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Each week, I spend a lot of time talking to writers and engaging with them on social media. It’s not uncommon for me to hear a phrase such as, “I heard ______ doesn’t work to actually sell books or grow my audience.”

What is in that blank spot? Well, if you talk to enough writers, it is EVERYTHING.

• Social media doesn’t work.
• Advertising doesn’t work.
• Newsletters don’t work.
• Giveaways don’t work.
• Book club outreach doesn’t work.
• TV doesn’t work.
• Podcasts don’t work.
• Radio doesn’t work.
• Collaborations don’t work.
• Online events don’t work.
• In-person events don’t work.
• … and so on.

From one person to the next, you will hear conflicting advice. One will say: “One of the only things that moves books now are podcasts.” Then the next day someone will say “I have been chatting with quite a few authors who said they were on podcasts, and it didn’t do anything to sell books. It was a waste of time.”

My fear is that this narrative is so strong because deep down, people don’t want to look the fool. They are uncomfortable asking others for help. They are worried that they will thought of as self-serving and promotional if they take marketing seriously. They already feel overwhelmed by all the aspects of writing and publishing. They worry that if they are seen making an effort with marketing, that they will no longer be seen as an “author.”

So they simply don’t want to bother. Because what if they bother, and it doesn’t work. It is better to sit on the sidelines carefully analyzing the one thing that could work… rather than try things for themselves and figure it out.

Here is the thing about when people say those things listed above about what doesn’t work.

Those people are right.

We can spend all day researching every marketing and platform strategy in the world, and find copious examples of why they don’t work. We can find the data to back it up. We can create a case study of why nothing will guarantee success to share your writing successfully.

And if you are looking for that narrative, then that means you are off the hook. “Nothing works” means you rid yourself of the notion of having to try to connect with readers.

But here is the thing…

I’ll bet that you write because deep down, you have a story inside you that needs to come out. Or you have something to say that you know will help someone. You write because you love the craft, and feel a sense of purpose when you put words on the page. You write because you have decided that your voice will not be lost amidst life’s daily routines.

If any of that is true, then you will always come back to the idea of not just writing, but considering how you can share it effectively. Not because you are trying to “become a marketer,” but because you know that reading makes our lives better. Because you hope to create moments and experiences for readers that will give them a respite, an escape, a sense of joy, thoughtfulness, or solace.

In my book Be the Gateway, I have an entire chapter titled “Avoid Best Practices.” Here is an excerpt:

“We believe that best practices are what we should seek because we want a shortcut. We want to know exactly what worked for others, and then (and we hate to admit this part) we do it half-baked. We want to see the 20 steps that worked for someone else, and, then do the eight steps that we are most comfortable with and can do most easily. We end up with a pathetic copy of a copy of a copy. Then we are disappointed when this doesn’t lead to success. It’s as if I gave someone a recipe for a great cake, and they only used four out of the twelve needed ingredients.”

“Researching “best practices” is something we justify because we want to feel that we are preparing to do things smartly. The reality is that we are waiting until we feel less afraid, or the world makes it safer with established, accepted practices. We tell ourselves this research is to make “informed choices,” so we delay action. But if you wait for it to be “safe,” that means you are crossing the same street with thousands of others. You are merely one of the pack of people copying a copy of a strategy, and therefore receiving almost none of the original value.”

What do I recommend instead of best practices? Primary research. Oh, that is a fancy way of saying “talking with readers and those who connect with them.”

Doing primary research lays the foundation for capturing the attention of your ideal audience in a way that is sustainable and meaningful. It has many benefits, including:

• Telling you what your ideal audience cares about.
• Indicating where they hang out online and off.
• Hinting at what other creative work they love and why.
• Identifying who they admire and listen to.
• Being a process original to you.
• Allowing you to tap into and experience your creative vision in a fuller way.
• Helping you manage the complex emotions and psychological triggers around creating, sharing, and the business aspect of your work.

When you are done, you will have a sense of how to craft your messaging, where you need to be, and who can help connect you to these people you hope to engage. What’s more, the process will align to and support your creative work, not get in the way and eclipse it. Doing this allows audience outreach to feel meaningful to you, where every time you learn something new about your audience, it fuels a deep sense of momentum.

What else works? Creating and sharing frequently. This is partly why social media and online channels such as newsletters and YouTube and podcasts have really taken off. The frequency of sharing changes not only what we can create, but how we connect. This is not about technology, but rather, about what makes us human.

We want to connect with others. We build connections with those who show up in our lives regularly. We love creative work and want to find new ways to fill our lives with it.

If you want to grow your platform as a writer and develop a marketing strategy for your books, my advice to you is:

• Spend time talking with readers and those who connect with them.
• Create more.
• Share what you create and what inspires.
• (repeat)

How can you do that? Oh, well that brings us back to the list above of things that “don’t work.” Because, they all “work” if you pursue it from a place of creativity and empathy. If you do it to connect with those who love the kind of writing that you do, and with the goal of creating meaningful moments and experiences.

Something happened today from another creative field that is a wonderful example of this. For the second time this year, Taylor Swift released a brand new album that she just recorded. This is in addition to one documentary produced this year, plus another that was released in January.

Here is someone who just keeps creating. Who keeps sharing. Who either works to connect directly with her audience, or keeps them in mind as a driving force for what she does.

Five years ago, I wrote about Taylor Swift in a blog post, sharing this video as a compelling example of truly embracing your ideal audience.

Yesterday, I saw this is how she shared the news of her newest album:

“Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it’s my lucky number backwards, which is why I wanted to surprise you with this now. You’ve all been so caring, supportive and thoughtful on my birthdays and so this time I thought I would give you something! I also know this holiday season will be a lonely one for most of us and if there are any of you out there who turn to music to cope with missing loved ones the way I do, this is for you.”

Why share this example? Because at the core of it is who we are as people and what connects us as human beings: caring, connecting, creating, and sharing.

And if you want me to more directly connect it back to marketing your books, I am happy to do so. It was more than a decade ago that I heard this quote from Scott Johnson:

“Caring is a powerful business advantage.”

If you want to connect what you create to readers, start with that.

Thank you.

-Dan

Something extraordinary happened this week for an author I worked with this year. Her novel was released and Reese Witherspoon selected this book as her December book club pick. I mean, just imagine this happening to what you created, an image of Reese holding your work and sharing it with her 25 million Instagram followers:

 

The author is KJ Dell’Antonia, who you may remember from my podcast, who is the co-host of the amazing #amwriting podcast, and an author.

Her new book, The Chicken Sisters, represents her shift from writing nonfiction to novels. She and I worked together on the book launch earlier in 2020. Originally scheduled to be released in the summer, the publication date was moved to Dec 1, and she adjusted.

In some ways, this is the dream for an author: to be selected. To have someone with authority and influence choose your work. And it is a truly an amazing thing. But what I never want to lose from this narrative is just how hard KJ worked, and continues to work. She wrote an incredible book. She has also spent years showing up to the community of readers and writers, and many months ensuring that this book would connect with them.

Being selected is not the end of the work she does to support her creative work. She is continuing to send out email newsletters, asking people to buy the book and post reviews of it online, and encouraging people to show up at her events.

When she did a takeover of Reese’s Book Club Instagram account, she created a wonderful set behind here that included a big chalkboard promotion of her Instagram handle:

 

She baked cookies in the shape of chickens:

 

She has drawn hundreds of chickens when signing her books:

 

And she made sure to include kitties in her promotion of a book about chickens, because the internet loves cats!

 

I always worry that someone will read KJ’s story and think, “Well sure, I would do all of that work too if I was chosen for a major award or achievement.” But KJ was doing this work day by day for years. She continues it now because she has developed a true connection to readers and those in the writing community. I’ll try to work on a full case study of her book launch to share next year, but for now, congratulations KJ!

Another author I have been working with had her book released this week, Sarah Hays Coomer’s The Habit Trip: A Fill-In-The-Blank Journey to a Life on Purpose. Here is her book on my shelf at the studio:

 

This is Sarah’s third book, and here she is preparing signed copies to send out:

 

Sarah has worked so hard in not just preparing for the book launch, but doing so in a manner that feels authentic to who she is. We have had so many conversations not just about strategies and tactics of marketing, but how to promote a book while feeling great about how you do it. Her work with this book extends to not only what she writes, but her speaking and coaching.

This work is holistic to who you are. It is how you are evolving as a creator and a person. It is setting an intention of the experiences you want to create, the ways you want to connect, and the impact you have in the lives of others.

The Habit Trip is an incredible resource, I highly recommend it! Congrats to Sarah on the launch!

Earlier this Fall, another writer I worked with released her book, and her story has endlessly inspired me. When Nicky Mendenhall was 65 she embraced the idea of going to psychoanalysis. This turned into an incredible intellectual and personal journey that was challenging and fulfilling.

Then she decides to write about the experience, which is her memoir Fear, Folly and Freud: A Psychotherapist in Psychoanalysis. The date of publication? Her birthday, a decade later when she turned 75.

 

For the launch, she created a Zoom event where her readers, friends, and family attended. I mean, just look at this photo, people celebrating what Nicky has created:

 

It was such a lovely conversation, filled with laughter, questions, and insights. At this culmination of an amazing process, Nicky talked about the next book she is excited to write. It was a reminder that this work of creating and sharing is a process that follows us through life.

Her spirit throughout all of this has been incredible, truly embracing what it means to grow and create. To fill her life with possibility. Congratulations on everything Nicky!

This week another writer I have worked with sent out her newsletter, thanking everyone supporting her book. That author is Leigh Stein (I’ve done multiple case studies on the launch of her novel, Self Care.) In the newsletter she talked about how to support an author and the profound impact this has on their life, saying:

“The sales of this book will be one of the things that determines whether my next novel sells to a publisher—so when you buy a copy of Self Care you are actually supporting my ability to work in the future. You are saying, with your 16 bucks, We think this lady should write another book.”

This is the power we have as readers. To support the work of writers. To buy their books, post reviews of them online, and share with a friend. To talk about their books online, and connect with the authors through social media.

Above are examples of fiction, nonfiction, and memoir writers who launched their books this year. Amidst a pandemic, and sweeping changes in our world.

This is work. But the work is about growing who you are, what you can create, and how you can connect with others around things you love. Thank you for doing that work.

-Dan

The last quarter of every year, I spend three months on a creative and strategic reset. The idea is to review my daily work and compare it to what I want to be creating and sharing.

To me, this is an essential step in developing one’s platform and creating marketing strategies that work. It involves being radically clear about what you create, how you can best communicate that, and who you are hoping to reach.

Some of it is big picture work, a time where I go back to the well and reconnect with the most basic questions of what inspires me, what motivates me, and how I can best help others. But much of the work is in-the-trenches strategic and tactical work, focused on actions to take.

This is a creative reset. Not a big dramatic reset, but a small incremental one. I do this every year, and year-by-year, I feel closer and closer to what I create and who I connect with.

What are the goals?

• To feel a sense of creative clarity.
• To make the difficult choices about where to put my time and creative energy.
• To ensure everything I work on feels aligned.
• To focus on creating the moments and experiences I want my life to be filled with.
• To consider how I can help writers and creators even more.

What am I not focusing on in all of this? Hollow milestones. Hollow numbers. Achievements that sound good on paper, but don’t truly lead to meaningful experiences or connections to others. I’m not asking “how can I grow my subscribers and followers.” Instead, I’m asking, “how can I live a life filled with creating, connecting, and helping.”

This is also how I manage mental health and anxiety. To know that at this time of year, I can look at all of the ideas I never seem to get to. When I can ask myself what truly matters. When I give myself permission to say YES to what is in my heart and NO THANK YOU to otherwise good ideas, that don’t lead to the experiences that matter most to me.

Some of the activities I am doing this quarter:

Identify Areas for Growth
As I mentioned above, I determine growth not in metrics, but experiences. Throughout the year, I write down ideas for projects and revisions to how I currently work. During this quarter, I:

Collect all of those ideas together into a single document.
Categorize them and combine like ideas together.
Explore where each will lead through brainstorming.
Prioritize what feels like it matters most.
Identify a simple action to get started with the most important items on the list.
Then I let go of the low priority items. I allow myself to be okay with not pursuing them. These are often good ideas, but letting go of them releases the idea of always feeling behind. Of feeling swamped under an endless list of to-dos.

All of this has me carefully considering where I invest my time and energy. As I said in an earlier essay, my focus is on helping writers and creators, and being present for my wife and kids. Choosing how I want to grow and the ways to do that must take into account how I show up for my professional goals, but also my personal goals.

Review and Hone My Messaging
In order to create the experiences I want, I need to be sure I am communicating them clearly. This is a process of identifying how I can best explain what I do, and who I want to reach. This year marked the 10-year anniversary of WeGrowMedia, and doing this work full time. Every single year, my messaging has evolved. Each year I learn more about who I am, how I am growing, who I want to connect with, and how my work can best help them.

So this quarter I will go through my website, social media profiles, podcast, and anywhere else I create, and adjust anything that has changed. Sometimes the changes are big, but often it is small detail work. Page by page, line by line, cutting away what doesn’t align in order to amplify what remains.

Unclutter
So much of this work is about removing distractions. Not because the things I am removing are “bad” but because they aren’t my highest priority. They are getting in the way of how I can best help the writers and creators who inspire me.

Some of this work is more strategic. Letting go of “big fun ideas” that will disrupt more important work. For instance, I paused the Mastermind that I run in 2020. All year I kept considering if and how I would relaunch it. But this quarter I’m considering alternatives. What if I put all of that focus into writing my next book? Or another project?

The uncluttering also happens in small ways. Cleaning off my computer desktop so it is empty. Cleaning out and reorganizing my Dropbox files. Unsubscribing from newsletters that I haven’t read in ages. Unfollowing people on social media.

I don’t mean for any of this to sound negative. But I want to be able to honor the limits of where I can put my attention. I want to turn on my computer, open email, go on social media, and feel focused. That there is ample room for the possibility of creating the connections, moments, and experiences I dream of having with writers and creators.

As I look ahead to next year, I want to feel focused and prepared. To create. To share. To connect. To engage with writers and creators who inspire me.

Thank you.
-Dan

The other day on Twitter, I asked this question: “If you could get rid of one challenge or struggle as a writer, what would it be?”

I received a range of answers: procrastination, advertising, lack of response from agents, fear, and more. But the challenge that came up again and again was time. Having more time to write and share their work.

Today I want to address that. Too often, people consider time and money as their two most precious resources. They are finite, and we are constantly reminded of their limits. But, I don’t think they are the most important resources you have.

Creative energy is.

If you develop your ability to harness and manage your creative energy, time becomes less of a problem.

Late in the summer, something like this shared on social media, “I always said I would clean the garage out when I had more time. Well, I’ve been home for 170 days in a row due to the pandemic, and my garage is still a mess. I guess time wasn’t the real issue.”

Below I will share five steps to find more creative energy to write and market your work. But first, I want to tell you about one way I am finding more creative energy.

This year, I have been incredibly busy working with writers and being there for my family, and one thing that slipped away in the process is my guitar playing practice. I did pick it up each day, but most days it was literally for a minute or less. If you are a longtime reader of this newsletter you may remember how a couple years ago, I decided to finally learn to play guitar after a quarter century of dabbling with it. These essays share some of that journey:

• What Practicing Guitar Every Day for a Year Taught Me About the Creative Success
• How I Found an Extra Hour a Day to Create
• I Was Stuck. This is How I Got Unstuck.

This year I felt I had zero extra time, and zero extra creative energy. So how am I solving that for myself? With this:

 

What is it? A Martin D-28 guitar. I’m sure it looks like every other acoustic guitar to you, but when I see it, I see this: the many famous players who have used a D-28:

 

But it is also a very expensive object that I don’t need. This is a (mostly) handmade wooden instrument. The design of this guitar is nearly 100 years old, yet it costs more than a new Apple computer.

Why did I say I don’t need it? Because I already have another wonderful acoustic guitar that I really love playing. But I’m not spending the money to buy just the guitar. I’m buying something else.

I’m buying the reason to show up to my guitar practice. I need to live up to this guitar.

To its price tag.

To its craftsmanship.

To its heritage.

To its capabilities.

I will practice more — dramatically more — in order to justify this purchase.

Which means, in reality, what I’m showing up for is my own creative intentions, and my own potential.

In many ways, I feel I don’t have any extra time or energy. Yet, here I am upping my guitar practice by 1,000%

This guitar is a glaring reminder to practice. Too often, it is easy for us to bury our creative goals into the back of our minds, making it the lowest priority in our lives. No one will know if you didn’t write today. Or this week. Or this month. They will easily forgive you, saying, “You are so busy with family and work! Who has time to write?!”

But we each need to make the time for our creative intentions. For me, it is this guitar sitting in my room. It is a big red flashing light to me that reminds me: “Dan, I’m here to ensure that are living up to your creative potential.”

Which leads me to my advice for how you can find more creative energy — and time — for writing and sharing your work:

Hold Yourself Accountable

What I did above is a form of holding myself accountable. Spending money on something I can’t ignore to put me on the hook to my goal. Writing about it here in this essay is another way I’m doing that. By linking to my older posts, I’m reminding myself of my goal. And by publishing this to thousands of people, I will undoubtedly have people asking me how my guitar playing is going for years to come.

Many of you may be doing NaNoWriMo ((National Novel Writing Month) this month, writing tens of thousands of words. This too is a form of accountability — announcing to a friend or family member that you are doing it, and setting a clear expectation.

Find a way to involve others in your creative intention. To set an expectation for what you will write, or what/how you will share that with others.

A more advanced way of doing this is to hire someone. A book coach, an editor, a marketing consultant, etc. In some ways, you are hiring their expertise, their advice, their program. But you are also investing in accountability.

This is why people hire a personal trainer when they want to get fit. Joining a gym or going to a class can be relatively affordable. $80 per month at the gym, or for a package of classes. But hiring a personal trainer can easily cost that for a single hour.

Why do this?

Because that person is waiting for you. When you commit to workout at 8am, and your trainer is there waiting for you, you show up. When you are paying $80 an hour, you suddenly make this a top priority.

You put in the work to honor that intention, and not let that person down.

Prioritize a Few Things That Matter

I won’t belabor this one because I have written a lot about it recently, but finding more creative energy and time for writing and sharing should focus you on a very limited number of high priority items.

For me, my biggest priorities right now are my family, and the writers I’m working with. The next priority? Oddly, it is my guitar practice. To show up for something that gives me joy. That is a craft I am learning.

I am choosing my guitar practice over finishing my next book. Why? Because in a year so focused on attending to others, I want to choose one thing in my life that has no measure of success other than the joy of experiencing it. For me, that is guitar. I’m not recording a song, and have zero dreams of performing for others or releasing an album. My only “goals” for guitar are to be able to lazily sit on the front porch and play.

Are those three things the only things I attend to in a given day? Of course not. But they are what I prioritize. What I think about while doing anything else.

If you need help finding what you want to prioritize, check out my Clarity Card process.

Be Active, Not Passive

This is critical for finding more creative energy and time to create: don’t be a passive participant in your own writing and sharing. Don’t just join an online writing group, and sit quietly in the Zoom calls. Don’t just listen to writing and marketing podcasts, taking notes. Don’t just sign up for an online course or webinar that focuses solely on information.

Instead, take bold action. Focus on tasks that get words on the page, pages published, and where you are connecting with real people who love the same type of writing that you do.

What is the work of marketing? It is sharing. Engaging. Reaching out. And taking a social risk.

It is what leads you to connect with others. Not just to “like” a social media post, but to send an email, a direct message, make a pitch, and collaborate.

Action often requires taking a social risk. I know that is scary for most people. But it is also where the moments of fulfillment come from — when you truly connect with people around what we create.

I mean, my entire podcast is focused on this idea of creative risk. Of being an active participant in our own creative dreams.

Make it Small

Too often, we think of writing and sharing in terms of grand plans. But I want to encourage you to focus on the small actions. To show up to put words on the page. And to take the smaller actions to connect with others that truly matter: show up for other people.

This week a colleague reminded me of this essay I wrote a decade ago: The One Thing You MUST do to Succeed in Social Media. A quote from that piece:

“The one thing that is CRITICAL to you succeeding in social media? Okay, here it is: Care. That’s it. Just be a human being, and actually care about the people you are connecting with online.”

Get involved, and be focused on small experiences that matter. Choose tiny actions that do the most important things.

What have you found helps you to find more creative energy and time to create and share?

Thanks.

-Dan

I recently interviewed children’s book illustrator Veronica Miller Jamison about her amazing creative shift, and how she got her first book deal with Little, Brown.

After spending nearly an hour discussing her career leading up to the book, I finally asked, “How was the book launch?” She replied:

“A lot of anxiety. In the middle of doing this book, I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety. The book was my bright spot.”

Veronica opened up more about how the book launch created a deeply fulfilling experience for her. Often, writers and illustrators hope that with publication, their creative work will reach thousands of strangers. In doing so, this attention validates their craft, raises their profile as a writer or artist, and releases that sense of impostor’s syndrome that so many of us deal with.

But Veronica said something different: “What was amazing was to see the people who came out to support me.” She described friends, family, and co-workers, including those she hasn’t seen for years who came to her book reading. “Seeing my community appear in front of me to support my work, was overwhelming and makes me choke up right now to think about it.”

This is what so many writers overlook: their own community that they have spent a lifetime creating. Too often, they can’t see the forest for the trees. They compartmentalize every relationship they ever made as “former co-worker” or “former classmate” and don’t realize that these are people who know you, and care about what you create. These are the people who may just show up for you in your big moment of celebration around your writing.

Instead, many writers want the recognition of strangers. The result? They hide their writing from those around them. They don’t tell family, friends, or coworkers about what they create. When someone in their daily lives asks how they are doing — one of their kids’ friend’s parents, the barista they see every day, the other 10 members of the PTA committee they sit on — they never mention their writing.

They justify that “these people aren’t readers,” or “they don’t read my genre,” or “they don’t have kids, and my book is a kid’s book.”

But these people may want to support you if you give them a chance.

Early success with developing your audience is often about connecting people to your work, and perhaps even to each other. Often, that may begin with who you know already: friends, family and coworkers past and present. Why? Because these are the people who will drive an hour, in the rain, on a busy Thursday night to support you at your book launch.

Again and again in Veronica’s career, she talks about the value of not just knowledge and information, but of connection to others. She talked about the critical importance of forging connections with like-minded creators, and how that has led to her success in multiple industries.

My full interview with Veronica Miller Jamison is absolutely inspiring. You can listen to it on the web, Apple Podcast, or Spotify here.

This reminds me of a blog post I wrote in early 2013, titled: “Focus on the people, not just the ideas and information.” I shared my experience of attending a large publishing conference in New York City. Of course, there were amazing keynote speakers, insightful presentations, and neat innovations shared at the event. But this was the highlight for me: shoved into a booth at Shake Shack, eating lunch with Cory Doctorow, Stephanie Anderson, and Rachel Fershleiser:

It was a conversation around books, reading, libraries, interaction, community. Too many people attend events keeping quietly to themselves and taking notes. Luckily for me, not these people. Cory is a famous author, Rachel at the time was working at Tumblr, and Stephanie had been managing an amazing bookstore and moving into the library world.

And it was completely unplanned and unbelievably amazing. I believe I had spoken on a panel with Rachel and Stephanie, and I asked if they wanted to skip the conference provided box lunch to get some real food. As we were deciding where to go, Cory was near us, so I said something nice to him about his presentation. As we chatted, we invited him to lunch, and were thrilled when he decided to join us.

This moment was such a reminder to be present. To focus on strengthening the connections to those around you. To take risks to make connections with other people.

And of course, to always do that with good food!

Thanks.
-Dan