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I talk to a lot of writers and artists who want to grow their platform. They want to feel that they are effectively sharing their creative work, that they know how to reach their ideal readers, and in the process, grow their footprint in the marketplace. They struggle many creators feel is that there is an unending list of tasks they have to do if they want to market their work. They are inundated with tips and ideas that they find online.

But sometimes if you want to grow your platform, less is more.

I would rather see you focus deeply on one channel or one theme, than try to “do it all.” Meaning, you don’t have to be super active on 4 social networks and have a blog and newsletter and podcast and do webinars and such. I have found that doing less can be more effective. Let’s explore why.

Focus on fewer channels, but go deeper.

Imagine if all your marketing energy went into just email. Writing the best newsletter possible. Turning it into more of a community. Focusing people’s attention only to that place. In the process, forging powerful connections that not only grows your network, but lays the groundwork for word-of-mouth marketing for your writing or creative work.

Compare that to juggling a mixed bag of other tasks: Tweeting here, posting to Instagram there, sending out a newsletter every so often, and so on. What if you doubled down on one thing that resonated deeply with you, and would create the best possible experience for your ideal audience?

Whenever I find an example of someone who does something really well, let’s say they have a huge Instagram following, I often find that their other channels are barely updated. Meaning: they are optimizing for one channel, and one community. Last week I did a deep dive into people on TikTok who share videos about books, and noticed for some of them, they would have tens of thousands of followers on TikTok, and maybe 200 on Twitter.

This can align to the business strategy for a creator as well. I was recently working with a client who, in addition to her writing, also offers services and sells products. In developing a marketing strategy, we were considering the idea of honing her products and services down to just one offering. This would focus her own creative energy into the thing she loves most, and would also focus her audience’s attention there as well. Each day, she would be optimizing for the joy she feels in that process, and the ways her work can help transform the lives of her ideal readers.

Creative energy is precious. Use it wisely.

You have a limited amount of creative energy each day. If you are a writer or artist, a bulk of that energy should be used for your craft. To develop one’s platform and marketing, that can require creative energy as well. It can be more powerful to put that remaining energy into one place – one channel or strategy – than to split it into dozens of other “best practices” that diffuses your time and attention. Why? Because so much of what is happening when you are learning a new platform is to develop a literacy of it. So if I am working with a writer to build their presence on Instagram, consider all the things they are learning:

• How to use the Instagram main feed
• How to use Instagram Stories
• How to use Instagram Reels
• How to take good photos
• What hashtags they prefer
• What content feels right for them to share
• What their writing style and voice will be like on this platform
• Who to follow
• How to engage
• … and so much else.

Now if we add Twitter, the amount you are learning needs to double. Then a newsletter, it doubles again. It’s a lot to take in, it can feel overwhelming, and result in you doing the bare minimum, yet still feeling like you are stretched too thin.

Of course, many of the writers and creators I work with have a presence across many channels online, and I do that myself. But worth noting is that this happened slowly over time. I was active on Twitter for years before I really started sharing much on Facebook. Then another couple years until I started sharing on Instagram. I was sending out a newsletter for 5 years before I started a podcast. That gives me a lot of time to develop a literacy of each channel, the community within each, and develop my own voice and messaging.

When you focus on one place, you can focus your energy on how to create the experience that feels most authentic to you, and gives others the emotional experience that aligns to what you create and why. What do you want people to feel when they follow you? When you focus that energy, you can create a more dynamic experience.

Frequency matters.

When you put more creative energy into one place, that means you are able to show up there more often. For developing an audience online, posting frequently is usually essential. I am constantly studying those who are successfully finding an audience online, and again and again I see that these people show up every single day. Earlier this week I was working with a client, and we were discussing how another author had developed such a big following on Instagram. Sure enough, when we looked at that person’s account we saw they had shared more than two dozen updates in their Instagram Stories in the last 24 hours. This person was showing up in the lives of her readers in a big way, and clearly, they love it!

Do you need to do exactly that? Nope. You will find your own path. I simply share that to illustrate the point that when you show up, it creates more chances for engagement. When I was in college, I worked in food service. I remember someone walking in once, saying, “I’ll have my usual.” They were offended when I asked, “What is that?” That person would go on to say something like, “Hey! I’m a regular! I’m in here every week! You should know what I want.” But the reality was that we had customers who came in twice a day, every day. So for each time that person who came in once a week ordered something, a true “regular” had already been in 13 additional times. That’s 13 other times I would hear their order, have an interaction, and develop rapport.

If your strategy for developing an author platform is to do the bare minimum, you may find growth to be frustratingly slow for this same reason. This applies to so much of what it means to go from a hobbyist to a professional with one’s creative work. For instance, a writer recently told me that they don’t have a network at all in the writing world, but it was their dream to ensure their writing finds an audience. So I began creating a program for them to develop that network in a consistent and meaningful manner. One aspect of that may be for them to send out emails to like-minded creators thanking them for their work. So if they send one email a week, that means they will send 52 a year. Which is nice. That would lay a solid foundation. But… what if they did it daily? That would be 365 emails a year, exponentially more. Is it more work? Yes! Way more work. But if you focus intensely on one thing, growth becomes exponential. It would take 7 years to send those 365 emails at the pace of one a week, compared to one year if they sent daily.

Boundaries are required for great art. Also for great marketing.

Focusing on less can hone your creative energy and the attention of your audience. This is a concept I have been thinking about in so many ways, including the craft of creative work.

In 2017, I set out to finally learn how to play guitar properly. For a quarter century, I had dabbled, picking it up every now and again, learning the same few chords, then letting it languish for years at a time. So in 2017, I began practicing every single day for a year, and then continued that. I found an extra hour a day to create along the way. Awhile later, I felt stuck in my guitar practice, so I hired a coach to get unstuck. Then in 2020 as the pandemic set in, I had to find new ways to motivate myself.

After four years, and all of this work, my goals with guitar still feel elusive. You see, there are soooooooo many amazing guitar tutorials online. What I found was that I kept accruing knowledge, but not the experience I hoped for with guitar. I had all of these disaparate pieces, but nothing tying them together.

So I hired a guitar coach again, the same one I used a couple years back. His name is Mark, and he lives in New Zealand. But this time, I was radically clear about how I hoped to focus our work together. My goal is simple: I don’t want knowledge, I want to be able to pick up an acoustic guitar, sit on my porch, and play a certain style of music for 30-60 minutes. That’s it.

We talked about what I wanted to play, which is key to ensuring I made progress. In considering this, I realized I had been focusing on too many of the wrong things as I learned guitar the past few years. So many guitar lessons I dove into had focused on a genre of music I appreciate, but don’t love, or they taught me to simply mimic famous songs. But that wasn’t my goal. I told Mark about how much I love the work of Will Ackerman and the solo guitarists from the Windham Hill record label in the 1980s and beyond. I had the privilege of interviewing Will a couple years back.

Mark immediately got it and began playing some compositions, asking, “You mean, like this?” My reaction: “YES!!!! THAT! That is what I want to be able to do!”

He replied that is his favorite way of playing when he is alone, and he began creating a program for me to follow. The key ingredient in it is limits. Strictly limiting what I focus on in order to develop this competency. For now, we are only working within one key, and in one finger position on the fretboard. The truth is none of the knowledge he is sharing is anything I didn’t already know. But he is helping me string it all together in a way that I never had before. The results are amazing so far.

Here we are, slowing down, and focusing on one thing. It is all about appreciating the limits, and making incremental but meaningful progress. I am finding that small changes lead to huge results.

If you are hoping to establish or grow your platform, I want to encourage you to do less. To focus your energy on just one or two things that matter most to you.

Thanks!
-Dan

Today I want to share my 5-part system for how you can conduct marketplace research, learning how readers share and talk about books online. This is a critical process for understanding word-of-mouth marketing, which drives book sales. We will use TikTok as an example, though this methodology applies more broadly to channels such as Instagram, podcasts, and so on. In case you haven’t heard, TikTok is a thriving social media platform, and there are many people on there talking about books. Sometimes this subgroup is referred to as “BookTok.”

What I hope to share here is a way of seeing and understanding marketing. To learn about the marketplace that you hope to share your writing in, how it works, why it is a powerful driver of sharing books, and even how you can directly engage with others. This is an example of the process I help writers with in my 1-on-1 consulting, when we dive deep into helping someone develop their platform, create an effective marketings strategy, launch their books, and find a sense of fulfillment in the process.

One thing to note here is that this process focuses on what I would call primary research. Meaning, you aren’t just reading articles about TikTok and forming an opinion based on that. Instead you are observing and participating yourself, which I think this is critically important. To be an active participant to truly learn about what is happening in an area of the market. When you read “best practices,” you are removed from the community itself. I know everyone wants a shortcut, but the difference is stark. If you want to understand the marketplace, get active in it.

What I share here is my process for diving into marketplace research from scratch. Okay, let’s dig in…

Step #1: Find a Way In

The first step is to simply allow yourself to experience the ecosystem. In this example, it would be to figure out how to see what people share on TikTok. This begins with simple steps:

1. Create an account. You can do this through your computer by simply going to the TikTok website, or by downloading the app on your phone and creating an account there.
2. I would recommend downloading the app to your phone either way because it allows you to see the full scope of tools TikTok offers. But if you aren’t ready for that, I believe you can get started on your computer alone.

I prefer to do this research through my computer and web browser because it’s a bigger interface. I use a 27″ monitor, compared to a tiny smartphone screen.

Once you set up your account, you are likely now staring at some viral video that TikTok is showing to you. Go to the search box and simply type in: booktok

Booktok is a hashtag that people who share about books will often include in their posts. So this is a great way to filter out anything that isn’t a post about books, reading, or writing. There are other searches you can do as well, such as ‘authortok,’ but you don’t have to worry about that yet.

Step #2 Observe and Listen

View some of the videos that come up in this search. Keep scrolling and loading more. Don’t try to look for certain kinds of books, just casually observe different videos. Get a sense for what “normal” is on this platform. For instance, that there is vertically oriented video, that there is often music that is key to how the message is presented, how long the videos are, that you may see likes/comments/shares to the side, etc.

Want to know what this looks like? Here is a 10 minute video where I narrate what I observe as I look at some people sharing about books on TikTok:

 

Step #3 Celebrate and Engage

Find safe easy ways to interact so that you understand the sense of community that can happen here. Oftentimes, that is as simple as clicking the little heart icon next to a video. You can share a short message via a comment. Unsure of what to say? Share an emoji.

From here, consider following some people who share videos that you find interesting. If possible, follow a wide range of people who talk about different kinds of books, or have different styles.

For a week or so, do this for 5 to 10 minutes each day. Put all your assumptions on hold, and just observe and engage.

Step #4 Analyze

Analyze what individuals are doing in their videos. Not just “they are sharing about a book,” but note the details. For instance:

• What is the topic or focus of a certain video? A single book? A best of list?
• Note where the video has edits.
• Note how many different elements are cut together. Are they using emojis or clip art or taking video from multiple sources?
• What kind of music are they using, and how is it integrated into the message?
• Is the person being on camera or not?
• How is the shot framed? Is it close to the person or far away? Is it a close up of a book on a table, or a much larger bookself?
• What are the different ways they feature a book itself? EG: the cover vs inside pages vs the spine.
• How did they light the video?
• Is there movement in the video? What is it exactly?
• Do they put text on screen?
• Is the video trying to be funny?
• How frequently do they share a new post?
• What does the person write in the text area of the video?
• Do they use hashtags? Which ones?
• How are others reacting in the comments?
• What do they share in their profile (you may have to click to see this.)
• What link do they share in their profile, and what is there when you click it? Are they active on other social media too?

In this process you begin to understand common things people do, as well as your own preferences for what you like seeing.

Step #5 Strategize

So far, you have had to share nothing on TikTok. Again, all of this work so far is about understanding the marketplace. You don’t need to know yet how to effectively use TikTok, where all the buttons are, etc. But consider these questions:

• Why are these people doing this? Why are they sharing books on TikTok?
• Does it feel effective? Are people reacting in the comments? Does it have a lot of views? Why do you think that is?
• How would this help a writer connect with readers?
• Do you feel your ideal readers may be here? If not, could they be soon?
• What are other ways you can explore TikTok to find different kinds of authors or creators?

Then decide if you will go into observation mode for a period of time: a month, a quarter, a half year. Just keep slowly observing and learning.

Also consider if this is something you want to try out for yourself, sharing your own video on TikTok. Getting involved is a great way to demystify something and feel a part of it.

If you decide to not take any actions now, that’s fine. I realize that for many writers, they may not want to create videos on TikTok, or may feel that their ideal readers aren’t on that platform yet. But identify one to three places you will put your energy into instead. If you decide to ignore TikTok (or any channel), what will you do instead to engage with readers? Will you email five more people each week? Will you share more on a different channel? Will you try to meet more book clubs? Will you go to more bookstore events?

The key here is to find some way to engage with readers that feels meaningful to you. And of course, if you want help with this, consider working with me.

Thanks!
-Dan

I spend the last few months of every year reassessing what I create, and how I can better serve writers and creators. Every single year, I go back to the well to reconnect with my deeper purpose for this work. My goal is to help people share their creative work in a meaningful way, one that leads to fulfillment and success.

I can use your help. Could you take a couple minutes and answer these questions:

• What is your biggest challenge when it comes to how you share or market your work?
• What are your goals for your creative work?
• What do you create? What kind of writing or art?
• What milestone do you hope to reach next as it comes to sharing/marketing?
• Are there specific channels or tactics you want help with more than others? (E.G: newsletters, TikTok, podcast outreach, etc)

You can answer these questions by filling out this questionnaire. Your answers will directly effect what resources I offer to help writers and creators like you better share their work.

I have the pleasure of talking with writers every day, and diving deep into the work of creating and sharing. I’ve done this kind of reassessment the last quarter of each year for a long time, about a decade. I’m always trying to get more clarity the goals and challenges of writers and creators. To me, this work has to be intentional. I do this because I want to grow as a creator and someone who serves writers and creators.

I’m 48 years old, and I want each year to be filled with personal growth. To challenge myself in new ways. To keep what works, and ditch what doesn’t. I want to come home to my family from my studio feeling alive because my days are filled with inspiring writers who are finding success in connecting with readers. I want to feel challenged by the creative process. Each year, I want to feel that this year is not like the last.

For my own process of assessment, I’ve followed the same system for years. It’s a three part program that I used to teach in my (no defunct) Mastermind group where I collect all of my learnings and ideas, organize them, then strategize. Right now I am analyzing my current system of how to help writers best share their work, stress testing each component, and identifying any gaps I can find. My goal is to simplify so that everything I offer to directly addresses what writers need in an immediate and powerful way. I want to focus on results that will truly move writers towards their goals and solve their biggest challenges.

In my book Be the Gateway, I talk about a similar process of spending time listening to your ideal reader. I am doubling down on that myself because my goal is to be of the best service possible writers.

If you have a moment, it would mean a lot to me if you would answer the questions at the top of this note by filling out this questionnaire.

Thanks!
-Dan

I want to encourage you to talk with readers. Not just because people who read are awesome, but because understanding reader behavior is a critical part of learning how to best market your writing or creative work. So many people wait until they are at the cusp of launching their book to do this, but the reality is that effective marketing takes time. Give yourself that time.

It’s easy to justify that if you wait to talk with readers and develop your platform that you will be better prepared. I’ve heard people say variations of this many times: “Why talk to readers or develop my platform before my book is finished, or before it can be preordered? That’s just silly. Let me wait until the book is ready, and then I’ll explore all of this.”

Often that means it will be too late to pursue a meaningful and authentic way to develop a connection to your ideal audience. You are locked into a very short timeline to publish and share your book, meaning the very first thing they hear from you is a version of: “Hello! Please buy my book. Oh, then review it. And maybe then tell a friend about it. And can you also come to this event I’m doing? Oh, maybe can you buy a copy as a gift too?”

Too many authors put off talking to readers because they fear becoming ‘that’ author over-promoting their book. But the more time you give yourself to talk with readers and learn about them, the less likely you will ever be perceived as someone who only shows up when you have something to sell. The more you learn about reader behavior, the more experiences you have around how books are shared, the more people you know who appreciate books, the more you are creating the precious resources required for good marketing: trust and communication.

Talk with readers. How do you find them? They are all around you. Simply ask people that you meet what they like to read. Then, be really curious.

Don’t just seek out people who read books like those you write. You aren’t talking to them to garner interest in your work, instead you are trying to better understand why they read, how they find books, where those conversations begin and where they go.

You are a student of writing as you develop your craft. I want to encourage you to also become a student of reading and how books are experienced and shared. The goal is to demystify reader behavior. Critical here is to expand your discussions outside of your immediate circle of friends and family. This may challenge every assumption you have about marketing, about book launches, about “the industry,” and about how to get people to pay attention to your work.

How to go about this? Well, it’s pretty simple: ask anyone you meet what they like to read. Then ask why. Truly be curious about what they read and why. Ask follow up questions that help you understand their behavior around reading. Don’t try to get them to become aware of your work, or validate it.

That’s it.

I remember seeing this in action years ago when I spent time with Barbara Vey, who at the time was a contributing editor for Publishers Weekly. I took her on her first subway ride in New York City, and on a crowded car she did something unexpected: she turned to the woman sitting next to her and asked her what she was reading. Barbara and the woman had a lovely conversation around what she was reading.

Barbara would tell me stories like this all the time. If she had to go into a medical facility, she would later tell me what her nurses and doctor liked to read. If she went to get a sandwich before we talked on the phone, she would tell me what the person behind the counter liked to read.

When you talk with readers, you dive deep into the “messy” side of the publishing world. You learn that readers don’t neatly fit into a box of only reading one genre, or reading regularly, or liking what you would expect they would. When you learn how to talk with readers, you learn so much about how books are shared, but also you develop a this capacity in yourself. Because when you launch your books, you will want to have the ability to casually talk about it in a way that will truly engage someone.

Your creative work will exist in an ecosystem. Understanding how real people engage with art similar to yours gives you a practical look at the reality of what the marketplace looks like. Not as a chart, not as a statistic, but in an everyday conversation with a real human being.

In my book, Be the Gateway, I explore this idea. It uses the metaphor of you creating a “gateway” to your work. But once it is built, you don’t put up a neon sign in front, hoping people find it. Instead, you venture away from your gateway into the world, discovering where readers already are, who they are talking to, and how to navigate the maze of paths that explain how books are shared. Over time, as you understand and befriend readers, the path to your gateway develops. The entire process is filled with empathy and authentic connections, not trying to game an algorithm on Amazon or figure out the latest trend on TikTok.

To identify how to effectively market your work takes time. It is a craft just like one’s creative work

I saw an example of this recently. Rick Beato started a YouTube channel about music a couple years ago, and has skyrocketed to having more than 2.5 million subscribers. On his second channel, he talked about talking with an Uber driver recently about what she listened to. Rick is 59 and loves guitar rock of the 60s through the 90s. The driver was a woman in her late 20s. He asked, “Have you ever heard of Paul McCartney?” She hadn’t. The Beatles? Nope. Foo Fighters or Dave Grohl? No.

At this point, you may think, “Here is someone young who only likes modern music.” But that isn’t the case. What she was listening to on her iPhone was 90s music. She went on to explain how she doesn’t like contemporary music, because she doesn’t resonate with the lyrics. She said, “It feels like everything is made for TikTok. It’s all beats for people to dance to. I really like lyrics.”

In the video, Rick went on to consider what this meant for musicians. Even though Rick has very clear and strong opinions about the music he prefers, his channel is filled with him analyzing not just classic songs, but music on at the top of the charts today. Rick has been a professional music producer for decades and is a virtuoso musician, yet he talks your average music listener all the time, and in the process, he learns a lot.

Marketing is a craft. Becoming good at it is not a matter of just copying someone else’s “best practices.” Focus on what you write and why, and what people read and why. That will give you so much of what you need to understand how to develop a strategy to effectively share what you create.

Thanks!

-Dan

I’ve been thinking a lot about what Mike Mattison told me about what it means to become a professional in your craft. Some of his advice can be challenging to those who go into the arts for the love of it. If you are a writer looking to get to the “next level” in your career, so much of what Mike shares may be useful. Here is some of what I will cover below, all wisdom from Mike:

• Making a genuine statement with your creative work can lead to more success than trying to fit into the expectations of the market.
• You have to be “fanatically” into your creative work, much more so than you would expect.
• Your network will create amazing (and unexpected) opportunities.
• Accepting that creative work is essentially magic — creating value out of thin air — should change how you think about your business dealings.
• Change is a constant in your career. The gift is doing the work.

You see, Mike’s life has been dedicated to music and writing. He describes himself as a naturally shy person, yet for most of his professional life, he has been on stage front and center as part of big bands such as the Derek Trucks Band and the Tedeschi Trucks Band, as well as his solo work, and his own band, Scrapomatic. This is Mike:

 

Below I will explore some of the topics listed above, but you can watch or listen to our entire conversation here:

 

Okay, let’s dig in…

Making a Genuine Statement Matters More Than Fitting Into the Market

I asked Mike about the Derek Trucks Band album he worked on that won a Grammy Award. He described it this way:

“We were becoming less interesting to our [record] label because we weren’t selling a bunch of records. Instead of cutting us loose, they kind of just let us do whatever we wanted to do. A lot of people at our record company thought we should be more entertaining (doing jumping jacks, running up and down ramps), but it just wasn’t who we were, it was really just about the music.”

“Around this time, Derek built his studio behind his house in Jacksonville. It was still being constructed when we started recording this album. We weren’t written off, but people had no expectations. That was very freeing for us. We did a ton of writing, and to my mind, made our first actual statement as a group, as collaborators, with our record, Already Free. It’s a blues-based singer songwriter album. But then we got nominated and won a Grammy, which blew our minds. We were like, “You like that?” It speaks to the idea that people respond to a real genuine statement, instead of trying to do something you think you should do.”

In sharing the work you create and developing an understanding the marketplace can matter. It can determine how to get reviews, what podcasts you can become a guest on, what events to show up to, and even who you may want to get to know. It’s about where to find your audience and what resonates with them.

But…

That doesn’t mean that your creative work needs to be created with them in mind. You as a writer or artist have a singular creative vision that is your own. There is a difference between understanding and appreciating the market vs having that knowledge change what you create. It’s different for everyone, but Mike’s experience is a powerful lesson in having confidence in what you are creating.

You Have to be “Fanatically” Into Your Creative Work

There was a period of time when Mike was living in New York, dedicated to his music:

“We were all in. We were all about the blues. We had our 7 gigs a month, and nothing else really mattered. You have to just do do it. You have to grind it out. And nothing might happen. To my mind, you have to be fanatically in it, and it worked out, in a way I never could have expected.”

Of course, Mike still had a day job during this period, but in terms of where he put his focus and energy, his music was his outlet. The communities he was a part of, the shows he played, his bandmates, and of course, the music he created.

Be wary of merely dabbling with your creative vision. Of doing things part way. Mike talks about the value of dedicating yourself to your craft this way:

“One nice thing about going all in with something creative is that creativity begets creativity. The possibilities start compounding themselves.”

Which leads us to…

Your Network Will Create Amazing (and Unexpected) Opportunities

A huge shift in Mike’s career came through his network. Derek Trucks was looking for a new member of his band, and on the same day had two people he knew recommend Mike. Who is Derek Trucks? As a kid he was a guitar prodigy who started playing professionally before he was a teenage. He was a member of The Allman Brothers Band, and has been a part of Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

This is how Mike tells the story of how he and Derek met:

“Derek was in a hotel room in New York and he got these two Scrapomatic records from two people who didn’t know each other on the same day. I was leaving my day job in midtown, on the E train, and there was a tap on my shoulder and he’s like “Hey are you Mike Mattison?” I’m like, “Yeah, who are you?” And it’s Derek Trucks — I didn’t know who he was. He was like, “I got your records, we should play sometime.” Then I got a call from his manager, and it ended up working out. I went from playing to 100 people in a room to playing to thousands of people.”

I love stories like this because it illustrates how creative success can be an amalgamation of so many things. Of course, first and foremost is Mike’s incredible talent and the hard work he put in to get himself and his music out there. But he also developed a strong network in the music world, which lead to people recommending him. If Derek hadn’t got onto the E train that day, would Mike still have ended up in the band? Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, Mike’s music would have gone on to grow and evolve. But joining Derek’s band changed the course of Mike’s life in amazing ways.

Accepting that Creative Work is Essentially Magic Should Change How You View the Business Around It

Mike shared a piece of advice about how to navigate the music business that he still thinks about all the time:

“My first producer said something I laughed about when he told me 20 years ago, but it turns out to have been correct. He said: ‘Here’s what you do. Figure out who has what you want, you walk into their office and you tell them to give it to you. If they don’t, you tell them to go f*** yourself.'”

“I was like, well that’s a terrible way to approach things. But it turns out, he’s right. Meaning that you have to have that confidence — that self assurance — that for what you are doing, you are doing for the right reasons. [The producer] said, ‘Don’t forget this: you create value out of thin air. You literally mine gold. What you are doing is magic. So when you are dealing with people in their offices, don’t forget that. Have confidence that you are a creator. They can’t do that, you can.’ I think that’s what he meant when he said, tell people to f-off. I think about that a lot.”

If you are a writer, you operate in a complex world of publishing. You can choose to self-publish, traditionally publish, go with a hybrid publisher, publish in non-traditional means, or not publish at all. So many writers want the validation that they feel comes with getting an agent or having a publisher offer to publish your book. But when considering the deal you take or who you collaborate with, don’t diminish the incredible value you bring to the table.

Change Will be a Constant in Your Career. The Gift is Doing the Work.

At so many points in our conversation, Mike talked about professionalism and how to navigate change or times where discomfort is a part of the process. At the start of his career, he shared:

“I’m a naturally shy person, so it’s odd that my job is to be in front of people every night.” I sang jazz standards for a year in Budapest. For me, that was the beginning of the professionalism. We played 4 or 5 nights a week, and I had to gather up a repertoire, and learn a lot of jazz standards. It was a good education.” He learned hundreds of jazz standards during this time.

He also talked about not always pushing yourself to 100%, which I think can be a very challenging concept for a creative professional to hear:

“When you play night after night, you need to learn how to be consistent, and how to deliver each night. You run into this thing where you are like, ‘I don’t feel like it.’ But there is no ‘I don’t feel like it.” So you have to keep yourself motivated. You can’t always be real, you can’t always be 100% present, but it needs to seem that way. That’s part of the craft, and part of the job.”

“One thing that hit me early on is that I was trying to give it my all every night. After a certain point, you have to come to grips with the fact that you do have a talent. So when you feel like you are at 60%, people think you are at 90%. That’s a dangerous equation to deal with too. At a certain point, you have to give yourself credit for your talent and time put in. If you know you are not at 100%, sometimes you have to be a little forgiving of yourself. You are always trying to give 100%, but it’s impossible, because you are just a person.”

Mike also talked about the balance between creating what you want that aligns to your own creative vision, vs what the audience wants. He says: “It’s a relationship, it’s a negotiation. Part of the reason you are doing what you are doing is that you want an audience. But you also have to respect your own wishes.”

So often, we like to think of creative success as this constant upward trajectory. But it doesn’t always work that way. Mike had an amazing way of describing the journey:

“That’s the gift of it, the doing of it. And being with people who feel the same way. I know so many bands get torn apart because of careerism. One thing I’ve always loved about Derek and Susan [Tadeschi] is that they are lifers. They’re like, ‘I’m gonna do this no matter what. It’s going to go up, it’s going to go down, probably gonna end up in a van again, it doesn’t matter. The point is you get to do it. And you can do it with people you respect and who respect you back. That’s the gift.”

You can watch or listen to my entire conversation with Mike here. You can also check out his music here, and his new book, Poetic Song Verse: Blues-Based Popular Music and Poetry, here.

Thanks!

-Dan