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Many writers and artists who consider how others will find their work look to the common channels: social media, email newsletters, and the like. But right away, they are confronted with challenges: “Um what do I share? And how often do I have to do that? And why will anyone care? And… shouldn’t I be just writing my next book instead of worrying about all this?”

So today I want to talk about the value of developing a system for how you share. Does “system” sound icky? Like a thing that will trap you? It isn’t. It will set you and your creativity free. Let’s dig in…

What is a Sharing System?

A sharing system is establishing a simple process to be able to share, without being overwhelmed. Sometimes this is called a content strategy, but I think it’s more than that.

This is where we break down a much larger process into a series of component parts. Doing so allows you to carefully develop each, and then string them together to something more powerful. For instance, perhaps you have had someone tell you, “If you want people to find out about your writing, share three times a day on Twitter.” That sounds like a lot of pressure, and now three additional things to do each day. The prospect you face is to know how to talk about what you write, which a lot of writers struggle with to begin with, three times a day.

But what if you knew exactly what to share? If you could look at an entire week, those 21 Tweets, and knew that they broke down into 5 categories of Tweets? You knew exactly how to balance them. You could do some of that work ahead of time, and found that by the end of the week, it truly felt like you created something?

This is where everything feels aligned to a cohesive strategy around sharing your writing, not just 21 updates about your lunch.

Remove the Overwhelm and Confusion of Sharing

When you consider sharing what you create and why, a writer is often confronted with these questions bouncing around in their heads:

• “I don’t know what to share”
• “I don’t know where to share”
• “I don’t know how to share”
• “Is this even worthwhile? What is the return on investment of doing this?”
• “Okay I shared. I’ll bet no one even wants to hear from me again.”
• “Wait, you want me to do this again? Every. single. day?!”

I mean, do you want to wake up each day and go through this list again and again? I don’t. A system helps you answer each of these questions once and for all. Then it gives you a process to move through how to share with clarity and confidence. The system you develop for sharing should improve over time. So that it feels better after six months than it did the first day. Where you are constantly making tiny improvements so that you no longer have those overwhelming thoughts filling your head every time you consider sharing your work.

Don’t Waste Your Creative Energy

If you are a writer, your first job is to… make coffee. After that, your second job is to write. I imagine your days are busy, filled with responsibilities of work, family, home life, health, and so much more. So fitting in writing is already a struggle. I saw someone share this on social media recently, and it resonated, an excerpt from Kafka’s diaries:

There are similar entries from John Steinbeck’s diary (I found the excerpts through Austin Kleon’s blog):

• June 5: “My whole nervous system is battered…I hope I’m not headed for a nervous breakdown.”
• June 11: “My life isn’t very long and I must get one book written before it ends.”
• June 18: “I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability… Sometimes, I seem to do a good little piece of work, but when it is done it slides into mediocrity.”
• July 8: “I wonder how this book will be. I wonder.”
• August 24: “My nerves are going fast… I wish I could just disappear for a while… Where has my discipline gone? Have I lost control?”

And here you are, trying to write amidst your otherwise busy life. Plus you are also asked to share about your writing on social media too. I imagine that oftentimes you feel that you just don’t have the extra creative energy to give to it. Why? Because it’s hard to wake up every day feeling the pressure to be smart/funny/educational/interesting on social media. The solution?

Yep, a sharing system.

If you joined my workshop last week about Defining Your Creative Voice, you would have heard me talk about a process I go through with clients of defining their Key Messages. If you look at my Creative Success Pyramid methodology, you will see it is one of the most foundational elements near the bottom left:

When you know how to describe what you create and why, knowing what to share is soooooooo much easier.

Structure Enhances Creativity

I grew up as the art kid, where every day could bring some weird new project or collaboration with friends. So I appreciate the value of one’s artistic process having zero structure. No rules, no boundaries. But when we talk about having a career in the arts, and developing an audience around what you create, I find that sometimes that a lack of structure leads to inaction.

Why? Because every day you have to reinvent the wheel. You have to be super charismatic on the fly, and re-motivate yourself to want to be public with what you create and why. The less you have to invent each day, the easier it is to simply move through tasks that are critical to ensuring others find out about your work.

Art thrives with boundaries. Whenever I read about how great work is created, I always learn about the extreme boundaries that the writer or artist had. This comes up constantly when I interview people on my podcast too. Sharing benefits from boundaries as well. Give yourself some kind of structure to work from — ANY kind of structure at first.

Your Sharing System Should Be Flexible

If you read this far, I have to imagine that you are thinking, “I like the concept in theory Dan, but I hate systems. My days are already defined by so many expectations and obligations, I do not want to be trapped by one more system to adhere to.”

Which is why I want your sharing system to be flexible. A sharing system is meant to truly fit within your life. So that you are no longer juggling a million to-do lists for all of the author platform and book marketing tasks you are told you have to be doing. In the work I do with writers, we are often working within systems and (I’m about to say a scary word)… spreadsheets. Do I love spreadsheets? Nope. Do I find them a useful tool that allows creative people to systematize aspects of their career so they can focus more on creating? Yes!

The systems we create for ourselves have to be authentic to who we are. They have to be malleable and changeable. They serve as a foundation to work from, instead of a rigid construct that confines you.

Thanks.
-Dan

Many writers and creators I speak with struggle to understand how they can build a presence in a crowded marketplace. I’ve worked with thousands of writers through the years, and find that their are common challenges that can block someone’s progress. This idea of knowing how to share what you create and why. I mean, imagine if you:

• Knew exactly how to describe who you are as a writer and creator.
• Knew how to create an infinite amount of content showcasing what you create and why.
• Knew what to share that feels unique to you and compelling to others.
• Knew how to get engagement from others, instead of feeling as though you are shouting into a void.
• Knew where you fit within the marketplace, and were also able to carve out your own little corner of it.
• Felt proud of what you share, without worrying that you are seeking attention or gloating.
• Felt comfortable having your voice, your identity, be public.
• Felt a total and complete permission to share.
• Felt safe throughout the entire process.

The answers to these challenges are never the latest trend, a hashtag, learning about some secret social media button, a TikTok dance, Amazon ads, or hiring a VA to just do it all for you. (although all of those things could have a place within a larger strategy.)

If you have struggled with any of the items above, I want to encourage you to develop the most powerful tool in your entire platform and presence as a writer: Defining your voice. Embracing your voice. Sharing your voice.

What is voice? It is how you show people what you care about. Is it how you share. It is how you show up for others. It is how you engage. It is how you have a presence in people’s lives.

This is my obsession.

Recently I’ve been delving back into my hobby of researching my family’s history. The research I’ve been doing and conversations I’ve been having have focused more on my two grandfathers, both of who died before I was even born. I’ve been thinking about their voices. What they sounded like. How they talked. Their interests. Their hopes. Their fears.

I took out one of the boxes I had in storage that contains my maternal grandfather’s stamp collection:

 

My mother grew up in a tenement apartment in New York City’s lower east side. The four of them slept in one bedroom, the tub was in the kitchen, and the single bathroom was accessible through the hallway outside their apartment.

Yet, there is this stamp collection, torn off of letters that came to family, friends, and colleagues. My grandfather clearly asked everyone he knew, that if they received a letter with a stamp from an unusual place, to save the envelope for him. I have batches of stamps he collected in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, until a car accident took his life in 1965.

This hobby likely gave him excitement, inspiration, education, and way to create little unexpected bright spots throughout his week. His entire life, from high school on, he worked one job, at a bakery. He was a slicer, and eventually became a driver delivering bread around New York City. He would have had a wide network of people through all the restaurants he met with each day. I have envelopes from The Russian Tea room in the 1950s, and many others. Today the stamps likely have no intrinsic value. Their value is in their story. And that story is my grandfather.

Through his collecting, he would have created thousands of conversations with people. He would have shared moments of discovery with them. He would have tied together a wide network of people around his interests. His voice would have done all of this and more.

I know that many writers are concerned that having a platform is a waste of time: sending a newsletter to a tiny list. Posting to Instagram and getting a handful of likes. Feeling as though you are sharing, but no one is listening.

If you are reading this, you are a writer or artist or creator. You have something to say in your creative work. I want to encourage you to double down on that. Not with a feeble attempt, but with vigor. To know that this is an opportunity you have right now to create. I want to encourage you to raise your own volume. To be heard because your voice is part of your craft. It is why you are driven to create and share.

The other day I got a text from my friend Jennie Nash:

 

I reached out to Diana and asked her about this. She said that she had read one of my newsletters and really resonated with this quote: “How fortunate we are to have the opportunity to create.” She says:

“I slapped that quote up on my monitor front and center to anchor me! It was, and continues to be, a very helpful way to bring me back to a sense of purpose, to remind myself that it’s a privilege to write and sell books. It actually puts a smile on my face and centers me before I get to work.”

Your voice is an opportunity to create something special. Not just for yourself, but for anyone who comes in contact with you or your creative work. Honing your public voice takes time. It’s not uncommon for a writer to mention that their dream is to be able to share as Ira Glass does on This American Life. There is a wonderful 4-part video series where he discusses the long process of developing his own voice. He describes how hard a team of people work to create each story in their program, and how many stories they spend hours and hours developing, they never air because they were deemed not “good enough.” Go on YouTube and search for “Ira Glass on Storytelling” to find the video series.

Your voice is your own. It can be filled with generosity, with kindness, and with purpose. You get to define that.

Thanks.

-Dan

So many writers strive to get more followers for their writing. Today I want to discuss how to design an experience for how you engage with your readers, and develop your author platform. One that is thoughtful, focuses on engagement, and helps you view your platform as a craft, not an obligation.

Too often, when we think of developing an author platform, we think of the “content” we share. We post a piece of content, then check back to see how many “likes” it received. Instead, I want to encourage you to consider how you develop a full experience for people.

What does that mean? To create a platform that is deeply meaningful and posed for growth, which includes:

• Considering your ideal reader with a sense of total clarity.
• Crafting an experience that leads to engagement, not just hoping for hollow metrics of ‘likes’ and ‘follows.’
• Focusing on moments of connection that develops a true community around what you create.

I’ve sent out this newsletter every single week for more than 15 years. Right now I’m going to ask that you trust me as I share a metaphor for how to consider crafting your audience. I’m going somewhere useful with this, I promise…

So my friend, author/illustrator Lori Richmond, is renovating her home, and she and her husband have paid particularly attention to (please bear with me here) their cat’s litter box. I will say this up front: all of us should strive to create anything in life as thoughtful as she and her husband have designed the cat’s litter box.

Sound bonkers? It’s actually kind of inspiring. Here’s why…

You see, Lori and her family of 4 have shoved themselves into a tiny 1-bedroom apartment for half of a year, while their home is going through a gut renovation. In the process, they wanted to solve for every inconvenience they previously experienced living in Brooklyn, one being the cat’s litter box in their kids’ bathroom.

The solution? Okay, let’s take a look. This is their new kitchen, looking toward the pantry. See the little hole in the corner? That is the entrance to the litter box.

 

Here it is with the outside door open. Notice how the first hole is toward the left, and the inside hole is on the right:

 

So once the cat, whose name is Mona, enters, she follows this little path from the first hole, to the second inner hole, where the litter box resides behind the gray door.

 

The two handles above it remove a panel that gives Lori and her husband access to clean the litter box, which will be placed in here:

 

You will notice that the shelf above extends all the way to the door, preventing the cat from jumping up onto other shelves:

 

What’s that you say? It seems dark in there? Well, don’t worry, there will be a motion activated light to ensure Mona can see what she is doing.

So how is this litter box a metaphor for the experience you create for readers? Soooooo many ways! Let’s consider it:

Lesson #1 Consider How Readers Become Aware of Your Work and Enter Your Community

Lori and her husband found what looks to be a very elegant solution the challenge of integrating a tiny cat bathroom into their beautiful home. When you consider how someone discovers your work, the same thing applies. If you are on social media shouting about your book, and otherwise not engaging, that is likely not the best way to give people a path to your work.

In my book, Be the Gateway, I use the idea of a gateway as a metaphor. This threshold that you cross to move out into the world to find your ideal readers, then to walk them back through the gateway to experience your work. It is a process of communication and trust.

You have to carefully consider the language, context, and images that will get someone’s attention. How you get their attention in a manner that is meaningful, in an otherwise noisy world. It’s not always logical either, where you simply make a clear pitch for your book. This is what social media has taught us, which reflects real-life: what engages us can touch a wide range of emotions. Consider: how are you creating an entrance to your work that speaks to your ideal reader in an immediate and visceral way?

Lesson #2 Ensure People Feel Safe

There is a real empathy that went into how Mona can feel safe. The goal is for her to be able to use the litter box without being disrupted by the activities of a busy family. The corner entrance, the dual doors, the lighting, all of this is about helping Mona feel safe.

However you share what you create, be mindful of how others feel seen, and feel safe. Trust is such a critical part of what it means to have an author platform. Of course, your own sense of safety is paramount as well. How each of us defines that may be different, but it is something to consider at every step of how you share.

Lesson #3 Give People a Clear Progression

Where are you leading people? Let’s say you wrote a historical novel. Are you sharing 15 posts about flowers on Instagram for every one post about a theme of historical fiction? If that’s the case, you can’t be surprised if you aren’t gaining followers who love the themes you explore in your writing. So you have to consider where you are leading people, and how obvious that progression is.

Likewise, you may want to consider if you are offering people a million off ramps away from how you want them to see you and your work. What is the entire sequence of how someone discovers your work, learns more about it, stays engaged, and feels a connection to your work that can last?

Likewise, consider where points of confusion may be. Is your platform too vague? Do you rarely talk about major themes? All of this is a craft that takes time to get right.

Are you unintentionally doing things that allow people to wander away from what you create? Sometimes that could have to do with frequency of how often you share, or giving them so many links, they can’t follow them all. Much like Lori and her husband designed the higher shelf above the litter box so that the cat can’t jump up there, consider the holes in your platform.

Lesson #4 Consider the Goals of your Reader

Let’s face it, where the cat’s litter box is, is not usually the biggest priority for a human. But for a cat, it’s a big deal. I’ve had many veterinarians explain to me the delicate balance you want to strike with placement.

When trying to engage readers, you have to consider their goals, not just your own. What would they love to engage with? What kind of community are they looking for? What is their reason for loving a certain kind of story or topic? What would their dream experience be with the topic or theme from a book? These are all ways to consider developing what you share that aligns to the experience you develop for someone else, not just how you share “content.”

This will require challenging your own assumptions, and even testing new ideas. When Lori and her husband designed the entrance to the litter box, at one point they mocked it all up, printing a black entrance hole onto a sheet of paper, then taping that to the bottom of the door. Don’t be afraid to play with new ideas as you consider how to develop your audience.

Lesson #5 Collaboration is a Critical Part of Success

If your goal is to develop a community around what you create, the surest way to failure is to try to do everything alone: to have no colleagues, to eschew the idea of engagement with readers, to just hope that someone else shares your work. Be open to your author platform being social. One way to do that is to have collaborators.

Let’s consider the key collaborators involved in Mona’s litter box:

1. Lori and her husband: Lori is a designer (plus author and illustrator), and her husband is a designer and educator who has incredible technical skills too.
2. Their architect: who helped with the overall design of the litter box area.
3. Their carpenter. Lori said: “Carpenters are true artists and masters of functionality! Our carpenter helped us tweak the design at the work site before he built everything. He brought up little details we wouldn’t have thought of.”
4. Their plumbers: who had to redo work twice to ensure that every pipe around the litter box area didn’t infringe on the design and functionality of it.

Here is a photo of the contractor, Lori’s husband, and the plumber discussing the litter box during construction:

 

I mean, the cost of this is impossible to calculate. Not just in material, but the design prowess and expertise of 5 highly trained people.

How can you have collaborators in what you create? Recently I shared a post talking about the power of outreach, including gratitude emails. At the most basic level, simply consider: who else writes about the kinds of topics or themes you do? Maybe just send them an email expressing appreciation for their work. It can start that simply.

How you share and how you engage is a craft. Give yourself time to develop these skills so that they expand the possibility of what your writing creates in the world. If you want assistance in creating any of this for yourself, learn more about how I work with writers and creators here.

Thanks.

-Dan

If you are like many writers and creators, you wonder if you should be using social media at all, or if you should be using it differently than you already are. This debate can happen in your brain on a minute-by-minute basis, as you try to balance your very limited resources of time and attention, with your goal of ensuring what you create reaches your ideal readers.

Today I want to share my advice on how to reframe how you think about social media, continuing with my recent theme of turning marketing from fear to joy. In the process, I’ll provide some simple prompts that I hope will make social media feel more approachable to you.

Social Media is What You Make of It

Social media is many things. Often, I hear a writer tell me that social media is only this or only that. Their reasons are often logical and framed with examples. In these conversations, I often show them other people on social media who are using it in entirely different ways, filled with education, connection, empathy, and so much else that may be truly valuable. I also point them to communities that bring people together in powerful ways.

Social media is what you make if it. It is who you follow. It is what you share. It is how you engage. It is how often you show up. I am not trying to diminish the power that social networks have, the techniques they use to control what we see, or even the influence they exert in how we behave. I am simply highlighting that each of us gets to choose aspects of what the experience is in our lives.

In my book, Be the Gateway, I talked about ignoring “best practices” when it comes to one’s author platform and how you consider social media. What I was encouraging was to not just use social media in the same way as everyone else: copying the most boring aspects of how others use it, because they feel expected.

Why?

Because when you make the absolute minimum effort, mimicking what everyone else is already doing, it can be difficult to get out of it what we hope for: meaningful connections, new people discovering your work, and a sense of creative growth. Too often, “best practices” are a copy a copy of a copy of something that worked well 3 years ago. There are diminishing returns when you are the millionth person doing the same thing as everyone else. This is why when I work with writers and creators we go deep to get clarity on their messaging, their ideal audience, and find compelling ways to share their work.

There are an infinite number of ways to use social media, but if you are stuck on how to make it feel effective and meaningful, consider these prompts to help you find a path:

• What if you only share work that you truly love?
• What if your goal in how you share was to make someone’s day a little bit brighter?
• What if you were authentic in sharing who you are?

There are many ways to consider this: What if instead of worrying about how many new followers you had by the end of a week, you instead asked how many people you made smile? How many people you gave hope to? How many people you know truly felt heard in what they share? How many people you helped to achieve their creative goals?

In some ways, this can flip how we often think about social media, and in my experience, that can radically change the joy you feel in the process.

Social Media is a Choice

You have the choice to not engage in social media. To ditch it, to ignore it, to delete your profiles and never look back. I, of course, understand why someone would want to do that.

But it’s also worth noting that the choice to engage with social media is just that: an opportunity. The night before spring break ended, my family was having dinner. I looked to my 11yo who is in middle school and said, “Back to school tomorrow…” His shoulders slumped illustrating he’s not excited to go back. Then our 4yo said, “We GET to go to school tomorrow!” For him, it was an opportunity, not an obligation.

That choice is yours when it comes to social media.

When I was in high school, I saw the movie Dead Poets Society, and remember a scene about ‘the dangers of conformity.’ Robin Williams’ character encourages students to walk around a courtyard in unusual and unexpected ways in order to not conform to expectations. He sees one student not walking, and instead just casually leaning against the wall. Robin’s character asks: “Mr. Dalton, will you be joining us?”

The student answers: “Exercising the right not to walk.”

Robin’s character replies: “Thank you Mr. Dalton. You just illustrated the point.”

I am not saying you have to be on social media. I know there are many reasons one would choose not to. I am simply encouraging you to make a choice with clarity and purpose. And if you choose to be a part of it, do it with gusto. If you choose not to, then consider how else you will share your work in a meaningful way.

Consider the Power of What You Can Share

Let’s look at a real world example of what it means to go all-in with sharing what you love. For many years, a big hobby of mine was seeking out new music in the record stores of New York City. Here i would buy CDs and records, spending a better part of my paycheck.

One of those places was a small store on Bleecker Street called Rebel Rebel. Compared to other stores, it was tiny. But like the best that any city has to offer, it was an experience. This was the outside of the shop:

 

And here is the overwhelming inside:

 

The owner’s name was David, and he was always behind the counter. Always. Rebel Rebel was a social network, of sorts. All through David.

He specialized in rare imports, which was what I loved. For regular customers, they would walk in, and he would hand them a stack of CDs that he had saved specifically for them. There were always stories of celebrities who frequented the shop: Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode, Prince, Robert Plant, and many others.

For the first few years I went there, the door was locked. David had to buzz you in. There are signs everywhere that photography is prohibited. David is one of those classic New Yorkers: on the outside, he is calm and cool, a man of few words. But then he looks at you and surprises you with incredible kindness.

The store felt like a scene, a place you wanted to be. It’s what you came to New York City for: the unexpected, the hard to find, the connection to a community that feels rare and special. David connected people to music and to each other. You can read stories online of the meaningful relationship that people had with the store. There was a sense that you were participating in an institution, akin to getting a sandwich at Katz’s Deli, or a haircut at Astor Place Barbers.

This is Rebel Rebel today:

 

It likely won’t surprise you that the store is gone, the result of stratospheric rent increases in Manhattan. One day David was simply told that he had to move out at the end of the month, after 28 years. Rebel Rebel was the left 1/3 of this clothing store, which expanded into his space. You wouldn’t think by looking at this, that the tiny portion to the left could become something special all by itself. An amazing place where creative work is shared, where people felt as though they belonged, where one person can create a respite in an otherwise overwhelming city.

But David created exactly that. And that is your choice every day with what you create, and how you share and engage. Could social media be a part of that for you? If you want. Could you make your Twitter or Instagram or YouTube as special as Rebel Rebel. Yes. If you want.

Like David, you can create a place that is unique to who you are. That shares things you feel are incredibly meaningful. That walks a careful line between being a wonderful community, but with personal boundaries that make you feel safe.

I remember the first time a friend took me to Rebel Rebel and rang the doorbell. Through the window, David glanced at us, sizing us up. Then, the sound of the buzz, and the door unlatches. The expectation of what was inside was palpable as we moved through the threshold.

How can you create that experience for others?

Thanks.
-Dan

Further reading:

• Does social media sell books?
• Social media doesn’t sell books, but…

A couple of weeks back, my website went down, the result of “malware,” a term I didn’t really know much about. My website hosts more than 10 years of my blog archives, plus my entire business. What happens with malware is that the software is designed to break in to a website and then they start adding files, changing files, just basically breaking things.

I have to say, it’s a horrible feeling to see something you have built be maliciously destroyed. Unfortunately, this happens across the digital sphere.

Recently, a writer I know had her Facebook author page, with thousands and thousands of followers, completely disappear. It got caught up in Facebook’s own algorithm where it was mistakenly flagged as breaking some kind of rule. They deleted her author page permanently and without explanation or warning. All those years of posts, all of those connections to people who follow her writing… gone.

Another friend lost several weeks of writing on her most recent book manuscript when her computer died. She almost lost the entire thing, but was able to find a copy of it that she had emailed to someone.

The other day I wanted to share an essay I had published years ago in an online literary journal. The essay is now missing from their website.

What you create matters. To who you are, and to others who will be moved by your work. Yet, very often, we don’t treat our work with the respect it deserves by preserving it. Today, this is what I would like to talk about how to secure your creative work so that it lasts. And I apologize if this is a boring topic, but I believe in it strongly: please backup your work.

What does this include? The following:

• Your writing
• Your computer
• Your photos
• Your phone
• Your website
• Your email newsletter list
• Your social media accounts

I’ve heard plenty of people avoid this work, concluding, “If I lost my photos (or my website, or social media account), I would just move on. Like the old song: Que Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).”

But on a random Tuesday, no one wants to realize that their stuff is missing. No one wants to spend hours on hold with customer service trying to figure out what happened. No one wants to think, “I’m ending the day with less ways to connect with readers than when the day started.”

I will be clear about my recommendations:

• Backup your computer! At the very least, use a cloud-based system such as Dropbox or iCloud. But I would go a step further, and purchase an external hard drive and use software to also backup your entire computer to that too. There are programs that automate this for you.
• Backup your phone! So many people have thousands of photos, their entire contact list, notes, etc. that are never backed up. It’s not that difficult to lose your phone. Some of this, you can backup wirelessly to the cloud. But also consider plugging it in and backing it up to your computer too, for easy access.
• Backup your website! If you are using WordPress or other popular platforms, there are plug-ins that will create automated backups for you. Use those! But I would go a step further, and do manual backups of all the files and the database too.
• Lock down your website! Make sure all of the software is up to date. If you can, use some common plug-ins like Wordfence or Sucuri to apply safety measures.
• Backup your email list! It’s a simple download. If you spent years developing that list, don’t risk it.
• Backup your cloud files! If you use Google docs or other online documents, download copies of critical files so you have local versions too.
• Backup your social media accounts! Did you know that all major social networks will create a simple download file of all of what you share, who you follow, etc? Get the download!
• Backup your published writing! If you shared posts on a blog, newsletter, on Medium, in a book, anything — have backup copies of it that don’t rely on someone else to preserve them.

I would even encourage you to go a step further: have backup systems. Workflows that consider what would happen if one of your tools broke down. For instance, I have redundant backups of my computer. If one goes down, I can immediately work from another. If that goes down too, I have a third I can work from.

I always remembered this moment from an early 2000’s Apple Keynote address. Steve Jobs is on stage doing a demo of some new Apple software, when something goes wrong. Here he is in front of hundreds of people in the audience, with thousands more watching through a livestream, and instead of feeling the glory of showing off an amazing new product, he is showing them an error.

What happened next is why investing in systems matters…

He calmly moves his hand to the right, flips a switch that brings up a backup a computer, and says: “Well that’s why we have backup systems here.” His presentation went on without a hitch. No sweat. No panicked looks to an engineer offstage. No headlines of how badly the keynote went.

Yet so often, writers and creators don’t backup what they create. They don’t invest in systems that protect their ability to create. They don’t preserve their own work. They don’t honor the connections to others they have forged by finding ways to ensure it isn’t at risk.

For the recent issue with my website, I had previously taken lots of steps to protect my it. Or so I thought. Turns out, I had missed quite a bit. Yes, I had backups of my website, but I also had big gaping security holes: old files and software that wasn’t updated. Think of it like this: it’s as if my house had 1,000 extra doors that I didn’t know about. These doors are old, with rotting wood and rusty hinges. When I discovered the problem because my website was down, I took a serious look at things.

I deleted thousands upon thousands of files that I didn’t need, and updated everything else. I added a couple of layers of active protection to ensure I can monitor the health of my website automatically, and am paying for a team of security experts to help clean up the mess and ensure it is now safe. Of course, I made lots of small changes to ensure it was harder for someone to break into my site.

Too often, we see prevention of risk as a cost. I mean, who wants yet another $20 per month fee for security, or to spend 4 hours figuring out how to create backups. But the truth is really the other way around. Prevention is an investment. Here is a non-digital example to illustrate what I mean: I have a friend who is in his 60s, very active and fit, and no stranger to doing serious (and safe) labor. The other day, he was coming down the ladder from his roof holding a pole chainsaw. Suddenly, he fell 7 feet to concrete. He did not land on his feet. Even though he had likely climbed down that ladder hundreds of times, his conclusion was simple: “I’m lucky to be alive.” He had some bruises but no other injuries, and he headed to the hospital to ensure that was the case. He has heard the stories of how an accident like that can cause serious injury or worse.

He’s decided to make changes to how he uses ladders, the kind of precautions that people often skip. He’ll be ensuring there is a second person there to hold the ladder and monitor activity whenever he uses it. Does that make it 3x more complicated to do the work he wants to do? Yep. Could it literally add years to his life? Yep.

I know everyone reading this already has too much to worry about. Why add a list of backup procedures to your to-do list like I’m writing about here? Well, I have found that it encourages me to simplify my platform as a writer. To consider: what is most important to me, how can I protect that, and how can I let everything else go?

So in the past couple weeks, I let go of a lot of old projects hidden on my websites, that turned out to be risking my main business. But that digital cleanup helped me to recommit to what matters. And protecting that feels good.

Much of this work can be automated, and for the rest, you can set simple reminders in your calendar.

I’m curious: when is the last time you backed up the creative work that matters most to you?

Thanks.
-Dan