This from “I almost killed my podcast,” by Becky Isjwara. Becky does a podcast called Small Creator Big World with Bhav Sharma.

Every community is shaped by the people running it. The alternative was to shut ours down entirely because I felt so icked out by what it had become. That would have meant running away from the problem rather than deciding what we actually wanted this space to be.

I’m sorry to the entrepreneurs we disappointed by not becoming the community of your dreams. There are many brilliant communities out there built for you.

There’s a weird space for everyone. We’re committed to keeping ours our kind of weird.

I post this on Social Media Escape Club (also a weird space – see our upcoming gatherings here) because getting away from social media requires a destination. Simply deleting a social media app is one thing, but figuring out what to do next can be difficult.

Becky’s Small Creator Big World started out as one thing, then through some well intentioned advice, became something else which didn’t sit well with Becky.

But this is a journey so many of us need to go on, even for Becky who isn’t “escaping social media!” The challenge in “what should I do?” is protecting your vibes from the (as mentioned before) well intentioned advice.

Grow. Streamline. Niche. Double down. Most of the time that sort of advice comes from a good place – the people we trust and admire just want us to do well! But deep down we have to honor ourselves, and the vibes we seek, the peace we want in our bones when doing the work we wanna do.

Comedian Anthony Jeselnik on the fragile nature of digital media.

What do you think about our Netflix specials? Things we’ve done — there’s no physical media anymore. That can all go away, and you’re left with nothing. And that’s wild to me: a corporation… who knows what you get canceled for, can just be like, “All your work is gone.” It’s gone, as if it never existed. There’s nothing. Nothing.

This is why I’m so big on having a website, and maintaining some sort of digital archive of your work. I wish I had learned this a decade ago, as most all of my early blog work and Skull Toaster metal trivia are wiped out by unpaid hosting bills, or hasitly deleting social media profiles.

Download and back up your work. Request your files and images and videos from the social media platforms. Tuck them away on an external HD and make sure that’s back up, too (I use Backblaze).

“Don’t just tell people to subscribe to your newsletter,” is something I said on a recent Substack Live.

This sign up box in the footer of the Autonomous website caught my eye:

Workshop Notes
Drops, build logs, and what broke this week. From the workshop floor.

Getting people into your world is the first part of the journey. Them signing up for your email list? Well, that’s on them. But offering something besides “updates” goes a long way.

Words matter. Language has power. Hype your newsletters beyond “updates,” or “the latest news.”

You might have heard it’s a good idea to have a website, but what’s that even mean in 2026?

​In our August call, we covered a lot of ground, and a lot of folks were saying “I got so many ideas from this call” in the chat as we were winding down:

• ​Forget passive discovery – think of the handful of people you send there from social media, your newsletter, or a conversation!
• ​Highlight a big thing on your site – lead with your new book, album, offering. Make it super obvious when people visit your site.
• ​Show what people missed – show photos of your recent get together, talk about conversations you had on your last Zoom call. Give people a taste of what they’re missing out on.

​Bring your questions and challenges and bask in the collective energy and wisdom of the group.

Monday, September 14 from 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM EDT → https://luma.com/j00b1jfi

Thursday, September 17 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT → https://luma.com/0fdqi9f5

Having something for sale online is the easy part. The hard part is making the sale.

I talked about this a bit on a recent Substack Live with an author who had their work on Gumroad and Amazon but had no sales.

I got talking about this in my conversation with Deanna Seymour, about sales pages. Well, long sales pages. You’ve seen them; two miles longs, 9000 words, and they don’t say anything.

Like Deanna says during this conversation, by the time she’s on a sales page, she already knows she wants the thing, to which I replied:

“I think it’s a trust thing. The trust that (is) built. Like, there are people that we both know, they could send a Google Doc with a PayPal button on it. Yes, I’m signing up because we built that trust. We trust them now. I don’t know that an 18-page sales page builds trust. I think the trust comes way before someone clicks on your sales page.”

We buy from people we trust, or we buy things that we trust will get us what we want. We trust that buying a coffee at our favorite shop will bring us a bit of calm, peace, productivity, whatever.

But buying something from a complete stranger on the internet? There is risk in that, a roll of the dice. A foundation of trust has to come first, before growth and reach and views. As Sari Azout of Sublime said:

“Attention is cheap and volatile. Trust is slow, expensive and durable, and I think if something reaches a lot of people but creates no relationship, that’s not distribution. That’s just noise.”

When I started hosting Zoom calls with my readers in 2023 I made sure to invite friends personally, one at a time, just in case no one else showed up. By doing so, I got to learn how to host a Zoom call, and make my mistakes in safety, with people who appreciated and loved me!

Seek out ways to build trust first. Build that foundation, become oh-so-very sure and confident in who you are and what you’re offering that people are drawn to what you’re doing. Seek out the one or two or five people who appreciate what you do and figure it out together.

I hear this a lot from creative people – that they do several things, and they’re just not sure how to set up their website to hold everything they do!

​Before your buy another domain name, or add another section to your existing website, let’s talk about it!

​We’ll discuss homepages, navigation bars, layouts, and making things simple and joyful for your website visitors.

​Recent feedback from our Website Resurrection call:

​Zoom calls with a bunch of creative people, where I get a few good ideas or things to check out are so much more fun (and usable) than an online course! Whee!

​This ain’t a course or a lecture, but we’re seeking the collective energy from the room and each other, discovering new ways to build our corner on the internet.

Monday, August 24 at 9:00 AM EDT → https://luma.com/35ypqa0u

Thursday, August 27 at 2:00 PM EDT → https://luma.com/y3milhmu

On today’s Break Up 💔 With Social Media call (upcoming schedule here), we got on the topic of energy. A guest mentioned that they felt inspired from the call, and they were going to spend 30 minutes afterwards working on their creative project.

Getting on a good Zoom call can give you energy.
Then working on your thing can give you energy.
Now you’ve got two jolts of energy to get you into the afternoon.

It’d be a lot easier to scroll, click, consume, of course. But choosing to spend energy, to take a chance on a Zoom call, or to make the choice to work on a thing for “just” 30 minutes, it’s all a chance. A risk.

As Seth Godin says, “this might not work.” While true, I think we know what we’re gonna get if we spend that time on social media.

Neil Mason posted his “MAKE. MOVE. MEET.” framework, a daily set of actions to move yourself forward. We are the sum of our daily actions, so if our only action is tending to social media or checking stats, well, that won’t get us far.

As Mason writes, if you do these things five days a week, “you’ve taken 780 actions this year: 260 things made, 260 things moved, 260 humans reached. Compare that to the version where you don’t do anything daily.”

Read the full post here.