Category: WorkCategory: Work

  • Published On: August 6, 2025Categories: Internet, Life, Marketing, Newsletters, Work

    I was on Cody Cook-Parrott’s WITNESSING PRACTICE, “a three-hour workshop on writing as a contemplative practice—and turning that writing into newsletters, zines, and books.”

    The core idea was that so many of us are already doing the work – writing, producing, doodling, dreaming, collecting – and it only takes a few steps to bring it to life. Whether that’s a newsletter, a website, an offering – it’s right there.

    On a recent MINI ESCAPE POD Q&A video call, one of our members was looking to start teaching online. They’re a musician with knowledge and skill and talent and a warm heart.

    At the moment, though, they’re wrestling with the logistics: finding the right people and communicating with them. Building an offering. Getting paid.

    So much of that is just machinery: payment systems, email segments, sales pages, pricing. It can be daunting, and there’s so many different ways to make it all work.

    But, as I tell almost a lot of my Email Guidance clients, they’ve already done the hard part.

    The folks I meet sometimes have decades of experience in their field. Degrees, awards, careers. The technical stuff is easy in comparison – I can show you how to set up an email segment over coffee!

    But you can’t just set up a sales page and a funnel without the hard work of really knowing your shit, and being known as someone who knows what the heck they’re talking about.

    I’m so grateful for the work that Cody is doing. Making space for the immense creativity and knowledge and passion of so many people, and helping guide them towards clarity and calm. So much of this technical stuff is just noise, I promise.

    Cody has sold out classes with sales pages made out of a Google Doc.

    I know someone else who launched their career with a Word Doc and PayPal link.

    Build trust and reputation, gain knowledge. The rest is just technical bits that we can figure out together.

  • Published On: August 2, 2025Categories: Internet, Work, Writing

    Veronique put out this wonderful zine, “full of tiny ways to share your zines without using social media.”

    There are so many places for us to share our work outside of social media! They might not go “viral,” or be seen by thousands of people, but that’s okay! Social media sold us on the idea that vanity metrics mattered, but as we’re learning they really don’t. Just look at all those people with six-figure follower counts on Instagram with just 19 likes on their posts. It’s rigged!

    See all Veronique’s zines here.

  • Published On: July 25, 2025Categories: Community, Email Marketing, Work

    A musician with some impressive Spotify numbers wrote me for a bit of Email Guidance, asking how to get people from streaming music platforms to a paid Substack or Patreon. Here’s part of my reply (lightly edited):

    Open a Substack account TONIGHT and start filling it up with stories. Give your fans a place to DIVE INTO. You can build a real website later.

    Get 10 posts up there. Twenty.

    Buy a domain name at Hover.com, point that domain to the Substack.

    Stop using LinkTree. Stop driving everyone to platforms where you can’t reach them. 

    Get them to your Substack, where you can still embed all your music, and your videos. And that’s where everyone can SUBSCRIBE to your email list. Be RUTHLESS about it.

    Get people to YOUR SITE FIRST. That is your mission.

    Then go play shows. Have a clipboard and a pen to get people on your email list. Hand it out before your third song to someone in the crowd so people sign it while you’re playing (inspired by this story from Jes).

    Send a newsletter once a week, or twice a month. Subscribe to other musicians on Substack and see how they do it. “Steal like an artist,” like Austin Kleon says, and develop your own rhythm and style.

    Make your newsletter something that someone wants to open, and not just “hey I’m playing somewhere next week,” or “listen to my new song.”

    There’s lots of shortcuts in the online music world, but that just means that everyone is taking them, too. You gotta be where they can’t be, and that’s strumming a guitar in front of 15 people on a Tuesday night. 

    Community is your unfair advantage. Whether you’re a musician, a writer, a photographer, whatever – you need other people in your corner. You need fans and friends more than you need funnels and lead magnets.

    Yes, you can play the streaming music lottery and maybe hit it big. That’s because the casino has to pay out on occasion, otherwise people stop going to the casino.

    The choice is yours; keep playing the lottery, or make better bets.

    “It’s absurd how we’ve come to think that reaching thousands of random people will be more impactful to our lives more than meeting a handful of people with whom we share interests and goals.”

    That’s from Matilda Lucy (from ‘What do you measure when the metrics don’t matter?’), and it’s spot on – meeting a few people every week and pulling them into your creative orbit is what’s going to build the foundation for your work for the decade ahead.

    That reply above was just a snippet. I usually write 1,000 words to folks reaching out for Email Guidance. I’m not saying I got all the answers, but I can put you on the path to finding them. The first email is free, too.

  • Published On: July 22, 2025Categories: Community, Work

    “Getting to know other artists, writers and musicians is far more fun than optimizing a newsletter, for sure.”

    This is from James Hart [here], in response to my post “You’re Not Marrying a Platform.”

  • Published On: July 21, 2025Categories: Technology, Work, Writing

    Cody Cook Parrot said in their recent Witnessing Practice workshop that you can make a thing and share it with a few people.

    You don’t need to launch your new website with a big press announcement. You probably don’t need to post it on social media, either, because 95% of your followers won’t see it anyways.

    This is why we need a few people we can send snippets via email, get on a Zoom call, meet in person, even get on the phone.

    MrBeast says that when he was starting out, him and a few friends would be on Skype all day and night, working together just trying to figure out YouTube.

    Imagine if you spent just an hour a week doing that with your creative friends?

    I’ve seen so much fear in people’s eyes over picking the right email marketing platform (Substack, Kit, Flodesk, Buttondown, Mailchimp).

    People’s voices start to shake when choosing the right online store (Shopify, BigCartel), the right website builder (SquareSpace, Cargo, Wix, WordPress).

    You’re not getting married. You can break up with these tools at any time.

    Instead of spending the next few weeks bouncing between platforms or watching 24 hours of “Beehiiv vs Substack” comparison videos, talk to other creative folks in your orbit.

    I host weekly virtual co-working sessions with musicians, writers, and artists.

    You can ask me direct via my Email Guidance offering and I’ll get your going in the right direction.

    I also host paid-community Zoom calls, where we talk about zines, IRL events, and make fun of social media (it feels great). Get a 30 day trial for $10.

    Alex runs BATCAVE, “a place to help one another dive deep into the stuff.”

    Cody runs Landscapes, “a writing group for all genres.”

    Jes is a musician and hosting a “hands-on session exploring the four most powerful and underused practice tools.

    Kate Ellen is hosting a “Go Dumb Meet Up” which is “a zoom meet up to chat about how to temporarily or permanently break up with your smartphone.”

    Mansi has The Ripple Circle, a place for “authentic sharing, gentle witnessing, and the longer echo of our practice together.”

    It’s not just about deleting an app, it’s about finding new places to inhabit, daring to believe in a world without Musk or Zuckerberg being central to our ability to earn a living.

    This is how we escape social media, and we’re getting better at it every week.

Seth on the phone

I help creative people quit social media, promote their work in sustainable ways, and rethink how a website and newsletter can work together. Find out more here. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Join us — Get a 30 day trial for $10 and join our next Zoom call meeting!

Looking for personalized help? Check out my Email Guidance offering.

Need help now? Book a 1:1 call here.

Email me: seth@socialmediaescape.club

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