I’m sad when I click to listen to someone’s latest offering and I’m left with a long narrow list of digital music streaming providers and download partners.
Now, a “landing page” with lyrics and photos and other “on brand” delights would be so appealing, and it’s not that hard in 2025.
But instead, a legion of talented music makers are content to do what everyone else is doing, sending their adoring fans to faceless corporate data collection services instead of pulling them further into their own creative world (and capturing a few email addresses in the process).
“(Resketch) makes notebooks and sketchpads of unused architectural diagrams, maps, logs, sheet music, and more. The resulting designs offer users the opportunity to creatively engage with the original markings and add their own additions to the printed pages. Flipping through a notebook also becomes an act of discovery as old calendars or bureaucratic forms are tucked between graphs and lines.”
By shifting from competition to collaboration, you: Create sustainability—because you no longer have to do everything alone. Build trust & credibility—because people respect businesses that uplift others. Challenge the corporate model—because small businesses thrive in community, not isolation.
Social media has led us to believe the idea of the lone genius. We figure everything out on our own. Growth as the singular focus.
What’s the old adage? To go fast, go alone. To go far, go with others.
I tried hosting my interview videos as a Substack Podcast, but I realized something in the process – all media uploaded to Substack (video or audio) can’t be embedded on your own site. You’ve got to either uplpoad the video to YouTube (meh, Google), or in the case of the podcast… well, you’re out of luck.
So that’s why I moved things to Transistor. Yes, I have to pay $20/mo for it, but if that’s the price I need to pay to keep my interviews from disappearing if the Substack platform goes away (or gets bought by Elon Musk), then it’s a good investment.
AI won’t replace you but AI-enhanced freelancers will.
If you’re not using AI to streamline your workflow, automate admin tasks, or turbocharge your creativity, you’re already losing to those who are. It’s pointless to try to fight technology, become comfortable with it and own it! This will give you the time to do the tasks you need to focus on and be present with potential clients and collaborators.
AI-enhanced freelancers. Damn, it’s true.
I use chatGPT to do some very basic, menial formatting work for me, across several of my clients. If I did it all “by hand” I’d be adding hours every month of busy work. Not worth it.
This started by me posting on Substack Notes, a screen shot of a bunch of folders filled with my digital photos dating back to 2002. I explained how I got all those photos extracted from Apple Photos (formerly iPhoto), and into their own folders. Then how I backed them all up via Backblaze.
This got some traction, so I wondererd if people would be interested in hopping on a Zoom call and talking about it. I set up a landing page using Tally, and got over 30 replies.
From there I set up an event in Luma, and emailed those folks, and as of writing this I got 29 people signed up to attend.
It’s on Thursday, March 20 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT. If you wanna come, register here.
- This is definitely not for the hardcore photographer crowd.
- This is for the casual iPhone / photographer who just happens to have a jillion photos scattered everywhere and you’re looking for a temporary support group to figure things out together.
I figured out an okay system to get all my iPhone photos off my device and stored on an external HD, again, all backed up via Backblaze (which backs up two external HDs and my laptop for $9/mo).
Because of this, I was able to cancel my yearly Google subscription for more photo storage (I was using it to back up my iPhone photos), and cut my iCloud to the .99 cents per month plan.
Thursday, March 20 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT. Register here.
It’s been so amazing to see people updating their websites. This from Zach Sprowls:
“The idea of a website HQ is not original to me. I got it from Seth Werkheiser over at SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB. His ideas, encouragement, and the community he’s building over there have been invaluable. Thank you, Seth!”
“Totally echo Zach’s words. I have built my new website HQ too, and it even has a “microblog” where I go to first, whenever I get that strong impulse to share on social media! Thanks Seth.”
I mean it – we’ve dumped years of text and photos and video onto these social media platforms. It’s no wonder no one visits our websites – we’re not updating them!
Filling out websites with everything we’ve been giving away for free to social media is a great start. Set up your own Twitter-like feed on your own site. Make it easy to publish new things on a platform you control!
So I had a handful of video interviews on Substack. They were sent out as newsletters, but they were also posts that I wrote. Not just show notes, but like… full posts.
Well, I didn’t like the way Substack handles podcasts… I mean, no individual episode art? The organization was a wreck, too. I just didn’t like how it felt.
I signed up a free trial of Transistor – for $19/mo you get unlimited podcasts. And they’re all just, like, in their own sandbox. Like, if I just delete one, nothing else is touched.
I learned the hard way that this is not the case with Substack. I uploaded all the audio from these videos to Transistor, and it worked great. Seriously. What a solid system. Everything just laid out in a way that makes sense, unlike how Substack sort of blurs together a post and a podcast episode.
