Sean Reid was a guest on one of our recent Escape Pod Zoom calls, and he dropped the phrase “artfully cacophonous,” which led to some good laughs!

He talked about all the toys and other fun items he collects, and I was reading the part of Austin Kleon’s ‘Show Your Work’ where he talked “Don’t be a hoarder,” and I’m so glad Sean isn’t hiding his fun decor – I think you’ll appreciate this interview!

“I spend a lot of time desperately trying to be childlike and not childish,” Sean

Some ideas we hit on during the course of our chat:

• People are always sending signals, and these signals can tell a story and create connections with others (read my post ‘What signals are you sending?’).
• Maintaining a sense of childlike wonder and approaching life with “beginner’s eyes” is a good way to ward off cynicism, and crucial for creativity and continuous learning
• Connecting with others, whether through online communities or local meetups, provides energy, support, and opportunities for collaboration
• Sean said “just make some shit” – creating things simply for the joy of it is 1000% valid, all without focusing on any potential financial return

A big theme to leave with here with this episode is the importance of engaging with good people, and getting into conversations that provide energy and inspiration

You’re a one person team, I get it. But the marketing team needs a week off.

This week we’re not looking for more subscribers. We’re gonna put “growth” on hold this week.

Instead, your job is to get your sales team making sales. Your shipping team making your paying customer happy. Your front office team working smarter and more efficiently.

YOUR SALES TEAM: Can you send an email and get 5% of your fans to click something? Anything?

If you emailed your fans and said, “next 10 people to email me will get an exclusive demo MP3 of my next single,” would 20 people reply?

If you marked down something 25%, would it spur even one sale?

Would 20 people who already exist in your current creative universe take the time to hit reply?

Figure out how to motivate 20 people to do something. Anything.

YOUR SHIPPING TEAM: I ordered a hat from someone I’ve been following for years. It showed up in a plain box, and shipped from an “order fulfillment company” with a name like U.S. Logistics Corp.

I had no idea what this mystery box was on my doorstep until I opened it.

You don’t want your customers to feel bewildered when getting their orders. Your order confirmation emails don’t have to be boring (see how CD Baby did it back in the day).

You don’t have to outrun a bear, you just need to outrun your friends.

YOUR FRONT OFFICE: Set up an actual online store that can be optimized for the 10 people a month you’re serving. Build it today so you can handle 100 people a month a year from now.

Take the photos you’ve uploaded to Instagram and the videos you’ve posted on Facebook and put them on your website. Build a place for your existing fanbase to fall head over heels for your work. Turn it into a place so cool that your fans wouldn’t dare tell their friends to follow you on Instagram.

Reply to the people leaving comments. Reply to the emails already in your inbox.

Make every reply a giant hug.

Write an email that people love to see in their inbox.

YOUR CREATIVE DEPARTMENT: Do you have current photos on your site? A current bio? Are there any broken links in your LINK IN BIO? In your Bandcamp sidebar? When’s the last time you updated your profile photo? Your logo?

Is the design of your online ecosystem coherent or a jumbled mess?Subscribed

Someone emailed me (see below) asking how to get more people to their site without social media, so they could make more sales. A reasonable challenge in the year 2025.

All their fun, flashy, informative videos were on Instagram, miles away from their online store.

They had a nice site, sure – but all the immersive media, the videos, were sitting on Instagram, for 90% of their followers to never see.

I told them to move that cool stuff to their website. Put the sauce next to the sexy ADD TO CART button.

We don’t need more traffic. We need to captivate the people right here in front of us.

Maybe we don’t need more subscribers.

Instead, we need to optimize what we’ve got because just throwing 1,000 more people at a bad set-up won’t help.

1. Stop worrying about the algorithm and include the link. Put in two links. I’d rather 10 people see my post with a direct link than sending 100 people on a wild goose chase to find my link in bio or in the comments. Do everything you can to offend the algorithm.
2. Got an important update for your subscribers? Venue change, running late for a group Zoom chat? Email, don’t post. Not everyone sees your Substack Notes. Heck, most of your subscribers probably don’t even have the app installed. A recent note of mine was seen by 135 of my 6,000+ subscribers – that’s 2.2% of my audience. Send the email, it’s the most direct way to reach your audience. Another excuse to delete your social media entirely.
3. “Do work. Be seen.” Wise words from Rob Cannon (read it here). Don’t “yeah, but” me on this. You have to do the work first. The work must be done. Keep doing the work until the work is better. Then, when the moment is right and you are “seen,” the work will be ready for the moment because you’ve been doing the work. Less worrying about the “seen” part, and more work. Bonus points if you do that work with and around other people (you should host a group Zoom call).
4. Use less tools. Less automation. Less funnels. Less drip campaigns. Less “email blasts.” AI ain’t gonna win because it can’t show up at an art gallery, curate a photo book, book a show, or be a good podcast guest – but you can. Do work that doesn’t scale. Add so much humanity and grace to your work that people question your sanity.
5. BONUS: Be careful sending a “re-engagement campaign” to all your zero and one star folks, because it can lead to a very low open rate email, which can trigger spam flags, and get your sending privileges suspended. Proceed with caution with “list hygiene” here on Substack.

Spoke to Michael Gilbride of Mad Records on Substack Live yesterday (Wed, Mar 5, 2025) and we covered a lot of ground here. Buckle up.

• Directly reaching your audience with an email list
• Building trust in your work and how you present yourself
• Approaching the business side of all this creatively
• Be the Roomba
• Getting back to TALKING again, in person

Investing an hour with other creative people is a good idea.

I host weekly Zoom calls with Social Media Escape Club subscribers. We don’t all work in the same fields, or make the same art, but we still learn from one another, week in and week out. We’re not for everybody, and that’s okay.

Social media isolated us. Facebook and Instagram and Twitter keep us entangled in their products, making it difficult to walk away. They make us believe we’re nothing without them.

Social media is a toxic partner.

It’s time to get back to real life, with real people. To start using the internet as a tool, not a destination.

During last week’s call someone asked about hosting Zoom calls, and the room lit up with ideas, and thoughts, and encouragement.

If you’re an artist, a writer, a photographer, a musician – doing Zoom calls with subscribers is a great way to strengthen your community.

If you’re just looking to get away from social media, Zoom calls can be great to keep in touch with friends and family.

In each case, they’ll be laughter, some tension and silliness, and probably some revelations. The collection of people in Zoom calls can bring answers to questions we didn’t even know we had.

Here’s what I’ve learned from hosting about 30+ video meetings since 2023.

1. Set up a Luma invite, and connect it with your Zoom account. By using Luma, you can limit the capacity of the room. When I started out I limited the size of the room to 8-10 people because – honestly – I wasn’t sure I can emotionally handle hosting that many people on one call. Now my calls hover around 12 or so people each week.
   
   Also, with using Luma, now you’ve got the contact info of everyone who signs up. I did this for months, before I switched my calls to paid-only, but I still invite everyone who signed up for those early free calls. Those 30 people get an invite every week , and they can absolutely unsubscribe if they don’t want to be invited anymore.
2. Don’t just put an invite in your newsletter once and never mention it again. Announce it several times! Put it at the top, in the middle, in the footer – MIX. IT. UP. Do this in the two weeks leading up to your call.
3. Scared of no one showing up? Ask a friend or two (or three) to hop on the call a week ahead of time. Have them sign up via Luma, too, just so you get a feel for the automated emails that Luma sends out, and how it works.
4. Invite another writer / artist / musician on the call, and call it a live interview! This should be someone you’ve spoken with before, whether in person or on Zoom. You don’t want to learn how to interview people live on camera the first time.
5. I learned this from Cody Cook-Parrott; schedule your call for when you have the time and energy for it. Yes, it’s nice to accommodate for time zones and our international fans, BUT… a tired, sleepy host doesn’t do anyone any good!
   
   This also goes for how long your planned call is – 30/45/60 minutes? Do what feels right for you, and how much energy you have.
6. Consider having an intention for each call, at least as a launching point. This could be a recent newsletter you sent, or a media piece that has lot of people talking, and you can lead the discussion around it.
7. Slides? Agendas?! Up to you – I started out with agendas, but calls usually drifted elsewhere after 15 minutes or so. Like I mention above, I usually lead with a main point, and let the vibes take over.
8. The best way to keep the calls interesting is be interesting.
   
   Make sure you’re reading, staying fresh with the current happenings in your field. Also – go outside, get good sleep, drink enough water. How can you care for your community if you’re not your best self?
9. Read Priya Parker’s ‘The Art of Gathering,’ especially the ‘Never start a funeral with logistics’ part. Folks showed up. They took time out of their day to hop on a call. Start on time, think about your opening, and leave the “house keeping” until later in the call.
10. Your audience is counting on you to make space for everyone, so practice cutting people off when they get too chatty. It’s hard, but it’s best for the group.
11. Invite the right people. This is your space. Your baby. You don’t have to invite everyone. Protect your peace, protect your space, protect your guests. Make it as exclusive as you desire. If you’re going to devote an hour a week to bringing people together and creating a positive space, honor your time and sanity and make sure it’s something you’d want to be a part of.
12. Finally – Don’t be afraid to mess up, or stumble over your words. This is what makes us human. AI can write a newsletter, but it can’t build relationships and invite people to chat for 30 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon.

A Zoom meeting can only be as good as the people involved, so be mindful of who’s in attendance. Set the stage, manage expectations, and allow others to seek entrance to your community.

1. From the comment section: “write an ‘Anti-Art World Resume’ that includes all the stuff that usually gets cut from a resume.” Thanks Jacqueline C. What does this secret resume look like when it’s filled with the stuff you leave out?
2. Envision offline, at a coffee shop or a Discord. Don’t just say “open for business” and hope the right people show up, invite the people that match your energy. Be selfish with your project, your art, and who you allow to enter your creative orbit. You can’t build what you haven’t dreamed up, so get dreaming.
3. Get to the point with your story. Write three paragraphs and hit delete. Wipe it out and start over. Blank page every time. Do this three times and you’ll learn real quick what gets left out.
4. Digital clutter is still clutter. Your work is all over the place, and it’s probably dinging your bank account every month, too. Let’s stop giving our money to the corporations for the “convenience.” It ain’t convenience, it’s lock in. How many photos are on your iPhone? Do you have a plan to manage those assets, or will you just upgrade to the next cloud storage tier? It’s $3 a month now. Then it’s $5, then $10. What’s the plan?

This is a hill I will die on – if you’re going to tell your newsletter subscribers or social media followers about your new video, put the video on your own website, and then link to your own website.

Leading people to YouTube just keeps people on YouTube’s platform. Their site is built and optimized to keep people on YouTube, and to make it as difficult as possible for your fans to stay in your universe, whether to pre-order your new album, or sign up for your new course offering.

Sure, keep posting your videos to YouTube. But don’t send your already established fans to places where you can’t reach them. Why build up your audience on YouTube if you can’t even reach 5% of them when you post a new video?

Your audience is your email list – something you control, something you can export, something that the algorithms can’t mess with.

At Social Media Escape Club, we believe in escaping the idea that “the new way of doing things is the only way of doing things.”

It’s a lie. We’ve all heard that lie in various forms:

• Nobody visits websites anymore, so just be on all the social media platforms.
• Email marketing is too crowded, so keep paying for social ads.
• No one buys music these days, so just point everyone to Spotify.

None of us picked up paint brushes, cameras, and electric guitars to fall in line with what everyone else was doing.

We took a risk, didn’t we?

This is why so many of you have been building websites recently, to take ownership of your work, your brand, your message.

This is why so many of you have built your own Twitter-like feeds on your websites, to own the small bits of magic and wonder, to have an archive of the tiny things you post about week after week.

I took a risk this week, cancelling my Google Workspace account which hosted my freelance work email.

I cancelled my Google cloud storage plan, and downgraded my Apple iCloud storage by getting the photos off my iPhone to an external hard drive I already owned, all backed up via Backblaze.

These are small risks, and not really big public marketing wins. But they’re a signal to how I want to run my business, which is giving as little money as possible to corporations for services I already own or already use.

We’re all sending signals, remember? Even to ourselves.

I’ve seen some of you refusing to put your music on Spotify, or play bars. Some of you stopped making videos for vertical video feeds, or deleted entire social media accounts, entirely. Some of you have resisted the urge to sign up for other newer social media platforms.

Those are signals to ourselves, and the people in our creative orbit.

There are risks in all this, yes, but social media has done a great job telling us to take less risks.

Social media says, “just keep posting to further your career!” That’s like saying buy another scratch-off lottery ticket. After all, you see other people win, so maybe the next winner could be you!

That’s safe. Low risk. Everyone is doing it.

What about emailing someone directly? Like Katie O’Connell, who wrote an email to the folks at People & Company back in 2019:

“It’s an email that wrote me into the job at People & Company and the one to follow at Substack — jobs that didn’t exist and the email conjured into being.”

Sending an email can be scary, but there’s a 50/50 chance you get a reply. I like those odds more than playing the social media slot machines for five hours per day.

And think of the ways you could take more calculated risks with an extra five hours per day.

What about turning your portfolio into a zine “mailing it to a bunch of agencies and creative studios?”

Learning how to write better newsletters? Write a better bio, or freshen up your About page?

Pitching yourself to be interviewed on podcasts and YouTube channels? Getting “awareness” off your plate?

Busking downtown?

Making a poetry zine and leaving them random places?

Making stickers from your photos?!

Making a limited run of your podcast on cassette?!! What?!

I think it’s time we start our Risky Resumé in 2025.

Hire yourself to make bold, audacious products. Interview yourself on taking up more space in your creative endeavors. Give yourself that raise by offering the sort of workshops and courses and offerings that the world needs right now.

What does our Risky Resume’ look like by the end of the year?

How many risks did we take?

How often did we just “go with the flow?”

Did we just keep posting? Did we keep upgrading our iCloud accounts because we just have sooo many photos? Did we keep opening new social media accounts, thinking this next one will be THE ONE?! Did we neglect our website again?

Or did we boldly launch ourselves into things that maybe didn’t “work out?”

Because honestly it’s not even that they don’t “work out!” We just learn new angles, fresh perspectives on how to work and exist in this crazy world we live in.

Maybe we all just step back and look at what everyone else is doing and ask ourselves if there’s another way to do our work.

How are you going with the flow?

What’s one risky thing you can do today?

What’s the big thing you want on your risky resumé at the end of the year?