I joined some Dark Forests recently. A common theme in two of them was, “do we really want to do this?” In a bigger one, it was… well, more. More noise, more notifications, more threads, more… just, always more.

During a recent conversation, someone said they haven’t installed a new app in forever.

In the early days of the internet, it was a place I wanted to visit, but I didn’t want to live there.

Are we done?

You do the work, you make your magic, then you send a newsletter once a month and nothing really happens.

Your biggest fans (the ones who gave you their email address) get maybe 12 emails a year from you, and chances are they don’t open every one. They might see what you’re doing 4 or 5 times a year.

It’s not that your work isn’t great, it’s that no one knows about it, and it’s hard for people to get into what you’re doing if they forget about you.

You’ve got no problem posting to social media three times a day, spending hours every week engaging, but telling people what you’re doing via email feels like too much.

Think about that!

Imagine you’re a musician, and you reach out to one venue a year to book a show, your odds are terrible. If you hit up ten venues, slightly better. But fifty? Three hundred and sixty-five? Someone’s gotta say yes.

Send more emails about your new song, your new album, your new book, your next class, your next event.

Frequency isn’t some desperate tactic, it’s how you keep from fading into obscurity. It’s not spammy, people signed up for it, and if unsubscribe, then they’re not your people.

But pay attention to the people who stay. As my friend Nikki Learner says, “let’s not hoard our gifts.” Send another email newsletter this week. You’ve got years of “content” that you’ve posted on social media in the last year, start there.

Skip the BUY NOW buttons and product links, you’re not a department store. Everyone does that, then they wonder why they get 10% open rates. Treat your email audience like an ATM and they’ll burn out, then you’re back to square one, posting into the void on social media.

Instead, make your magic, then tell the people who gave you their email address.

Matthew Ferrara comes from the real estate world, and often challenges the notion that social media is the most important thing in the getting the word out. From “Why This Simple Sales Move Outperforms Social Media Marketing:”

The National Association of REALTORS® most recent survey asked 173,250 buyers a simple question: Was social media the main method used to find your real estate agent?

1% said yes.

But 37% were referred by a friend, neighbor, or relative; and another 29% used the same agent they worked with the last time.

You can not deny the foundation of “referred by a friend, neighbor, or relative,” across all business and creative fields. We make big transactions and small deals based on trust, and in the year 2026 referrals still carry a lot of weight.

You’re an artist, a poet, a musician, a creative person, and you’re tired of algorithms controlling who sees what. I was one of the first 3,000 to sign up for Twitter, I get it. But I’ve seen bands shout into the void for 10+ years on social media, and helped some artists get back to things like owning their website and direct connection to their audience with an email list.

Otherwise, it all becomes a digital hamster wheel that keeps us all spinning in place.

Here’s how you break out.

• Start looking at the profiles and about pages of the people you follow and see who they link to, what they like, who they follow.
• Start clicking the links in people’s newsletter and meet the people they’re gushing about.
• Tune into random live streams, hit play on podcasts you’ve never heard before.
• Join (and / or host) Zoom calls without expectations.
• Read the acknowledgements in books, and scan the credits of big video productions.

I know plenty of creative people doing these things a few times per week, and it puts dozens of wonderfully talented people onto their radar. I dare you to do the same!

Follow someone, subscribe, leave a thoughtful comment, send a DM or an email.

I’ve been doing this since at least 2023 and it’s radically shifted my creative vision, and given me hope for the future. Or you can continue letting an algorithm determine your fate, rather than trusting your gut and being intentional with who you let into your creative orbit.

Someone emailed me how they would paywall their work after 90 days, and was looking for some thoughts and ideas on growth and such.

First — are you “married” to the paywall? Is this paying your rent right now? I don’t want to say anything flippant if it’s keeping the lights on. But since you mention wanting to ditch it, I get the feeling you’re still figuring it out, just like we all are.

I experimented with a paywall for a while, and I hated sending my newsletter to five people at a time. I appreciated the money and support, but I didn’t appreciate that my best work was only being seen by a few people. What if the post that deeply resonated with one paid member could have attracted 100 new readers?

Every piece we put out into the world is a chance for the right person to find it. Especially when you’re just getting started. You’re coming up on a year on Substack. There are people who have just discovered you, maybe told their friends, and a large part of your work is inaccessible until they pay.

I fully believe we all need to get paid. But I think we need to build trust first. And we build trust when we’re our most comfortable selves, instead of worrying about paywalls, page counts, SEO, all of that. Get your work out there in ways you can sustain. A website and a newsletter, for example. When you start adding TikTok, long-form YouTube, and everything else, that’s where things get hectic.

The more of yourself you put out there, the more people can see and feel and read, the faster you’ll discover how they actually want to support you.

I started my Substack in 2021 and didn’t rebrand to until 2023. That’s when I started hosting Zoom calls, just kind of like, “I want to talk to more people about this stuff.” And that’s when I discovered people really wanted to talk about it, too. And that some of them would pay to be part of it. Not in some guru-funnel way, but genuinely: I had to try a bunch of different things before I found what worked for me.

Reduce friction. Get to the core of what you want to be doing, without giving yourself too many side gigs to make it work.

This from Amie McNee:

“You have to learn to continue to hold your art when people are apathetic about it, because you will know your creation has something to give before the institutions do, before the culture does. It is hard to be the first that knows, but it is the artist’s job to come first.”

The artist’s job comes first. If people walk out of the venue during your show, it is not your job to change the music you are playing.

​Sean Gordon co-owns Taffeta Music Hall in Lowell, MA, and makes helpful videos on Instagram for bands and independent artists about getting booked, talking about their work, building an email list, and more.

​He’s doing the stuff from the venue side that we talk about from the artist side, so this will be an informative conversation from a new perspective!

​We’ll also talk about Taffeta’s memberships program, email lists, community, and what IRL marketing looks like when it’s working.

​This is a conversation, not a seminar. You are absolutely encouraged to ask questions and geek out with Sean about all of this stuff.

Thursday, June 4 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT
REGISTER HERE → https://luma.com/sqflzmgu

On our recent “Find Your People On Substack” call we talked about finding our people, which of course led to building an audience, getting more subscribers.

But what if we think beyond mere subscribers?

We dream of reaching a big audience, but what does it mean if we’ve got no one to lean on? On our lowest days, who are the people that we can text or get on a phone call with?

We don’t just need a big subscriber count, we need good people in our corner.

Come to our FINDING YOUR PEOPLE ON SUBSTACK – SATURDAY EDITION this weekend.