Category: WorkCategory: Work

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).

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.

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.

I went on a six hour hike with a friend this weekend, which is a great way to cut six hours of screen time from your week.

“When anyone asks which social media network I’m looking to join next, I tell them NONE. I have this website. A few newsletters. An email address.”

I wrote that back in 2022, and every day it’s about “progress, not perfection.” I still catch myself scrolling, mindlessly scrolling YouTube Shorts or even Substack Notes.

But then I get outside. Or record some music for 10 minutes. Make some art. Just cuz it’s not my full time job doesn’t mean it won’t compound.

I’ve been walking 10+ miles per day since May 26th. That’s 76 days of multiple adventures, sometimes 20 minutes at a time (which is how long it takes to walk about one mile).

If you don’t think it compounds, I still walked 860 miles, and burned through three pairs of shoes in that time.

Imagine three hours a day of drawing, reading, writing, rehearsing, frolicking, dreaming, practicing. Our minutes are finite, and we don’t know when they expire. A few minutes at a time is better than no minutes, and certainly better than giving those minutes to Facebook or Instagram.