Hi Reader,

Whether you want to earn a living with advertising or by selling products, building a direct relationship with an audience is the best way to reliably earn a living as a creator.

You know having true fans in your corner is key, but what should you focus on if your audience is small or non-existent?

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1. Create every day

You hear me repeat this one a lot because it’s important.

You’re simply not going to build an audience in any reasonable amount of time without creating consistently. Creating every day doesn’t mean publishing every day, but consistency is key. A weekly cadence is a good place to start.

When people are deciding whether to subscribe or follow you, they want to know what they can expect and when. You will see a noticeable inflection point in your audience growth when you start publishing consistently.

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2. Work in public

It’s tempting to create in secret and publish only when you feel like you have something to show.

But the fastest-growing creators know the secret is to share their progress as they go. Your finished product isn’t the only thing you can share. Taking people behind the scenes and showing them your works in progress is a great way to create extra content that keeps people engaged.

• Screen record your writing and share a timelapse of your process.
• Take a photo of your room when you’re filming a video.
• Share screenshots of your design process.
• Post regular updates as you go.

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3. Teach everything you know

Most people think teachers are experts who’ve earned the special privilege to teach. But they get it backwards:

Don’t wait until you’re an expert to teach. Start teaching to become an expert.

What stops most people is thinking they need to know everything in their field before they can start teaching. They’re worried about looking foolish to people who know more.

But your audience isn’t the experts in your field, it’s the people who are one step behind you. Simply teach whatever you’re learning as you go.

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4. Default to generosity

I like to think of this last one in two parts:

First, when your free stuff is better than other people’s paid stuff, you’re well on your way to building a fast-growing audience. Charging for your work is great but also, don’t be afraid to give away some of your best stuff.

Second, I think of “default to generosity” as a life philosophy or lens for making decisions. It’s a way of operating. Instead of getting caught up in micro decisions like “Should I give a refund here?” or “Should I charge for this?”, default to generosity and people will notice.

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CONVERTKIT

Creator Profile: Set your featured post

We are bringing more customization to your Creator Profile. Instead of just having your Featured Post default to the newest post, you can now choose to feature any past editions of your newsletter you've made public.

The Creator Profile lets you easily create a link-in-bio, build your newsletter feed, have a digital storefront and recommend fellow creators. With the addition of your Commerce products, it can act as your storefront, too.

To customize your Creator Profile, go to Grow > Creator Profile to make the adjustments.

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BOOK

The Wager - A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

Cape Horn, at the tip of Chile where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans meet, is infamous for its hundreds of shipwrecks and 10,000 lives claimed.

This nonfiction story follows the 18th century Wager in its attempt to intercept a Spanish treasure ship only to end up with the crew shipwrecked on a remote island off the coast of Patagonia.

I listened to the audio book, but the story is great regardless of which format you read.

​View book »​

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TWITTER THREAD

On grief: Ball in the Box analogy

If you're grieving, you may find this analogy helpful:

There's a "pain button" inside a box with a ball bouncing around. At first, the ball is huge and you can hardly move without it hitting the pain button.

Over time, the ball grows smaller and hits the pain button less often. You're able to function better.

Though it doesn't happen as frequently, when the smaller ball does hit the pain button, it still hurts just as much. But you have more time to recover between hits.

There are more images in the thread illustrating the idea:

​Read Twitter thread »​

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Have a great week!

—Nathan