Rating- 10/10
Date finished- October 18, 2020
Thoughts
This book increased my urge to start this blog. It goes straight to the list of books that I am going to reread. The content needs to be revisited and digested
Who should read it
Everyone. Literally everyone! I believe everyone has his/her own uniqueness which is worth sharing to the world.
Summary + high-yield notes
'For artists the great problem to solve is how to get oneself discovered'- by Honore De Baizac
A new way of operating
For people to find your work, you have to be findable. Being good isn't enough. You don't find an audience, they find you.
“Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.”—John Cleese
You need to show your work. In
1. You don't have to be a genius
Find a scenius- There’s a healthier way of thinking about creativity that the musician Brian Eno refers to as “scenius.” Under this model, great ideas are often birthed by a group of creative individuals—artists, curators, thinkers, theorists, and other tastemakers—who makeup an “ecology of talent.” If you look back closely at history, many of the people who we think of as lone geniuses were actually part of “a whole scene of people who were supporting each other, looking at each other’s work, copying from each other, stealing ideas, and contributing ideas.”
The internet is awash with sceniuses.
Be an amateur- Amateurs are willing to try anything and share their results because they have nothing to lose. They are willing to take chances and experiment.
Sometimes, in the process of doing things in an unprofessional way, they make new discoveries. “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities,” said Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki. “In the expert’s mind, there are few.”
Amateurs are not afraid to make mistakes or look ridiculous in public.
Amateurs know that it is better to contribute something than nothing at all.
Even for professionals, the best way to flourish is to retain an amateur’s spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown.
You can't find your voice if you don't use it- If you talk about the things you love then your voice will follow.
If you work isn't online then it doesn't exist.
Many of us are wasting the opportunity to use our voices to have our say.
Read obituaries- Oh yes you heard it right! Let the people who muddled through life before you inspire you- they started out as amateurs. Follow their example.
2. Think process, not product
Take people behind the scenes
Audiences not only want to stumble across great work, but they, too, long to be creative and part of the creative process. By letting go of our egos and sharing our process, we allow for the possibility of people having an ongoing connection with us and our work, which helps us move more of our product.
Become a documentarian of what you do
Start a work journal: Write you thoughts down in a notebook, or speak them into an audio recorder. Keep a scrapbook. Take a lot of photographs of your work at different stages in your process. Shoot video of you working. This isn’t about making art, it’s about simply keeping track of what’s going on around you.
Documenting and recording your process as you go is rewarding: You’ll start to see the work you’re doing more clearly and feel like you’re making progress. And when you’re ready to share, you’ll have a surplus of material to choose from.
3.Share something small everyday
Send out a daily dispatch- Use social media platforms to share daily updates. Find one piece from your documentation that you can share. Don't worry about everything you post being perfect.
Do not overshare- Don't share about everything. Know the difference between sharing and oversharing.
Turn your flow into stock-
Robin Sloan “Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind people you exist. Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content you produce that’s as interesting in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what people discover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, building fans over time.” Sloan says the magic formula is to maintain your flow while working on your stock in the background.
Build a good(domain) name
Go register a domain name. Buy [www.[insert](
http://www
.[insert/) your name here].com. If your name is common, or you don’t like your name, come up with a pseudonym or an alias, and register that. Then buy some web hosting and build a website. Your website doesn’t have to look pretty; it just has to exist.
4.Open your cabinet of curiosities
No guilty pleasures- Don't make anyone feel bad about the things that you enjoy. Don't be guilty. Celebrate them instead. Don't self-edit too much.
Credit is always due-
If you fail to properly attribute work that you share, you not only rob the person who made it, you rob all the people you’ve shared it with. Without attribution, they have no way to dig deeper into the work or find more of it.
Online, attribute by hyperlinking back to the website of the creator of the work.
Don't share things you can't properly credit. Share only if you find the right credit.
5. Tell good stories
Work doesn't speak for itself- People want to know where things came from, how they were made and who made them. The stories you give people regarding your work have a huge effect on their feelings and their understanding of your work. This affects how they value your work.
Structure is everything-
Author John Gardner said the basic plot of nearly all stories is this: “A character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.” I like Gardner’s plot formula because it’s also the shape of most creative work: You get a great idea, you go through the hard work of executing the idea, and then you release the idea out into the world, coming to a win, lose, or draw.
Talk about yourself at parties- treat this situations as opportunities to connect with somebody rather than interrogations.
Keep your bios short and sweet. Bios are not the place to practice your creativity.
Strike all the adjectives from your bio. If you take photos, you’re not an “aspiring” photographer, and you’re not an “amazing” photographer, either. You’re a photographer. Don’t get cute. Don’t brag. Just state the facts.
6. Teach what you know
Share your trade secrets- Share something from your process that would inform the people you are trying to reach.
Have you learned a craft? What are your techniques? Are you skilled at using certain tools and materials? What kind of knowledge comes along with your job?
The minute you learn something, turn around and teach it to others. Share your reading list. Point to helpful reference materials. Create some tutorials and post them online. Use pictures, words, and video. Take people step-by-step through part of your process.
Teaching adds value to what you do, it doesn't subtract. When you teach someone your process, you are generating more interest in your work. People will feel closer to your work.
7. Don't turn into human spam
Shut up and listen
If you want fans, you have to be a fan first. If you want to be accepted by a community, you have to first be a good citizen of that community. If you’re only pointing to your own stuff online, you’re doing it wrong. You have to be a connector. The writer Blake Butler calls this being an open node. If you want to get, you have to give. If you want to be noticed, you have to notice. Shut up and listen once in a while. Be thoughtful. Be considerate. Don’t turn into human spam. Be an open node.
You want hearts, not eyeballs- Don't worry about the number of people who follow you online. Worry about the quality of your followers. If you want followers, be someone worth following. If you want to be interesting, you have to be interested.
Make stuff you love and talk about it and you will attract people who love that stuff.
Identify your fellow knuckleballers- The people who share your obsessions and have a similar mission to yours are very important. Nurture your relationships with these people. Collaborate with them. Show them your work before you share to anybody else.
Meet people in IRL(In Real Life)-
If you’ve been friends for a while with somebody online and you live in the same town, ask them if they want to grab a coffee. If you want to go all out, offer to buy them lunch. If you’re traveling, let your online friends know you’re going to be in town.
Meeting people online is awesome but turning them into IRL friends is even better.
8. Learn to take a punch
Let 'em take their best shot- When you put your work out there, be ready for the good, bad and ugly. As more people come ac ifross your work, more criticism will follow. Don't be deterred. Make even more work and put it out there. The more criticism you take the more you realize it can't hurt you.
But remember what writer Colin Marshall says: “Compulsive avoidance of embarrassment is a form of suicide.” If you spend your life avoiding vulnerability, you and your work will never truly connect with other people.
“The trick is not caring what EVERYBODY thinks of you and just caring about what the RIGHT people think of you.”—Brian Michael Bendis
Don't feed the trolls-
A troll is a person who isn’t interested in improving your work, only provoking you with hateful, aggressive, or upsetting talk. You will gain nothing by engaging with these people. Don’t feed them, and they’ll usually go away
If you have a troll problem, use the block button on social media sites. Delete nasty comments.
9. Sell out
Pass around the hat
When an audience starts gathering for the work that you’re freely putting into the world, you might eventually want to take the leap of turning them into patrons. The easiest way to do this is to simply ask for donations: Put a little virtual tip jar or a donate now button on your website. These links do well with a little bit of human copy, such as “Like this? Buy me a coffee.”
Only ask for money in return for your work if you are confident you are putting something out there that is truly worth something.
Don't be afraid to charge your work but the price should be fair.
Keep a mailing list
Email is decades and decades old, but it’s nowhere close to being dead. Even though almost everybody hates it, everybody has an email address. And unlike RSS and social media feeds, if you send someone an email, it will land in her inbox, and it will come to her attention. She might not open it, but she definitely has to go to the trouble of deleting it.
Get an account with an email newsletter company like MailChimp or keep your own list. Encourage people to sign up. Let people know whether you will be sending daily, weekly or monthly updates.
Pay it forward- Help those who helped you to be where you are. Give them a chance to show their work. Throw opportunities their way.
Be as generous as you can but selfish enough to get your work done.
10. Stick around
Don't quit your show- It is important not to quit prematurely.
Avoid stalling your career by never losing momentum
Here’s how you do it: Instead of taking a break in between projects, waiting for feedback, and worrying about what’s next, use the end of one project to light up the next one. Just do the work that’s in front of you, and when it’s finished, ask yourself what you missed, what you could’ve done better, or what you couldn’t get to, and jump right into the next project.
Take a sabbatical
Do not start over, begin again
You have to have the courage to get rid of work and rethink things completely. So don’t think of it as starting over. Think of it as beginning again. Go back to chapter one—literally!—and become an amateur. Look for something new to learn, and when you find it, dedicate yourself to learning it out in the open.