Ok, but do you spam enough?
Lessons from a small time 'creator'. Part II: On the necessity of spamming.
As we learned in Part I, you publish something and at first, nothing happens. If this was a movie, then the tide would start turning minutes after the failure. But since it’s real life, a small time creator (artist/writer/anyone doing stuff) will be screaming into darkness for a while. Actually,
it won’t be a while, it will be years.
Because all I see are years of hard work. Football, cooking, YouTube, writing, music, relationships with people. 'Yeah, yeah, we get it,' you might be thinking, ‘it will take years. And then?’
‘And then’ can only start after you consistently work. After on/off period I am publishing regularly for six months and these are my rookie numbers:
this blog, 506 days old, 26 posts, 179 subs,
handpicked from Berlin, 29 days, 5 posts, 129 subs,
Lindyrecipe, 272 days, 106 recipes, 450-550 visits per month.
Ok. So after you consistently create content that almost nobody cares about, what then? I am sorry, but
you need to turn into a spammer. Nobody will just discover your sh*t.
Spamming or self-promotion, a constant reminder of your content’s existence, is difficult and something to get used to. Posting a link to ten places doesn’t mean that everyone saw it ten times. People live their lives and mostly don’t even notice you and your funny sign in the corner.
I still die a little
after each self-promotion, undoubtedly the most annoying aspect of creating stuff. Ok, you could have this romantic impression of artists just doing their stuff, but do you think that Dostoevsky was waiting in his room to be discovered, or that van Gogh’s brother Theo did not try to sell Vincent’s paintings?
Don’t get me wrong, I am light-years away from the two, but you need to spam, even if it hurts. This could mean posting your links, submitting your work, trying new stuff, get into contact with people, advertise yourself and your shit. Spamming is probably as important as creating and takes at least the same amount of time.
If you are not thinking, dear god, I must be spamming too much, you are probably not doing enough. Spamming is taxed by being muted, unfollowed, banned or blocked. But nothing is for free, is it? You could also hire a publicist, a professional spammer, but let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves.
Lesson of Part II: You will need to spam a lot and annoy people.
In Part III: why even bother?
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Previously
It’s very refreshing and oddly comforting to hear this. I’m new to Substack and, while I’m not expecting instant growth, I am coming to realise that self-promotion is a huge part of the work.
The advice to spam is against the grain of self-promotion but it makes much more sense than the alternative of holding a little sign up occasionally hoping people stumble into it. Thanks for a great article!