“Consistency is key. You can’t be in the right place at the right time without showing up consistently. You have to fail—and keep failing—until you succeed. People see Keep The Meter Running and SubwayTakes, but they don’t see the ten other failures that helped me get here.”
“But over time, Instagram became its own beast. It brought joy, connection, and incredible opportunities. It also exposed me to the darker sides of the internet. Chasing the algorithm and the constant buzz left me feeling burnt out. And as I grew personally and professionally, I realized it was no longer a fit for who I’d become.”
“One of my favorite things to do is to reach out to people in my network and acknowledge the cool things they’re doing. A quick message like this can be a mood booster for you both!”
“If I have to throw a pebble at your bedroom window every time I do something new, reminding you that I exist, then I’m not doing my best to even give you a reason to visit my website.”
True in 2018 when I wrote it, and still true six years later.
“Once I started trying to anticipate what other people would want, I lost my point of view,” says menswear designer Aaron Levine.
Don’t get caught up in how a newsletter to your fans is supposed to look. Don’t assume your fans want something short and sweet, or long and drawn out. You don’t make your art thinking about the audience, so don’t write and share your art in a way that forces you into form that is not your own.
2. TELL YOUR STORY
We talked about this in yesterday’s Escape Pod Zoom call (next one is Sunday at 10am ET), about making videos to showcase our work.
This doesn’t have to mean making dance videos, or shouting directly into the camera, either. Check out the work of Noah Kalina, Taylor Pendleton, Softer Sounds, and ISETTA FILM, and see how they tell stories in their own unique way.
And when I say make a video, I don’t mean produce a fully-featured clip and upload it to YouTube. Set up your smart phone, or turn on your web cam, or make some voice notes talking the thing you do. Do this today. Tomorrow. This will help you when you get interviewed about your work, or someone asks you about your art at the local coffee shop.
Practice talking about your stuff.
3. USE A DIFFERENT FROM NAME
Is the FROM NAME that you use for your newsletter familiar for your readers? If not, people might not open it.
For example, here’s the FROM name from my Substack, which totally makes sense:
But on KIT (which I use to send out emails about Escape Pod calls), the FROM name was…. my name. While many of my readers know my name, maybe some don’t!
So if you’re sending emails for your band, it might make sense to use your band name, while if you’re an independent photographer, it might be best to use your name.
4. PUT DOWN THE PHONE
You can come back to this email later, but for now put down the phone, or close the laptop, get up from the computer, and do the work.
You know what needs to be done. You know the next step.
That email you have to send, the print you need to finish, the form you need to fill out. They’re all small tasks and I know they can feel super big, but I promise putting off the tiny things will only compound.
BTW: have you done virtual co-working? It’s where you hop on a Zoom call with other people looking to get some work done. For the first 10 minutes you discuss what you’re working on, then everyone goes on mute and works together in silence. Then in the last 10 or so minutes we get together and talk about how it went. I’m gonna be offering this in 2025.
Social media companies want you sitting on your couch consuming as many ads as possible. It feels like a leisurely activity, but really you’re working very hard to increase shareholder value for massive corporations.
Sara Eckel wrote about this in ‘The People Who Don’t Want You to Sleep,’
Eckel references the the book Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention–And How to Think Deeply Again, in which former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris says “You can try having self-control, but there are a thousand engineers on the other side of the screen working against you.”
Breaking this habit takes more than just deleting the apps. It takes intentional action, which is what Joi Katskee is doing.
Joi (pronounced Joe-ee) runs Electric Radio Club, a weekly two hour radio show. But she also started bringing people together in real spaces to talk about music (watch the video above for the whole story).
Sure, it’s always going to be hard work to get the word out and get people to come out, but whoever shows up, well, that’s who shows up.
This is the work worth doing because it builds real world connection, unfazed by algorithms or “reach.” Social media platforms fear this, since now they are the ones missing out, unable to monetize our gathering and sell our data to advertisers.
So how could you apply this to your work? How do you get closer to the people who enjoy your art? What does it look like to do that in s sustainable way?
Years ago I ran a Patreon for my heavy metal trivia project called Skull Toaster.
That was bringing in $240/mo, and I was sending out a lot of stuff every month. Zines. Mystery metal CDs that I’d buy at the local music store. People could sponsor questions, and I’d make those hand written THANKS images and put them on social media.
I did a few virtual metal trivia hang outs, but I should have done more. I hid behind the social media posts because I was terrified of getting my questions wrong in a live space.
What would happen if you did a Zoom call with the people who follow your work? Or if you planned a small dinner with other creative people in your orbit?
Say we use the internet as a tool to make the plans, and then we close the laptop and build with the handful of people in front of us – then what?
What could we do that we’re avoiding because we’re scared?
Raise our rates? Fire that client?
Post that musical performance from our bedroom on YouTube?
Delete your music from Spotify? Delete Instagram from your phone?
Join that class. Teach that class?
And what are we hiding behind?
Making a dozen more vertical videos for 2% of your fans to see?
Updating our About page for the 20th time this week?
Spinning our wheels trying to get our website to look just right?
Waiting to reach a certain number of followers before we believe in ourselves?
When a system creates negative effects, it almost always happens gradually. Each node makes what feels like a reasonable decision at every step along the way, until the descent is far greater than we wished up for.
There’s cultural pressure and momentum to go along and before long we’re trapped – unable to get off social media, in debt, feeling stuck.
Toxic systems don’t go away on their own. Community action and peer support five us the scaffolding we need to build new systems. As those gain traction and power, the original system being to take notice and alter its behavior.
A lot of people feel stuck, and have a fear of missing out. I hear a lot of people say “well, Facebook is how I stay in touch with family” and such.
Until you get locked out, right?
Until that group with 1000 members gets shut down for some unknown reason.
If you’re still using one of those Link In bio services, take this weekend to clean it up. My god, I’ve seen some artists with 50+ links in those things. Do you expect fans to dig through all those? More choices just means your fans aren’t even going to click anything.
Consider putting all the things you’re linking to (YouTube videos, music, upcoming appearances, store) on your own website, then just simply linking to your website. One link to rule them all.
2. CONNECT DIRECTLY
Hardly anyone knows about your latest project, let alone something you did three weeks ago (or three years).
Send a link to three people and let them know about it. Doing this takes minutes and is probably more effective than posting on socials for 95% of your audience to miss. Send via email, text, or DM. Just be cool about it.
3. RETHINK YOUR PITCH
Are you asking people to “subscribe for updates” to get people on your email list? Maybe promising a 10% discount?
Remember, you’re competing with Netflix, social media, family, new albums, holiday plans, and a million other things – rework your pitch.
“Say, “follow our adventures as we leave for tour in a month. Sign up so you don’t miss a single photo of our adventures. Sign up so you don’t miss out on all our crazy tour stories.”
There’s a reason media outlets ask, “got any crazy tour stories?”
“While emailing is more about outreach than discoverability, I have heard that art directors and art commissioners will actually use the search facility in their email app (e.g. Outlook or Gmail) as a first point of call after any in-house databases – so they might type ‘room illustration, colourful’ or ‘collage illustrator, newspaper’ etc. into the search bar to see if they have been sent any work by a relevant illustrator.”
Keep this in mind when reaching out to art directors and venues and other people you’re pitching for potential opportunities.
Instead of posting something on social media tonight, email an old acquaintance. Text someone a photo or link. Tell them about a book you’re reading. Send an email to someone you admire. Ask someone how they’re doing. Write a letter. Call your bestie.
In getting away from the algorithms and the walled garden of social media DMs, we return to a wide open world of possibilities.
A client who has worked with some big names wanted to build their email list, and I gave them this idea:
Think of the amazing people you worked with throughout the years, and think of all those stories you shared, and the memories you’ve made. They’ve got to have dozens of those stories to write, right?
So write that post, with that one person in mind. Then email that person a link to the piece.
This gets you around sending a boring email to “all your contacts” saying, “hey, I have a newsletter now, you should subscribe.”
Write a post that will resonate with the person you’re emailing. Yes, even if it’s just that one person. Email the person the link. Maybe they subscribe, or at least reply and you two catch up, and who knows where that leads?
It’s not always about striking it rich and getting 100 new sign ups. Sometimes the right message to the right person at the right time is all you need.
