Category: WritingCategory: Writing

Peabody-winning producer, journalist, and cat rap pioneer Sean CannonSean Cannon, from a recent Escape Pod guest appearance.

“All you have to do is just be 5% better than everyone else who’s really bad at it. You don’t have to get everything perfect… you just have to be a little bit better so you can survive the war of attrition.”

You don’t have to our run a bear, you just need to out run your friends.

Got this bit from ‘Discoverability for illustrators’ by Tasha Goddard via Robyn Hepburn:

“While emailing is more about outreach than discoverability, I have heard that art directors and art commissioners will actually use the search facility in their email app (e.g. Outlook or Gmail) as a first point of call after any in-house databases – so they might type ‘room illustration, colourful’ or ‘collage illustrator, newspaper’ etc. into the search bar to see if they have been sent any work by a relevant illustrator.”

Keep this in mind when reaching out to art directors and venues and other people you’re pitching for potential opportunities.

Are you asking people to “subscribe for updates” to get people on your email list? Maybe promising a 10% discount?

Remember, you’re competing with Netflix, social media, family, new albums, holiday plans, and a million other things – rework your pitch.

“Say, “follow our adventures as we leave for tour in a month. Sign up so you don’t miss a single photo of our adventures. Sign up so you don’t miss out on all our crazy tour stories.”

There’s a reason media outlets ask, “got any crazy tour stories?”

It’s because stories sell.”

I get asked this a lot via my Email Guidance offering, with a few variations:

I do multiple things, how do I bring them all together on my website?

This always reminds me of Seth Godin’s blog.

Everyday there’s a new post. On occaion Seth is working on something new – a new book, and event, something else.

And he writes about it, and links to it.

Yes, there’s a sidebar. But the main event is that big block of text that starts at the top with a headline.

That says “we’re starting here today. Come along for the ride.”

It’s not for everybody, and that’s the point. Your blog is the cool band shirt you wear on the first day of school, or the book you read on the subway, or the shade of green you dye your hair.

You’re not for everyone, but the people that can pick up on those cues? Those are your people.

“You need to trust your members enough to know they can decide what’s best for themselves. You’re not a mommy or a daddy—you’re an adult community leader.”

Wise words from my talk with Kristen Tweedale on how she runs community, but it applies to how you put your work out there, too.

Get people to your site, give them a starting point, and get out of the way.

Rachel Karten speaks with the little joy coffee shop, focusing on their social media strategy, but I think the main point applies to how all of us talk about our work, despite which medium we use.

RK: What advice would you give to a local business that is trying to find success on social media?

CL: Social media is replacing television. And just like in television, there’s the shows you tune-in to watch and there’s the commercials you suffer through. Stop making commercials. Be the show.

Did you see it? “Stop making commercials. Be the show.”

One of the longest running TV shows isn’t about the contents of storage containers, it’s about the stories that weave around them.

Telling people that we have a show coming up is a commercial.

Planning, booking, the travels, the build up, talking to fans, borrowing gear, making the flyer for the show – that’s the story.

We don’t need to start making videos, we need to tell better stories.