are working.

Thanks!
-Dan