So often when people talk about developing an online platform for their writing or art, they focus on the channels. This may include a website, newsletter, social media, content strategy, Canva image templates, branded colors, and the like. All of these things are fine, and I help writers create them every single week. However, they are not the goal. The most important goals of your platform as a writer or creator are:
- To share your unique voice through what you create.
- To develop meaningful connections with readers and others.
Too often, this is framed as a discussion about how many followers or subscribers one has. And while those metrics can be useful, they are not an effective measure of your connections with your ideal readers, colleagues, and those who will fill your life as a writer. They don’t measure how much your work deeply matters to someone.
Last week I wrapped up the first exclusive series of my fall curriculum, with posts focused on defining your creative identity. Now, we will kick off the next series focusing on identifying your ideal readers. I’m releasing the first post in that series on Tuesday to my paid subscribers, where I will dive deep into identifying your ideal readers, provide an assignment to you, and engage with you and my wonderful community of writers in my private Chat. If you haven’t jumped on board yet, for a few days I’m offering a 20% discount on my yearly subscriptions if you join us now:
The most important parts of your platform are the things that are inherently human. This can be viewed from a purely strategic marketing angle, as well as the place of feeling fulfilled as a writer and human being. Connecting with others is not about “sales and marketing” alone. It is about having your days filled with moments, conversations, and experiences that comprise a fulfilling life as a writer.
Can you just write and publish and never interact with anyone? Sure. No problem.
But I have found that something deeply meaningful happens when your writing connects with someone who appreciates it. Being present in that process not only fills your life with joy, but helps you understand how to make these connections happen more frequently.
Let’s dig in…
Don’t Wait for Readers to Magically Find You
If you publish a book, will it be found and read? Maybe. Is that enough for you? I ask this seriously, because for some people, the simple the act of clicking “publish” is enough. They want to go back to their writing desk, and will not worry if anyone reads their work. And that is fine!
I spend my days talking with writers, and I find that many of them hope for something more — for their words to move someone, entertain them, give them hope, make them feel included, and allow them look at the world (and themselves) in new ways.
These writers shouldn’t have to wait for magic to happen, because that puts the fulfillment of their creative vision in danger.
This is why I encourage you to learn to understand who your ideal readers may be, where you might find them, and how you can connect with them in meaningful ways. While these activities can sometimes be categorized as “marketing,” I think too many writers fear that this means “selling out.” That they are putting sales ahead of creativity.
Instead, I encourage you to view this as a craft. One where you care about the ways readers find books, the themes they love to read about, the places they go that inspire and connect them with books. And in the process, what seems like a mysterious dark art slowly comes into focus in practical steps you can take to connect your writing to readers.
Is this work? Yep.
And thank goodness, because it means there is something we can do to advocate for our books, to connect with readers, and to live a thriving life as a writer.
Yes, we hope readers magically find us, become ridiculously curious about our work on their own, buy our books, read those books, and then gush about them to their friends, family, librarian, local indie bookstore, and leave an Amazon review. Does it happen? Sure. But not as much as we would like.
One-to-One Works
Every morning I take a walk and listen to an audiobook. I tend to focus on biographies and memoirs of creators. On a whim this week, I started listening to It’s So Easy: And Other Lies by Duff McKagan about his career as a musician and his life in the band Guns N’ Roses. Am I a fan of the band? Nope. I know their music, but have never chosen to listen to them in my free time. I simply heard this was a really well-written story of success, struggle, and creative growth.
At the part of McKagan’s book where the band is formed, no one is showing up to their shows. He says, “We had to start at the bottom and get there on our own.” What is one of the primary ways he cites for building their audience? That’s right, mailing lists! He shares how Guns N’ Roses used them:
“As soon as we started playing regularly in LA, we started a phone and mailing list. We obsessively made sure that people who came to shows signed up… obviously we had to write good songs and play well live to get a bigger audience… but the mailing list really worked for us. Within 6 months, we had 1,000 names with contact info for each. Other bands had mailing lists, but one of the secrets to GnR’s success was how much time and effort we spent building and maintaining ours. We knew we had to make it on our own… we were relentless about calling the names on our list. As our mailing list expanded, it was easier and easier to sell tickets to our shows.”
What I love about this is that it feels counterintuitive to how we often think a rock band finds success. One could even consider this “selling out,” because here they are making such an effort to pitch fans. I appreciate how Duff talks about the importance of maintaining the list, and that they themselves called each fan directly to encourage them to come out to a show. He said their lead guitarist, Slash, worked at a newspaper stand, and spent the entire day there on the phone calling fans one-by-one, inviting them to their next show.
This became critical for them as they tried to get gigs in “pay to play” venues. What’s that? It’s where the band pays the club in order to play there, instead of vice versa. Again, this tends to buck the notion we tend to have of musicians making it on talent alone. So the venue would require the band to buy tickets for their own shows, then the band would resell those tickets to patrons. This reduced financial risk for the venue, and made marketing the band’s responsibility.
It’s worth noting that this is back in the mid-1980s, none of these things were new then or are new now. Again and again, I hear people bemoan how years ago, creators didn’t have to worry about marketing, they just created. But in all of the books I’ve read, interviews I’ve listened to and conversations I’ve had, this isn’t always the case.
Do most creators dream of reaching the milestone when new people find you on their own? Yes. But please don’t assume that is the only way to begin, or that waiting in silence is somehow “the best” way to approach giving your work a chance at reaching readers.
If you wait for magic to happen, you may find at the end of your life that you wished you made a more concerted effort. Sorry for the drama, but these are really the terms I think of this in — I truly believe that your unique voice can change someone’s life for the better.
Followers vs. Supporters
The toughest part of this is the stuff we often don’t talk about: fear of being seen and being judged. I covered some of this in my post last week. But it underscores this: one of the most important parts of your platform as a writer is your community, who you are connected with, and how they support you.
This goes beyond, “Oh, I have a cheerleading squad of 5,000 followers!!!!” Because sometimes those metrics are fickle and don’t represent a meaningful connection of support.
Instead, I mean those who will truly take action to support you and your work. A few years back, I interviewed a musical hero of mine, Will Ackerman, who founded the record label Windham Hill in the 1970s and 80s. This is the music I actually love. A documentary about the label was just successfully funded on Kickstarter, raising $100,000 for production. How many people did it take for this to succeed? Take a guess: 20,000 people donating $5 each? 10,000 people donating $10 each?
Nope. 575 people. That’s it. They didn’t even make it to Kevin Kelly’s famous “1,000 True Fans” concept. But you know what? 575 was enough.
Two people even spent $9,000 each to have dinner with Will, because that is what supporters do. It is at the intersection of the appreciation of your art, and how their identity and life experience is forged by it.
I remember a similar situation earlier this year when my wife and I saw Moulin Rouge on Broadway. Boy George was the guest star, and after the show the cast made a plea for the audience to donate to a nonprofit supporting workers on Broadway. A bidding war ensued as members of the audience vied for a personal meet and greet with Boy George. In the end, two fans paid $5,000 each to meet with him and have their photos taken together.
These connections take time to develop. I know that many writers reading this may feel discouraged, saying to themselves, “Well that’s just great, another thing I have to do.”
I grew up as an artist, my friends throughout my life have always been creators (writers, visual artists, performers, musicians, photographers, etc.), and my wife is an amazing artist. Because of this, I don’t look at the idea of connecting with your readers as an obligation, but rather as an opportunity of something you get to do. It is an honor, and fills one’s life with the meaningful human moments that make our lives worth living.
The Moments of Our Lives
This week I have been digitizing some micro-cassette tapes I found from my dad, who passed away a few years ago. In 1982 and 1983 he made some recordings of meetings at work. It seemed like this was some important project for him, which is perhaps why he wanted meeting minutes.
At the time, he worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, on the corporate side. He managed teams who did data processing, so his work involved managing projects involving programmers and mainframe computers.
As his son, I can hear these recordings knowing that they showcased a great achievement for my father. He had a corner office on Park Avenue in New York City, just north of Grand Central Station. He loved helping people, and always felt his gift was to see both sides in a situation, bridging competing priorities so that each person felt their needs were met. On these tapes, I hear him working through a difficult and complex situation with colleagues, often pausing to ensure each person knows that they are appreciated.
But to anyone else, these are the most boring recordings in the world — people in a cookie-cutter office in 1983 talking about programs coded in an outdated computer language, on projects that don’t matter now.
Why am I sharing this? Because you are a writer or creator and you do this work because you are sharing something meaningful. You know that the stories or ideas you share may connect with someone in a deep way. That is a huge risk you are taking, and I think it is worth it. If we look back on this moment decades from now, you will feel you were sharing something that was important, with people you cared about.
What will your version of these tapes be 40 years from now? Will it be the newsletters you shared with readers that they loved? Will it be appearances on podcasts that helped new readers discover you? Will videos of when you met with readers at a bookstore event, or a private book club? Again, this is not about the media itself, but the human connections that it captures.
Is this work? Sure. And I’m thankful that we each have the opportunity to choose to do it.
Please let me know in the comments below: tell me how you want to look back on your life as a writer or creator. What experiences do you hope filled those years?
Reminder to consider becoming a paid subscriber at 20% off, and not miss out on my new exclusive series on identifying your ideal readers that begins Tuesday:
Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan