Don’t expect a platform to serve you, or look the way you want it to look. You’ll never be satisfied.

Instead, serve your readers. The people already on your email list, the people who trusted you enough to subscribe and say “I wanna hear more from you.”

From today’s ’Making Cozy Videos’ Zoom call, an absolute mic drop quote from a guest:

“(Treat) making a video (on your website) about making someone comfortable, like, if someone came to an opening of mine, I’d want them to feel welcome and comfortable.”

Video isn’t just for touting your expertise and knowledge but to give the visitor a glimpse into what it’s like to work with you, or run into you at a book shop.

Don’t think of each video as something that has to end up on YouTube to be seen by everyone. Think of how one video can put someone at ease, to let people know they’re in the right place when they show up on your website.

From my piece “How I Write” over at Indie Thinkers:

For me, staying in the game is winning, and winning just means I get to play again tomorrow. I just never stopped writing for my little corner of the world.

Read the full piece here.

This from a recent Email Guidance offering (where I answer people’s questions):

You have the permission to do absolutely anything you want and you can do it outside of the confines of the social media attention stealing industry. Just get in front of a few people and do the thing. By doing that, you put up the flag for all the fellow weirdos that want to do the exact same thing. They say “yes, I want to do this!” Lead the way for them. 

You’re not creating a tribe because the tribe already exists., they just haven’t met. So be the one who makes the introduction and pulls people together.

Then three years from now. you’ll look up and know exactly what to put in your newsletter, and what your website needs to look like.

If you’re doing work that feeds you, and resonates with other people, they’ll be no doubt what goes into your next newsletter, your next album, your next painting. Everybody is doing what they want, and you can, too.

From James O’Sullivan in “The Last Days Of Social Media,”

“Average interaction rates across major platforms are declining fast: Facebook and X posts now scrape an average 0.15% engagement, while Instagram has dropped 24% year-on-year. Even TikTok has begun to plateau.”

Even if you’re still clinging to the glory days of social media, there is growing evidence that the best days are clearly in the past.

Most everything you post isn’t even seen by 95% of your followers. Sure, now and again they’ll see it, since the casino has to pay out once in awhile, but folks on social media want to be on social media.

“The timeline is no longer a source of information or social presence, but more of a mood-regulation device, endlessly replenishing itself with just enough novelty to suppress the anxiety of stopping.”

(via Jeffery Saddoris)

This from Howard Wuelfing, who made zines and documented the vibrant punk rock music scene in Washington, D.C. (read the full interview here, via Jen)

“(My) phone number wasn’t published in the magazine, but people were doing research. People were looking to make connections. At a certain point over a number of years, they built up something that at one point they used to call Fanzine Nation: this whole network of fanzines all over the place. You had local clubs that really specialized in booking indie bands that were created because people were looking to connect. It wound up being a very vital, very active, and very effective network of all these people working together. They looked for each other, they found each other, they collected that information, they shared it, and it was great.”

This isn’t just nostalgia, this is still happening. Social media companies make you think that all the connections start and end with their platforms, but there are many routes to make things work.

People are leaving social media and finding life outside of algorithms, away from the influence of techbro monoculture, and it’s all about sending the right signals.

What signals are you putting out today?

How can you send better signals?

And how can you make sure your signal doesn’t get lost in the noise?

Posting on social media is a lottery ticket, but sending an email to someone in a far away scene, or a newsletter write covering a particular topic, those are better odds. Get what you want by asking for it, not wishing upon a star.

Emailing someone directly puts you on the hook, which makes it scary. But if you’re stuck on what to send, Carly Valancy has some suggestions:

Networking doesn’t have to be gross, and if you’re only doing it to get something, you’re doing it wrong. Bringing more people into your creative orbit can be a gift in itself.

Rigid publishing schedules and timelines are the teachings of the techbro industrial complex, the unholy trinity of The Data, The Device, and The Distraction.

Social media was a job we never signed up for, a part time gig to appease the algorithm. Displease the platform and you’ll be banished from the feed.

Yet I talk to many creative people who’ve stepped away from the social media circus and they’re doing fine. People who’ve left tech jobs and done okay. People who’ve left the hustle Olympics and realized there is life outside the algorithm.

As Erin Shetron said, daring to “(imagine) what devotion to craft can look like outside of platform demands.”

Instead of getting more subscribers, what if we focus on getting better?

Without a map, “better” becomes difficult to find. Without external validation or “engagement,” we’re off the hook – who can blame you for throwing in the towel?

But like my buddy Sean Cannon said on a recent Escape Pod Zoom call:

“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.”

This doesn’t mean you have it all figured out, it just means you have the chance to figure it out because you didn’t burn out and give up.