do what you love, but solve for distribution

As I prepare to transition from my “heads down building a product” era to “I’ve worked so hard to build this thing, get over yourself and engage in some cringey self-promotion” era I need to fully embrace Austin Kleon’s mantra: “it’s not enough to be good. In order to be found, you have to be findable.”

Along those lines, this quote stopped me in my

self-promotion is important:

In the months leading up to pub day, I sent approximately 8,613 emails out to friends, professional contacts, people I talked to once in a buffet line at a writing workshop 3 years ago, people who follow me on Twitter, and people who have never heard of me or my little book, offering them galleys and (in some cases!) dir

from Make your Stuff by Austin Kleon:

“it’s not enough to be good. In order to be found, you have to be findable.”

“If you want people to know about what you do and the things you care about, you have to share.”

“Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple.”

“Teaching people

“I’m not interested in myself per se. I’m interested in myself as theme carrier, as host.”

― David Shields, Reality Hunger

My new X, is coming out in X(!) days and I am…shall we say? panicking just a smidgen. Perhaps because X has been in development for so long, I just kept pushing it to the edges of my mind, like “Oh, that’s ages away! I’ll get to marketing or promoting it or talking about it when it’s time.” Or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m not really