0:03

On the creative journey, it's

0:05

easy to get lost but

0:07

don't worry. You'll lift.

0:10

Sometimes you just need.

0:21

Hey, you're listening to the creative pep

0:23

talk podcast. I'm your host, Andy

0:26

j Pizza. Now,

0:28

unfortunately 395 most

0:30

of us, building a successful

0:32

creative practice means

0:35

swimming into the dirty waters

0:38

of social media and everything

0:40

that that entails And recently,

0:43

I was sent a question by

0:45

a musician who makes really

0:47

great indy folk tunes

0:49

named Olivia Raffady.

0:51

And she brought up something

0:54

that I think hits the nail

0:56

on the head of why

0:59

trying to succeed on

1:01

social media for so many of us as

1:03

creators and artists and illustrators and

1:05

musicians just feels impossible.

1:09

Hi, Dr. Pizza. This is the twentieth time

1:11

I've recorded this. It's Olivia Aaffety,

1:13

a singer songwriter from the UK, and I

1:15

would like to talk to you about social media As

1:18

a songwriter who likes to dabble in illustration,

1:20

collage, motivational content, and sometimes

1:23

just pictures of me jumping up and down, I sometimes

1:25

find it hard to remember to fit my music

1:27

in the picture. And when I do

1:30

post my music, it never performs as

1:32

well as the other stuff. So

1:34

here's the bigger picture. I often

1:36

feel like on social media we have to be

1:38

comedians and cultural commentators

1:41

and hot take havers or curators in

1:44

order to, like, trojan horse,

1:46

our actual art into people's

1:48

lives. It feels like we

1:50

have to do something other than the art in

1:52

order to get people to even consider looking

1:54

at our art. And I would love to hear

1:56

your take on this and how you feel

1:58

we can strike a balance between sharing

2:01

what we make and also providing

2:03

value to other people. Man,

2:06

that hits hard. Stings, because

2:08

I feel like I know that

2:10

I feel like that very often

2:12

that I'm gonna have to redefine who

2:14

I am in order to become

2:17

someone who can succeed on social

2:19

media and that I have to

2:21

do that in order to get my

2:23

creative practice where I want it

2:25

to be. And if you have ever felt

2:27

like I just want to

2:29

encourage you that there might be

2:31

another way that doesn't involve

2:34

becoming a different person. And that's what

2:36

we're gonna dive into today, some practical

2:39

stuff for the new year, all

2:41

about social

2:43

media growing your audience

2:46

there and engaging with them there.

2:48

And doing so without losing your soul.

2:51

Alright. Let's do it. Before

3:04

we jump in, I gotta tell you about this

3:06

other creative podcast. So

3:08

whether you are new to creative pet

3:11

talk or you've been listening for a long

3:13

time, there's a good chance that

3:15

you're searching for x strict

3:17

creative fuel. And

3:19

so I'm excited to tell you about this podcast.

3:21

It's called American Masters creative

3:23

Spark. It is a Webby Award

3:25

winning podcast from PBS. PBS

3:28

makes good stuff. They know some creative

3:31

things. And they have a new season of

3:33

American Masters creative spark. It

3:35

just dropped, and it's definitely worth

3:37

a lesson from first cow director,

3:40

Kelly Reichardt, up and coming

3:42

actor John David Washington to

3:45

Pulitzer winning novelist 395

3:48

Egan, Host Joe skinner

3:50

taps into the minds of artists and icons

3:53

across disciplines. Follow

3:55

American Masters' Creative Spark on

3:57

Apple Podcasts, 395, and wherever

3:59

else you listen. And then

4:01

you can send us a thank you later

4:04

when you're when you're creatively sparked

4:06

out of your mind. Go check it out.

4:08

Yeah. Another

4:16

quick little heads up. We

4:18

were just starting to book speaking

4:20

engagements for me in twenty

4:22

twenty three. A big

4:24

part of my creative practice now has become

4:27

giving live creative pat talks

4:29

to creative teams at places like

4:31

Robby Parker, Sesame Street, and Starbucks,

4:34

and also creative agencies like the

4:36

Mars Agency, and then also

4:38

to schools and students. There's not

4:40

really much I enjoy creatively

4:43

more than live storytelling

4:46

in real time and getting to take some of

4:48

the things we talk on this show and

4:50

then and even more

4:52

than that into real

4:54

live spaces like I have started

4:56

to do again. If you

4:58

are interested in booking

5:01

one of those. Go check out my website, andy

5:03

jpizza dot com to

5:05

learn more and you can contact me

5:07

through there. See in

5:09

twenty twenty three, and yeah,

5:13

let's get into it. Dr.

5:30

Pizza. In

5:34

my opinion, the most important

5:37

thing to get right with social

5:39

media as a creator is to redefine

5:41

what you mean. Buy

5:44

social media in the first place. Quit

5:46

trying to play the social media game

5:48

and make social media work for

5:50

you. So instead of trying

5:52

to become what TikTok or

5:54

Instagram or Twitter want you

5:56

to be, instead of redefining yourself

5:59

395 what works on social media. Let's

6:01

redefine what we think of

6:03

as social media so that

6:05

it works for you. Let me explain

6:07

what I mean by that. So instead

6:10

of asking 395, where

6:12

are the people on social media

6:14

right now? What's hot? What if you ask

6:16

yourself? Where do people typically

6:19

discover the type of

6:21

thing that I do. So in this case,

6:23

we're talking about music, but we're just using

6:25

that as a case study, it could literally apply

6:28

to any type of artist or creator or

6:30

entrepreneur of any kind really.

6:32

So just ask 395. Don't say,

6:34

Where are the people? What's the new hot

6:36

thing? Ask yourself where do people

6:38

genuinely discover the type of

6:40

work that I create online

6:43

and define that as social

6:45

media. So for you as a musician,

6:47

it's probably 395. But

6:49

my guess is and from what I

6:51

can see on your music 395, you

6:54

don't treat Spotify

6:56

like social I'm

6:58

gonna say social so many times in this episode and

7:00

it's gonna be a a hurdle. I

7:03

end up social. On social

7:05

media, don't

7:07

know why I had an accent too.

7:09

Social media. It sounds, I

7:11

don't know, vaguely Irish. Anyway,

7:14

it doesn't look like from your

7:16

Spotify profile. You

7:18

only have a few songs on there

7:20

that you're using that as

7:23

social media And that's pretty

7:25

normal, I would say, like a lot of artists,

7:27

a lot of musicians don't use

7:29

Spotify as social media because it's

7:31

technically not social media.

7:33

However, I think it's

7:35

incredibly important to

7:38

think about your

7:40

creativity as a type of creative

7:43

juice and be

7:45

aware of what kind of jug

7:48

do people drink this type of

7:50

juice 395? Because you really

7:52

do need that creative

7:55

Jews, creative jug fit. And

7:58

if you force wine

8:00

into a solo cup, it

8:02

look, there are exceptions to

8:04

the rule. There are times when

8:07

musicians blow

8:09

up on TikTok. But they are

8:11

massive exceptions. If you think about

8:13

all of the artists, all the musicians that

8:15

you have discovered over the past

8:17

395 years. Where have you discovered them?

8:20

Like, what? Is it from a solo

8:22

cup of TikTok? Or is it from a

8:24

wine glass? Of Spotify

8:27

or Apple Music. Like, where are you discovering

8:30

those things? That's social media for

8:32

you. And And a second, I'm

8:34

gonna talk about how

8:37

some musicians really utilize

8:39

Spotify in this way

8:41

to seemingly really great 395. But

8:45

yeah, you're not gonna drink wine out

8:47

of a solo cup every night.

8:49

Sure. On occasion, there are exceptions

8:51

when you went to a party and nobody

8:53

had a bottle opener and you had

8:55

to open the wine bottle with your key and

8:57

then nobody had wine

8:59

glasses so you're drinking it out of a

9:01

coffee mug like yeah, that was

9:03

great. But if you tried to

9:05

replicate that every

9:07

single night, something

9:09

would be maybe not

9:11

quite right. Like,

9:13

you might have an alcohol problem if you're

9:16

opening a wine bottle with a key

9:18

every night. And the same goes for 395 gonna

9:20

have a problem if you're trying

9:22

to get people to drink that type of

9:24

creative juice from the wrong

9:26

judge. And so

9:29

395 you, I would say, Spotify is social

9:31

media. We're gonna get to some

9:33

different types of creativity 395 formats

9:35

in a second, but let's just dive into this

9:37

and concentrate here as a little case

9:39

study for a second. And

9:52

the reason I'm assuming that you don't

9:54

use your Spotify as social media is

9:56

that I know that you

9:58

did a one hundred song

10:01

in one hundred day challenge

10:04

on social, and you

10:06

wrote tons and tons of songs.

10:08

But on your Spotify, you only have a

10:10

handful of songs published. And

10:12

I tried to think about, like, why that

10:14

is. Now I know I have

10:16

musician 395 who, you

10:18

know, they talk about the the different

10:20

aspects of mixing, mastering, just all the

10:22

things that go into publishing on

10:25

Spotify. I know that there

10:27

are more hurdles there. there

10:29

are posting a JPEG to

10:31

Instagram. However, I

10:34

don't think that's why at

10:36

least you don't have more of those

10:38

one hundred songs on

10:40

that page. My guess is that it

10:42

has more to do with perfectionism.

10:45

Now every artist grows up, every

10:47

musician grows up wanting to

10:49

be like their heroes, at least 395 my

10:51

experience, and they want that

10:53

perfect back catalog

10:55

with no missteps

10:57

or mistakes. They want the

10:59

radio head or the Sundays

11:01

like 395 like, few

11:03

albums that were just chosen

11:05

so 395. But for

11:07

a second, I just encourage everybody

11:10

listening to this just forget about the

11:12

work of your heroes and how they did

11:14

it. Like, however

11:16

they forge that path through

11:18

the wilderness, like

11:20

that path has become well

11:22

worn and now it's just a

11:24

huge line of people.

11:27

And quit thinking about those heroes and instead

11:29

think about your peers, how are they

11:31

doing it well? How do things

11:33

work today? Do they treat their

11:35

Spotify like this perfect

11:38

discography, this back catalog

11:40

of, like, perfectly

11:42

timed and dropped meticulous

11:45

albums or do

11:47

those people 395 feels

11:49

more like if Instagram was

11:51

for music instead of images?

11:53

But it's not just for musicians

11:55

that, you know, perfectionism is

11:57

the hang up. It's why, sure,

11:59

it's why a lot of artists don't use

12:01

Spotify like social. But

12:03

I also think it's big it

12:05

applies to all types of artists because we don't

12:07

wanna repeat ourselves. We don't wanna make

12:09

a mistake, and we don't wanna put

12:12

out imperfect stuff. But I gotta tell you,

12:14

nobody's listening. Nobody

12:17

cares. Like, my

12:19

favorite bands have

12:21

songs on Spotify I've never

12:23

heard. Like, I mean, people I'm

12:25

die hard for. Right? Like, I

12:27

don't catch every single thing

12:29

that they produce. And that's

12:31

okay. So if it's not that great that no one's

12:33

probably gonna hear it anyway. And

12:35

if they're really super crazy

12:38

fans, they're going to want all the

12:40

different pieces. Right? Those are the only

12:42

people that are diving that deep.

12:44

And so I thought we could look

12:46

at one of my all time

12:48

favorite bands who

12:50

I feel really does use

12:52

Spotify more like social media

12:54

than discography of

12:56

meticulous album 395. And

12:59

that person's waxahatchie, who

13:01

you've probably heard me talk about on the show,

13:03

I'm just a super fan man. I'm one

13:05

of those that I Waxahatchie and

13:08

Katy Crutchfield falls into that

13:10

category where you've listened to

13:12

the music and it's resonated so

13:14

deeply with you. You're convinced, like, I

13:16

know this person. Like,

13:19

you know, it's embarrassing, but I just

13:21

I love her energy and I love

13:23

her songwriting and her And

13:25

I've been following her creative journeys since at

13:27

least twenty thirteen with

13:29

her second album. Just a huge

13:31

395, but her first album

13:34

was called American weekend.

13:37

And it's almost

13:40

sounds like a collection of demos.

13:42

It's really lo fi fuzzy,

13:45

acoustic, singersongwriter

13:47

395. And I'm a huge

13:49

fan of that album, and I think

13:51

it illustrates one

13:54

piece that whoever

13:56

you are, wherever you are

13:58

is something you can learn to do on social media to

14:00

great effect, and it's frequency. And

14:03

the only way you're going to be able to

14:05

release stuff with a

14:07

consistent regular

14:09

frequency is if you

14:11

release stuff like that album American

14:13

weekend, which is 395, which

14:15

is low fi, which is

14:17

not your best production.

14:19

It's not the best thing that you could

14:21

produce at any given moment. But

14:23

what I do think it is and why I think

14:25

it's so successful is

14:27

because it has the main

14:29

thing as the main thing,

14:31

which is her songwriting.

14:34

In her performance of those songs.

14:36

But ultimately, it's the songwriting, it's

14:38

the storytelling. That's what I

14:40

love about wax a hatchy and

14:42

it's all there. Sure. It's

14:44

fuzzy. Sure. There's only one

14:46

instrument like the sure.

14:48

It's not her best album. It's not

14:50

her compared to the others

14:53

in in several different ways. But

14:55

at the heart of it, the main thing

14:57

is the main thing. In order to do

14:59

that, you gotta

15:01

have a sense of what is the main thing that

15:03

I'm doing here? What is the thing

15:05

that makes my work

15:07

special? And then bet

15:10

everything on that. You know, when I make a

15:12

podcast, that's what I'm doing. Like, not

15:14

every podcast is as good as the last

15:16

or as good as the next, like, they're they

15:18

all kind of fluctuate and

15:21

whether they're a's, a

15:23

minus or b

15:26

plus I'm not going lower than

15:28

that. I'm never trying to go lower than b

15:30

plus, but no matter what they

15:32

are, there's a standard that I

15:34

have if it has to have this

15:36

thing. And so for 395, that's, you

15:38

know, we've been, like, working on

15:40

taglines for the show just for descriptions

15:42

and, like, Apple Apple podcasts

15:44

and stuff like that. And for me, it's

15:46

like an insightful story and

15:48

actionable strategy that I really

15:50

believe in, that I'm excited about. If

15:52

it doesn't have that, I can't have

15:54

an episode. But if it has

15:56

that, I can build around

15:58

that, and I can work with

16:00

that. And so what is the

16:02

main thing for you? So if you're a producer,

16:04

maybe it is the productionist stellar, but you

16:06

don't even have lyrics on there. You

16:08

don't even have vocals

16:10

or, you know, it's all digital, like, whatever

16:12

it is. Figure out what

16:14

the main thing is that you know that you

16:16

can consistently pull

16:18

pull off and put out

16:20

and make that main

16:22

thing the main thing. And

16:24

then everything else, like,

16:26

as you get more established, you'll

16:29

have more resources, more time, you

16:31

can up it as you

16:33

go. It doesn't have to be the best

16:35

possible thing you could produce. At

16:37

any given time. And it's really important too

16:39

for the second thing that happens

16:42

on social media that I see people like

16:44

Waxahatchie do, is that

16:46

frequency is not just like, I

16:48

can feel the pushback of artists being like,

16:50

look, it's it's

16:52

unnatural. To be making that much

16:54

work and producing that much work and putting it

16:56

out in the world. And I'm not

16:58

calling for you to be a robot

17:01

of producing ridiculous

17:04

amount of work in such a way that

17:06

it's killing the work. I'm

17:08

asking you to do it because it

17:10

helps the work if you find

17:12

the right sweet spot for you.

17:14

And so the and thing that I see Waxahatchie doing

17:16

on social media or on Spotify ads

17:19

social media is what a lot of

17:21

artists do successfully on other platforms,

17:23

which is learning. They

17:25

are testing. They're putting stuff

17:28

out that's informing what

17:30

they do. And so

17:32

one of the best things you can do on social media,

17:34

one of the best tools is to use

17:36

it as how the stand

17:38

up comedians use a a

17:41

club. They don't only do

17:43

material that's perfect for their special

17:45

in those places. They do

17:47

stuff where they're testing out the creative

17:49

Jews, created jug fit,

17:51

so to speak, in terms of is

17:54

this material fitting

17:56

with my audience? And

17:59

at the same time, they're

18:01

trying and stretching and doing new

18:03

things, and they're they're allowing themselves

18:05

to really explore the

18:08

space you know. And one example of that

18:10

is Waxahatchie appears

18:13

on Kevin with Kevin

18:15

Morbee, her Boyfriend,

18:17

I don't know, her partner, who's

18:19

also a musician on a

18:22

Jason Molina covers

18:24

album. And she talks about

18:26

how those kinda little experiments

18:29

of trying other people's songs and trying

18:31

different styles actually

18:33

taught her that she could sing in a

18:35

way that she didn't know was possible, and

18:37

it led to what to her was

18:39

her breakthrough album. Which is

18:41

her most recent Saint Cloud, and that's my favorite

18:44

as well. I've listened to

18:46

that a billion times.

18:48

Oh. And she she stumbled

18:50

into that by trying things, by producing

18:53

things, by putting stuff out there 395 not

18:56

maintaining this meticulously

19:00

crafted narrative of

19:02

exactly the same

19:04

output and style like

19:06

artist used to do back in the

19:08

day. And so 395 frequency

19:10

helps with the learning. And then the

19:12

third thing that you can do through

19:15

Spotify if you treat it like social media

19:17

is use it as a place to

19:19

collaborate. Wack's hat, she

19:21

does an incredible job With

19:23

that, she just released an

19:25

album under the band playing

19:27

with another musician, but it

19:29

also appears on her page.

19:32

And it's a little bit 395. It's

19:35

phenomenal. And guess what? Putting

19:37

stuff out like that means, One

19:39

of those songs was on Obama's favorite songs

19:41

of the Year, list. And

19:43

it means that all the people that listened to

19:45

this musician that she collaborated with

19:48

sees that come through on their

19:50

Spotify page, if they follow that page. And

19:52

she does collaborations with the band Whitney,

19:54

who I'm also a huge fan of, and collaborations

19:56

with Kevin Morbee, and she's done a few other

19:58

ones with other musicians. And

20:00

she's taken advantage of Spotify

20:02

as social media by using

20:04

it as a tool to collaborate. And

20:07

that third one is the most

20:09

important one. I'm gonna

20:11

say this all

20:13

the time on this show,

20:15

there's nothing. There is

20:18

nothing more important than

20:20

what some people call networking. I

20:22

like to call it work neck netting.

20:24

I'm just kidding. I just made that

20:26

up. But I I don't call it

20:28

anything other than having fun with

20:31

people who like to do the kind of stuff that you

20:33

like to do, learning from them,

20:35

making stuff with them, connecting with them,

20:37

if you're not doing that. I

20:39

really genuinely feel if I

20:41

talk to somebody and they wanna create a creative

20:43

practice, a thriving creative practice,

20:45

they wanna be a career creative,

20:47

and they are not. Collaborating with

20:49

other creators. They are

20:52

not going to places where people like

20:54

them are consuming the kind of stuff they

20:56

like and making the kind of stuff they like and

20:58

they're not making and

21:00

connecting and collaborating with

21:02

those people, they

21:04

almost certainly do not

21:06

have a chance. Of building a

21:09

creative career. And so if that's

21:11

you, realize when I say that,

21:13

I am aware of that is a

21:15

creative journey in its own right. Making

21:17

friends is hard as an adult,

21:19

connecting, finding people that you're excited to

21:21

work with, working out

21:23

the details of how are we gonna release it, how's it gonna what

21:26

the name, is it all those things.

21:28

I understand that that is

21:30

a huge ordeal, but

21:33

it is, in my opinion,

21:35

the number one most

21:38

important time that you will

21:40

spend as a creator. Why?

21:42

Go back to where we started on this

21:44

rant. Where do people discover

21:47

your music? Where do people

21:49

discover your work? They

21:51

discover it. Almost

21:54

always through other people. And

21:56

395, that looks like being featured on

21:59

someone else's song It

22:01

looks like collaborating with somebody who

22:03

they already like. That

22:05

means you get on radars of people

22:07

that hire those people or people that feature

22:09

those people and 395 you are not

22:12

willing to do that messy

22:14

social business of of trying to

22:16

figure out people that you wanna work

22:19

with, I really don't think

22:21

you can plan on having

22:23

a creative practice that that

22:25

is thriving. I think you could

22:27

be the exception to the rule, but that's literally

22:30

like like that southern

22:32

preacher, Andy Stanley, calls

22:35

planning to be the exception. Like,

22:37

planning to be the exception is not a

22:39

plan. It's plan that you're it's having your

22:41

financial plan being to win the

22:44

lottery. And so that is

22:47

the third way that you could

22:49

use Spotify or

22:51

any place online as

22:54

social media, whether it's intended

22:56

to be used that way or

22:59

not. Okay.

23:03

Just in case I am losing

23:05

some of you, illustrators, designers,

23:07

riders, what have you? I

23:09

think that there is an

23:12

equivalent for all of you as

23:14

well if you're willing to be a

23:16

little bit creative about it.

23:18

Essentially, Illustrators, what

23:20

if instead of pouring all your time into Instagram

23:22

and complaining about the algorithm

23:24

and video. And now I gotta

23:27

be stand up comedian and get in front of the

23:29

camera and do dancing and all that kind of

23:31

stuff, which 395 the way, I

23:33

relate to. I'm not I'm not giving you

23:35

hard time. But instead of doing all that, what if

23:37

you said, like, where is the

23:39

easiest place or where is the place

23:41

where you have discovered new

23:44

illustrators more

23:46

395. For me personally,

23:48

if I'm looking for the

23:50

kind of creative juice, that

23:53

is illustration. I'm gonna open

23:55

the creative jug, not of Instagram

23:58

anymore, but of

24:00

Pinterest. And the amount of stuff that I

24:02

can discover on there is ridiculous. So 395 if

24:04

you used Pinterest as social

24:07

media instead of Instagram or

24:10

TikTok or what have you. Yeah. It's less

24:12

sexy. Yes. The masses aren't there

24:16

per se. But we are not looking

24:18

for the masses. You're looking

24:20

for particular people

24:22

that you wanna connect with.

24:24

What would it look like if you spent an absorbent amount

24:26

of time trying to

24:29

build your practice in

24:31

a ecosystem like Pinterest?

24:33

Like, what if you did collaborations

24:35

with artists that were, you

24:37

know, built for particular

24:41

Pinterest folders of collaborative

24:43

pieces. And then every time people

24:45

search that Illustrator, your stuff

24:47

comes up too. Like, there's million

24:49

different ways to be discoverable in that

24:52

place in a way that is so much

24:54

more tailored to the type of creative

24:56

juice that you produce.

24:59

And I think the same

25:01

goes 395, like, designers.

25:03

Like, what if you think of

25:05

social media differently too? What if you

25:07

redefine it? Maybe you don't go to a

25:09

different platform. But what if you just

25:11

redefined what social media

25:13

was for you by using

25:15

Instagram as a portfolio? For

25:17

me personally, I've been thinking a little bit more like

25:19

that. I've been pinning. I've been working

25:21

on these pens. You can pin

25:24

posts now. And

25:26

honestly, in my opinion, your

25:29

Instagram is as valuable as

25:31

your website in terms of 395, but

25:33

the problem is as your posting stuff, some

25:35

of your best work is gonna get buried. And so

25:38

what if you redefined what

25:40

you think of as Instagram or

25:42

what you think of as social media,

25:44

and instead define it as the

25:46

best place to see

25:48

your best work and you created

25:50

a portfolio post of ten pieces

25:53

that were your best. You you pinned a real

25:55

that is a real

25:57

of your best work, you know,

26:00

a case study of all these different pieces of what you do and you

26:02

pin that to the top, like, what

26:04

if you redefine social media in a

26:06

different way even if it's staying on the

26:08

same platform? 395 then

26:11

writers. You know, what

26:13

about podcasting for

26:16

writers? I thought about how you

26:18

could, you know, for me personally,

26:20

we're probably gonna dive into this a little

26:22

bit deeper throughout this year because I think

26:24

there's a lot to go at. Here

26:26

because in the same way that

26:29

artists or musicians have a

26:31

hard time showing up on Spotify

26:33

395 perfectly, and treating

26:35

it like social media, I think the same is

26:37

true for podcasts for some reason.

26:40

And in my experience, podcasts

26:42

aren't the place for perfectly

26:45

crafted things. You know, I We

26:47

we we could literally

26:49

script every single thing that I say.

26:51

We could edit out, you know, have

26:53

a editor that works on the show. We could

26:55

have Connor. Oh. Edit out every

26:58

single and I'm sure he does.

27:00

Edit out some of them, but we don't edit out all of them

27:02

because that's not what a podcast is. It's

27:04

not an audio book. And the

27:06

more I thought about it, the more

27:08

I thought okay, it's not an

27:10

audiobook, but it is kind of well,

27:12

audiobooks are to books. It is to

27:14

blogs. And a lot of people are like, We're

27:16

all, man. They're taking our

27:18

blogs. But I

27:20

don't think they took them anywhere. That kind of

27:22

material is so much better to

27:24

consume in a lot of ways,

27:26

in our busy times, that

27:28

long form content that we

27:30

all enjoy but we don't

27:32

amount of time to consume, we

27:34

can consume that stuff while we're washing the

27:36

dishes. And all of a sudden, washing the

27:38

dishes is better and consuming blogs

27:40

style content is also

27:44

better. And why I bring that up

27:46

for writers as not just you content

27:48

creators, but also filmmakers

27:50

like fiction podcasts are a huge thing

27:52

and we're gonna even talk

27:55

about how you could be more

27:57

intentional and strategic with a

27:59

podcast if you are a

28:01

writer. But what would it look like

28:03

if you showed up and used podcasting

28:05

as social media and

28:08

redefined it that way?

28:17

Switch that out to the sponsors that we

28:20

love, font self.

28:22

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28:24

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28:31

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28:33

extremely easy to

28:35

use app You can make a font right on your

28:37

iPad, or you can do it how I did it. There's a

28:39

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28:41

can download and

28:44

work within within Adobe

28:46

Illustrator. You can make a font

28:48

in in thirty minutes. It's

28:50

it's great for branding,

28:52

all of your creative stuff online. We built

28:54

a font to use on the thumbnails of

28:57

our YouTube videos that we've been

28:59

doing. Go check out font self

29:01

in the App Store. It's a

29:03

one time payment. It's not a subscription

29:05

based thing and they do really

29:07

great work. We discovered them,

29:10

used them and then started talking about them being

29:12

a sponsor of the show, so we could tell all of you

29:14

about it. So go check them out, aunt

29:16

self in the app store. Also,

29:24

a big shout out to our sponsors.

29:27

You if you are a

29:29

patron of the show, we are

29:31

partially listener supported.

29:33

You know, there's a ton of 395

29:36

believe all the little

29:39

costs of running a podcast of

29:41

the size of the show, whether

29:43

it's the email newsletter,

29:45

the hosting, for both the site and

29:47

the podcast, the

29:49

editing, all of the, you know, the hard

29:51

drives. Just just

29:53

to keep track of this show. It it

29:55

adds up and so we thoroughly

29:58

appreciate our patrons

30:00

of this show. 395 you support

30:02

the show financially, that's fine.

30:05

But we make this show

30:07

to help you thrive as a

30:09

human, don't support if

30:11

you can't afford it. But if you can afford a couple of bucks

30:13

a month to support

30:17

our show, we really appreciate

30:19

it. Patreon dot com slash creative pep

30:21

talk and you can give a

30:23

couple bucks per episode and that gets

30:25

you exclusive little

30:28

mini pep talks that I share on there

30:30

sometimes as well as

30:32

I started to do some meetups. We

30:34

did one at the

30:36

end of last year, we're gonna do a quarterly we're gonna try

30:38

to do quarterly ones. We're just

30:40

we're gonna we're gonna schedule one

30:42

for the seventeenth of February

30:45

ten AM EST. Period

30:47

of pepperoni pizza for breakfast

30:50

is what we're currently calling it.

30:52

Just kinda was a small group of

30:54

people on Zoom, hanging out,

30:56

chatting about creative career 395, and

30:58

it was it was just a lot

31:00

of fun, and we wanna kinda stimulate the

31:03

community side of the show

31:05

because when we've been able to do that, whether it's

31:07

meetups in person or meetups online,

31:09

it's been incredible to create

31:12

a space where creators can

31:14

connect because as you know, I

31:16

even spoke about it in this episode. That

31:19

that is the number one thing.

31:21

And so if you're looking for people like minded

31:23

creators, if you like

31:25

the show, the people that also like the

31:27

show might be your people. Go

31:30

sign up patreon dot com

31:32

slash creative 395. And

31:35

massive thanks to all of you who

31:37

already support the show. If you

31:39

can't support financially, we're

31:41

we're that's totally fine.

31:43

We would really

31:46

appreciate it if you would share it with

31:48

creatives that you know that might like

31:50

it or give us a rating on

31:52

Apple Podcast because that helps us more

31:54

to to be more visible in the

31:56

podcast app and connect with

31:59

more creators. Like you. Thanks.

32:08

So every

32:15

episode of this show, we don't just give

32:18

you an inspiring kind of

32:20

story or idea. We give you

32:22

an idea that you can put to action

32:24

and we even suggest a

32:27

particular way how to put that

32:29

new idea to practice. So this is

32:31

your creative call

32:33

to adventure, your CTA, your

32:35

call to action. Here it is.

32:37

Forget the masses and

32:39

name one true patron.

32:42

So the reason that I think

32:44

so many of us want to

32:46

feed on Instagram and TikTok and and and

32:48

places like that is because

32:50

those social media outlets are

32:52

where the masses are. That's where the

32:55

people are. I wanna be

32:57

where the people are. I

32:59

wanna see. I wanna see.

33:01

To bear each other in

33:03

to peace. We wanna go to where

33:06

the people are. Right? Like that makes sense?

33:08

You want people to connect with your work? Where are

33:10

the people? Let's go. I get

33:12

it. But what if even

33:14

that is maybe a

33:16

misconception? What if we need to

33:18

redefine what we mean

33:20

by success? Because

33:22

what if in order for you to

33:24

succeed truly, whatever that might mean to

33:26

you as a creator, you don't

33:28

need the masses. You don't need to

33:30

connect with them. You don't need to be where

33:33

they are. And

33:35

so we've talked a

33:37

lot about redefining what

33:39

social media is for yourself.

33:41

And we've talked about on this show in the

33:43

past about redefining success.

33:45

You know, we've we've talked about

33:47

As a creator, you probably don't need a million

33:50

fans anymore and you maybe

33:52

never needed that in the first place

33:54

but instead shoot for something

33:57

closer to what the

33:59

Wired Magazine founder Kevin

34:01

Kelly calls the hundred True

34:02

395 Idea. Which we won't dive in

34:05

deep into. We've explored that pretty

34:07

thoroughly in the past, but the basic principle

34:09

is lots of us think

34:11

that we need a million

34:14

fans in order to be successful as a

34:16

creator. We need a

34:18

hundred thousand followers to be successful as a

34:20

395, but Kevin Kelly would say no,

34:22

you only need a thousand true fans. You only need

34:25

a thousand people spending a hundred

34:27

bucks on your work a year to make a hundred thousand

34:30

dollars a year, which is

34:32

a fine salary that I think lot

34:34

of creators would be more than happy

34:36

to live on and

34:39

and survive on. So Yes.

34:42

That's true. We've talked about that in the past

34:44

quite a bit, but I wanna take it even

34:46

further 395 the more I've thought

34:48

about this, And the more

34:50

that I have connected to

34:52

creators who seem to

34:54

be building and and

34:56

living within really

34:58

thriving creative practices, they

35:01

don't even have a thousand true

35:03

fans. Most of them only

35:05

have ten, twenty, true fans.

35:07

And I'm gonna call them

35:09

true patrons because I don't think this is even

35:11

a new thing. You know, if you look back all

35:14

throughout history, artists that were

35:16

thriving. A lot of them just had a few people

35:18

that really, really bought

35:20

into what they did, and

35:22

that's also

35:24

true today. And it's not just

35:26

true for illustrators that do client work that have, you

35:28

know, ten true patrons,

35:30

ten art directors that hire

35:34

them on a semi regular basis

35:36

for ten thousand dollars a job. Like, those

35:38

those bigger business to business

35:42

projects. It's not just them. It's also people like Waxahatchie.

35:44

So if you go on

35:47

Waxahatchie's social media

35:49

profile on 395, identify. See

35:52

how we're we're really building that

35:54

out. We're we're helping

35:56

redefine it in our minds how we think

35:58

about the different

36:00

spaces online. 395 you go on her profile, you're gonna

36:02

see the LDFO soundtrack,

36:04

which was the songs that

36:06

she created for the Apple

36:10

TV show. It's a kids show and she

36:12

created all the music for it. And guess what? That was probably

36:16

patronage. That

36:18

was probably paid for

36:20

by Apple as a bigger

36:22

job as a type

36:25

of almost music syncing. And what

36:27

would it look like if instead of trying to go where the masses

36:29

are, instead of trying to amass

36:31

an enormous fandom

36:35

you just thought about who are

36:37

the types of people that could give

36:39

me the opportunity that that could fall

36:41

in love with my creative

36:43

practice. That where I would only need ten to twenty of

36:45

those people to be true fans or

36:48

true patrons

36:50

for my creative practice

36:52

to get off the ground. You

36:54

know, the best part of that for me

36:56

is not that it's easier then

36:59

trying to get a thousand true fans or trying to

37:01

get a million 395, it that is

37:03

great. And that's a huge

37:05

part of it. But ultimately, it does two other things that I think

37:07

are really powerful. The first one is

37:10

it allows you in your

37:12

mind to

37:14

niche down who you're making for.

37:16

And there's a book

37:18

that I read called Make

37:20

Noise by Eric Newsom. He's a

37:22

guy from 395 and

37:25

and Amazon Podcast, and he knows

37:27

a lot about podcasts. And one of the

37:29

practices in the book that he has you

37:31

do is he asks you

37:33

to go Google Search to

37:36

find your listener for

37:38

your podcast. Now, I did this

37:40

practice for this podcast, but I

37:42

did it, you know, eight years into the show, so I

37:44

didn't need to come up with a hypothetical one. I

37:46

just put pictures of people.

37:50

Not just one, but I'd made a little grid of

37:52

the people that I've met over the years that exemplify why

37:55

I create this show. They're

37:58

exactly who I make this show for. And

38:00

it was so enlightening because it

38:03

made me realize like, oh, The

38:05

people I make this show for, it's not really

38:08

about creative careers. It's not really

38:10

about that they're super

38:12

creative. And and on most of

38:15

them are really creative. It's not but it's not about that. What it is is

38:17

these are people who felt as

38:20

if they had

38:22

no choice

38:24

but to create their own path,

38:26

like the paths that were

38:28

in front of them, that were given

38:30

to them, that were prefabbed

38:33

for your everyday person in

38:35

our society didn't work for those

38:37

people. It could be neurodivergence of

38:39

some kind ADHD

38:42

dyslexia, autism, all these different types. It could

38:44

be class. It could be race. It could

38:46

be gender. It could be sexual orientation.

38:50

All these different reasons why the paths,

38:52

the normal paths, the the wide

38:54

paths that are set before them 395

38:57

not work for them. 395 so

39:00

creativity isn't just

39:02

a nice to have for them.

39:04

It's a must because they don't

39:06

have an option other than

39:10

creating their own way

39:12

that is custom fit

39:14

to the unusual, you know,

39:16

outlier type that they are. And

39:18

it started to change how I thought about the show, and it actually

39:21

brought a lot of passion and insight about

39:23

the type of episodes that I

39:25

wanted to craft. And

39:28

so I really believe that it's nearly

39:30

impossible to make for millions of

39:32

people. Like, you're gonna end up

39:34

with something that is so watered down.

39:36

I call it buttered spaghetti. It's not even good buttered

39:38

spaghetti. I'm talking no

39:40

salt. I'm talking dairy

39:43

free, gluten 395, buttered

39:46

spaghetti that will fill

39:48

people up. Sure. I mean, you could call it

39:50

music, you could call it a podcast, you could

39:52

call it illustration, but nobody's

39:54

pumped about it. But when

39:56

you dig down to

39:58

one true patron, the person

40:00

that you're like, this person could change

40:02

my quarter one of

40:04

this year, by giving me an

40:06

opportunity and creating for that

40:08

person. All of a

40:10

sudden, you have a lot of

40:12

specificity to go at. You can

40:14

make your work not just something for the masses, but a gift

40:16

for a particular person. And it really

40:18

makes all the difference. You know, for

40:20

me 395, almost

40:22

every time I start creating one of these episodes, I have

40:25

to tell my daughter who's fourteen

40:27

or my wife or or

40:29

Ryan, my my agent

40:32

manager, or or the editor, somebody. I

40:34

gotta find somebody to

40:36

explain my idea to because there's

40:38

something about having a

40:40

person there that you're

40:42

creating for that informs you

40:45

in a human way. When I try

40:47

to come record here without

40:50

testing out the idea and

40:52

thinking about in real time in front

40:54

of somebody. How would I explain this? I struggled

40:56

to be human when it doesn't

40:58

connect to another human. And

41:01

so this is a way you can do that,

41:03

that yes, will work. Well, has the

41:06

potential to actually make a

41:08

dramatic difference in your

41:10

creative practice overnight. So if you're

41:12

a musician, maybe that looks like,

41:14

who could buy my

41:16

music to sync on TV or

41:18

sync for a commercial or or, you know,

41:20

instead of selling millions

41:22

of streams to pay my rent

41:24

one time, selling one

41:27

the license of one song to

41:29

pay my rent months person. Like, it is a

41:31

game changer. And so I say, forget

41:33

the millions of fans, forget a

41:35

thousand true fans 395

41:38

go down to ten, go down to where are ten

41:41

people? And I

41:43

would suggest finding

41:46

one person, a real human on

41:49

the platform, the

41:51

social media platform, that

41:53

you're choose. Be it Spotify, Pinterest,

41:56

yeah, sure, Instagram, podcast,

41:58

whatever. Go find that

42:02

actual human. That has the

42:04

potential to be one of those

42:06

ten true patrons. Find

42:08

a picture of them 395 find

42:10

them on that platform. And

42:13

start making stuff for them with them in mind because

42:15

they can change your practice

42:18

overnight. And

42:20

and guess what? Over time,

42:22

you can add other layers

42:24

to it. You could create a podcast. Yeah.

42:26

That where you only need ten less nurse

42:29

as long as they're the right listeners.

42:31

And that that could be true for, you know, if

42:33

you're a writer, let's say

42:35

you you write Young adult YA romance

42:38

novels. You can create a

42:40

podcast where the first ten minutes

42:42

are the next chapter

42:44

in your YA

42:46

romance novel. In the last

42:48

thirty minutes, are you chatting with

42:50

somebody from the YA romance

42:52

community? Be it. Editors at

42:54

publishing houses or other

42:56

YA readers or YA

42:58

writers and start building

43:00

out the collaborations

43:02

with people on that social

43:04

media platform.

43:06

However, you choose to define it.

43:08

But, you know, you Illustrators, you

43:10

only need ten to twenty illustration clients

43:12

a year. What would it look like if you did collabs with other

43:15

illustrators and created AAA

43:17

folder on Pinterest and created

43:19

all those pins? And

43:21

so yeah, I think the great news

43:24

is this is much more doable,

43:26

even better than that, is that it's

43:28

it's not an end. It's

43:30

the start. Because

43:32

from my limited knowledge

43:35

of the social

43:38

phenomenon that is diffusion of innovation,

43:40

which is just a fancy

43:42

way of saying how ideas

43:44

spread. It always starts with

43:47

a die hard group of a

43:50

small die hard group of people that

43:52

had fell in love with a thing that was

43:54

so perfect for them that they go out

43:56

and sell it to people like

43:58

them because it feels like a gift

44:00

to give that kind of thing away. Right?

44:02

When you really fall for something,

44:05

you wanna tell people that like

44:07

you about that thing. And then they become your best marketers. And

44:09

so those ten clients, those ten b

44:11

to b patrons, business

44:14

to business. You doing work with other businesses, selling services

44:17

to them as a freelancer or

44:19

licensing stuff to them as

44:21

a as a freelancer, those

44:23

ten clients, they turn

44:26

into a bigger group of people.

44:28

And all of a sudden, you can scale what you're doing

44:30

a little bit with things like concerts. So the

44:32

clients and then they're concerts and you sell one

44:34

thing, one time to lots of

44:36

people at the same time. So that could be a

44:38

podcast sponsorship.

44:41

Right? Like, you're only making that you're

44:43

only selling that sponsorship one time, but

44:45

you can sell it to you

44:47

can sell it for more money because

44:49

you've scaled it to three thousand people. Right?

44:51

And then once you do that, over

44:54

time, those ten clients

44:56

turn into three thousand people at the

44:58

concert, at

45:00

the podcast, and then those three thousand people become

45:02

thirty thousand or become fifty

45:04

thousand and all of a sudden you've

45:06

got passive

45:08

income. And you can sell one

45:10

thing a bunch of time times

45:12

to loads of people. And maybe then you're

45:14

making some money off streams, probably not

45:17

a ton, but merch. And

45:19

or or selling books or selling

45:21

classes or selling posters. And

45:24

that now you've got a really

45:26

healthy ecosystem, but it all

45:28

starts with the call to

45:30

adventure today is

45:32

just go find one of those ten

45:36

true patrons. On the social media platform that as you

45:38

395 it, and get a picture of

45:40

them or find them, go connect to them,

45:42

go follow them

45:44

and start plugging yourself

45:47

into that ecosystem. Alright.

46:00

I wanted to give you

46:02

a practical episode of

46:05

the show before we

46:07

go into some more abstract

46:10

ideas, bigger philosophical

46:13

395 of stuff on the show over

46:15

the next couple weeks. In

46:17

our new series. And

46:20

that question from Olivia

46:22

set that up so well, so I really

46:24

appreciate it. I'm gonna

46:26

leave you ear in a slightly different way than we usually

46:28

do, which is with

46:30

one of Olivia's songs that I really

46:32

love called Happy New Year.

46:36

395 for the season. If

46:38

you're look, I'm not a

46:40

music expert, but to me, it's got a little

46:42

bit of Smith's vibes. reminds me

46:45

of like my favorite

46:47

Christmas song. My low, which

46:49

is called just like Christmas. It feels like

46:51

the happy 395 Year a

46:53

quip that's such a

46:56

cool thing 395 a, I am

46:58

obsessed with that song and b,

47:01

I'm happy to have have

47:03

a a new year,

47:06

395 kind of vibe. And

47:08

then also, it just feels like good creative

47:10

pep talkie type vibe 395, like,

47:13

kinda pick up the

47:15

torch because the singer of

47:17

Lowe actually passed away, I think,

47:19

did twenty twenty

47:21

two. parker, and it just

47:24

feels it feels appropriate

47:26

for someone like Olivia

47:28

to to be picking

47:31

up that creating don't even know if Olivia

47:33

likes the band low or

47:36

knows that Christmas song,

47:38

but I'm happy to have like

47:40

a a near equivalent

47:42

vibe, which is

47:44

just a melancholy holiday

47:47

vibe, which is

47:49

usually kind of how I experience these things. So I'm

47:51

gonna leave you with that song,

47:54

but massive shout out

47:56

to Yoni Wolf from the band why for

47:58

theme music. Thanks to

48:00

Connor Jones for the 395 design

48:02

and editing of the show.

48:04

Thanks to Ryan Appleton, Katie Chandler

48:07

and Sophie Miller for all

48:09

other podcast assistance and

48:11

podcast related things. And

48:14

and thanks to Olivia Rafferty. Go

48:16

follow her on Spotify for such

48:19

a well thought out quest and

48:22

for a new mailing colleague,

48:24

New Year's Eve, Anthem, a

48:27

chat. I'll leave you now. But

48:29

until we speak again, stay

48:32

popped up.

49:17

395 can

49:21

hear my work.

49:50

Have in

49:55

here. Go

50:06

down. Stop

50:09

away. Then I say

50:11

that up to

50:13

where