Attention is a limited resource that we have to earn and compete for. I have very strong opinions on this.
An entrepreneurial spirit goes a long way, so I'm trying to share what I've learned with other writers because I want them to succeed.
In this creator economy, you have to accept that your art is a product and you can't be precious about it. What if this is actually the best possible time to be a writer? What if we're actually in the best possible time?
Do creators work for the platforms they're on, for their audiences, or do they work for themselves? Ooh. Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast.
Today, we are speaking with Leigh Stein, a six-time author, cultural critic, creator of the newsletter Attention Economy, and book publishing coach.
And as she puts it, in her cultural criticism, she makes fun of what the internet is doing to us. Um, does that, does that cover you? Yeah. That was very well done.
So I have to say, too, in, in preparing for this podcast, I always spend a few hours, of course, you know, doing my research, whatever.
When I started doing it this time, it was more overwhelming than usual because, you know, everyone I speak to has, has put a lot of content out there, et cetera, interviews, whatever, but I don't think anybody I've spoken to in a while has done...
is, like, as prolific as you, where the content of the content, if that makes sense, is also as relevant to what I wanna talk about. Usually I don't have to, like, read 50 issues of their newsletter, right?
So I- You're welcome. I, Yeah, I thank you. [laughs] I thank you for that. [laughs] Anyways, another reason I wanted to talk to you, though, is that you are v- a very pragmatic thinker. Mm-hmm.
I think that you are somebody who doesn't take a look at, like, here's what the creator economy platform industry has done to traditional media, and this sucks.
You say, "Well, maybe it sucks, but there are ways forward, and I can figure them out, and I can show you, reader, listener, viewer, whatever, the way forward." Have you always been a kind of teacher like this?
Yeah, and I would go so far as to say it's not just maybe it sucks, but here's what you can do. It's, it's going further to say what if this is actually the best possible time to be a writer?
What if we're actually in the best possible time? Say more. [laughs] Well, I just think because I have, like, a non-traditional educational background, I dropped out of high school- Mm-hmm...
when I was 17 due to depression and anxiety. I went to community college. I went to acting school. I built an entire career as a writer using the internet. I'm kind of a self-taught writer. Mm-hmm.
I was kind of in the right place at the right time on LiveJournal in the early 2000s, but the internet made my whole career as a writer possible.
And so fast-forward 20 years, I f- still feel like my mission is to help other writers do something similar, is, like, to circumvent the gatekeepers by figuring out how to create content and build your own audience.
So I'm still doing the same thing I was doing 20 years ago, but we're in, like, an interesting moment where the creator is actually being noticed, and people are noticing- Yeah... that the gatekeepers are...
that the gates are being lowered or that the gates don't exist like they used to. I wonder if your m- non-traditional background makes you less precious about it all.
Because I think that's something I find with lots of creative people who are... who want to, you know, make a living, find a way to make a living through their work and within the creator economy, but are
wary of selling out or something like that. Um, and there's often a feeling of, of preciousness, which I don't think you have. Yeah, and there's a lot of elitism.
Like, because I come from creative writing world, a lot of people in creative writing world have gone through the MFA system. Mm. Mm.
So they've gotten MFAs in creative writing, and they see that as, as a stepping stone toward book publishing, that first you have to go to one of these programs. There are over 200 of these programs.
But in my estimation, these programs train you for a career working in the programs [laughs]- Yeah... not necessarily for a career publishing books.
So I was always interested in, like, finding out how does book publishing work.
Like, I'm just interested in how things work, and I've always had this attitude of, like, if I can figure out how it works, if I can figure out the mechanics of it... I have this memory- Mm...
of a boyfriend of mine from years ago was, uh, into motorcycles, and I would watch him take apart his motorcycle for fun and put it back together again.
Like, he enjoyed that, and I thought that's what I like to do with books. Mm. Like, I like to take book, books apart and see how they're constructed and help other writers learn how to make them.
That's the part I really enjoy. So, um, it's not so that I can have, like, a prestige [laughs]... I'm not doing it for the prestige. I'm doing it- Yeah... um, for the love of books.
And that was not not a plug for your book, Land of Enchantment, correct? [laughs] See, you really did your homework. You really did. [laughs] I... it's, you know, it's the one thing I could do. You recently wrote...
Your mo- actually, not recent, not so recent, but your most popular post on Substack is Writing versus Content.
Um, and the, my last, the last post I published as we speak was, uh, with Alicia Kennedy, whom takes a staunch stance that she is a writer, not a creator, so that was very much on my mind as I was reading that piece.
Uh, and you wrote it as sort of a res- so you wrote this, I guess, in, like, September, I think, 2024, because it was a response to Emily Sundberg's then recent piece, Machine in the Garden, and Ted Gioia's Death of the Magazine.
Um, and I want to ask your definition of writing versus content, but first, my impression of what your definition is is that writing is essays, poems, short stories, novels, and content is digital posts, which could be written, audio, or video, but that are to the purpose of promoting something else, such as writing.
Yeah, I like your definition very well, and I think, I, if I remember correctly, Emily Sundberg's piece was basically like, why is everything on Substack just like a, a teenage girl's unedited diary? [laughs] Yeah.
So it's like making fun of that kind of content that, that i- that has no editing at all. And then the opposite of that argument is Ted Gioia saying, like, "The New Yorker is among us."
[laughs] Like, Ted Gioia is saying, like, "This is the golden age for the best-" Yeah... "writing of our time on Substack." Substack is magazines. Right. Yeah. Substack is magazines.And I think it's both.
And, and the thing where I think creative writers get frustrated is they get on Substack and they start publishing short stories on Substack, and they're like- Hmm...
"Why have I not amassed a following the way Ted Gioia has amassed a following? Where are my tens of thousands of fans for my short stories?" But a short story is like a little piece of literature.
I know for myself, I only read short fiction in print. I'll read a New Yorker- Mm-hmm... short story. I will never read it on Substack because I consume the internet in a different way than print media.
It's fur- away from screens. Yeah, exactly. And I like reading poetry. Poetry's an interesting, um, uh, s- category that straddles, I think, content and, and writing. Well, you've published poetry on Substack.
I've published poetry on Substack. I also am a fan of some of the Instagram poets. I like Mary Oliver's drunk cousin on Instagram. I think she does that really well. So I think poetry can straddle the two categories.
But I think of writing as, like, the kind of work that I polish over time that's professionally edited. It's, it's my art. Hmm. I don't think of my Substack as my art.
[laughs] Like, my Substack is something that I write in about two hours every Sunday. It's like a s- it's steam from the valve. Yeah, it's steam from the valve, but it's also...
Another way that I think creative writers can think about it is creative writers know when they have a book come out, they have to write these essays adjacent to the book. Mm-hmm.
They have to try to pitch opinion pieces or personal essays that are somehow related to the book but different from the book. That's how I think of content.
It's like the written material, for writers, it's written material that's adjacent to your art. But I don't think of content as art.
And actually, this week, I don't know if you saw this, there was this really interesting Substack post by a woman about why she's leaving YouTube. She was a cooking- Carla Lalli Music. Yes.
Mm-hmm, from Bon Appétit- So-... formerly... so she had this whole highly produced cooking show out of her own home. She was spending, like, te- like $15,000 a month producing it. Mm-hmm.
What was so interesting to me about this piece was she referred to it as her art. Yeah. And I was like, "Wait, I don't know that a cooking video... I don't know if I would define a cooking video on YouTube as art." Hmm.
It's skilled and it takes talent, but is it a work of art?
So I separate art from content, and I think writers' task in the creator economy is to grow their audience by producing content that their readers want to see and hear, um, so that those readers will find their art, their books.
Hmm.
See, okay, that's interesting 'cause I, with, with Carla's, with Carla's content, let's say, I think in one case she, part of the strategy here was that the videos would drive sales for her book, in which in that case it is content meant to promote another product.
But I think for some people, like, the, the YouTube video is the art and it is the expression, and maybe, I, I think, I think part of the definition here is it's about how they're making money.
So, like, if you're just posting a video to YouTube and you're only making money through YouTube's AdSense, then sure, it's maybe art.
But I think it becomes more art if you're able to sustain some kind of living off of it, also with like a Patreon subscription that people are paying you for, and then you're given the time.
'Cause I think part of what makes it art is the labor put into it and, like, the rigor and the editing, right?
Hey, if you're enjoying this episode, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss next week's episode. We release a new one every Thursday. Enjoy. Yeah, it's the labor and the intention and the craft.
Like, I just, I don't... Like, I'm a decent writer, I, but I don't think my Substack posts are as good as my novels. Like, I think my novels- Yeah... are much better.
My novels just take more time, and they're read by readers, and I do multiple drafts. I don't do multiple drafts on my Substack posts. Yeah. My Substack posts, it would be like
if, if you and I have a conversation and it's transcribed, like, that's how I think of a Substack post. It's me talking directly to you. It's not mediated by anything. Yeah.
I feel like there's more distance between art and the recipient of that art, where content, content is meant to actually create an intimacy between the creator and the audience.
We're talking about instant ramen versus ramen that's made with like a 24-hour broth and handmade noodles. Right, where you have to wait two hours in line. Yeah, exactly.
Um, okay, another angle on this using another one of your pieces, uh, again, another one of your most popular pieces is the greatest threat to writers, which you write is not video creators or AI.
The greatest threat facing writers is how many other writers there are.
And you point out that there are only so many imprints, about 20, that will publish a literary novel, and they can only publish so many a year for so many readers who only buy so many books.
Uh, which reminded me again of Emily's Machine in the Garden piece because for me, even though there is increased access to creation and distribution tools, none of us actually have a right to anybody's attention, and attention is a limited resource that we have to earn and compete for,
right? Yeah, and again, I think about, like, the creative writing MFA program because I think there's an idea that if you learn the craft of writing, if you become excellent at writing, the readers will be there. Mm-hmm.
There's the idea that the re- that the reader going into Barnes & Noble is like, "Give me the most well-written book you've got." [laughs] But that's not what the reader's going into Barnes & Noble and asking for.
Like, they're saying, like, "I'm going to, you know, Cancun this weekend. Do you have a thriller you recommend?" You know? Hmm. They're looking for a certain kind of experience.
Um, so that's partly about how I think about attention. But yeah, the writers, writers can feel very entitled. I think writers- [laughs]... feel entitled to an audience because they feel- Yeah...
like writing is a craft that they've practiced, a skill that they've learned, and that should entitle them to an audience of readers.
But unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, and I see it creating content as a way to kind of run experiments and to learn what your audience is looking for.
You know, like-Even from my own experience, like publishing on the internet when I was really young, like learning that I was funny, like learning that that was a strength of mine allowed me to- Yeah...
lean into that strength. Like, my funny writing is like a, a unique advantage I have maybe over other writers. Like, maybe I'm not the most beautiful- Hmm. And you write about this. Yeah What are your unique advantages?
Maybe you're funny, maybe you know somebody high up in publishing. [laughs] Right. Whatever it is, you have to recognize what it is and, and play it. And how do you know that unless you're in front of an audience?
So like if you wait to publish your work, if you work on a book for 10 years and never do anything else, you're just for 10 years toiling away at this thing, and you're like, "Time to find an agent," that's 10 years- Mm-hmm...
you haven't been getting feedback. I think so many creative people have trouble thinking of their work as a product in a marketplace when like it's a, it's a luxury to not have to do that.
But, um, about a year ago I interviewed this guy, Andrew Huang, who's a YouTuber and musician, he's been doing it for like 20 years, and I interviewed him on the occasion of him having published his book, Make Your Own Rules, which is somewhat memoir, somewhat like guide to making it in the creator economy, definitely written to an audience of specifically musicians, but creatives more broadly, who are skeptical of entrepreneurship, of business, of treating their artwork as a product, and thinking of them as somebody making a product.
What I'm trying to say, and I'm curious if you agree, is that like to make it in this creator economy, you have to accept that your art is a product and you can't be precious about it.
Yeah, and it's not even that you can't be precious about it. I think, I think an entrepreneurial spirit goes a long way. That's a better way to say it.
Yeah, and you asked me at the beginning like about m- I think you said something about me as a child, but like as a child, I liked to play school, where I was always the teacher. [laughs] There you go.
I liked to play having a business. That's what I liked to play, and like writing like, "While you were out, so and so called," like on those little notepads. Mm.
And I liked to play like pretend I'm like stranded on a raft like after my ship sank. So like all these things contribute to me as an entrepreneurial novelist-teacher today.
Like, I've been doing this [laughs] since I was a child. Mm-hmm. So I like the entrepreneurial part of it, and I would just say alt- also, every writer can imagine what it's like to be a reader, because we became- Mm...
writers for our love of books because we love- Because we were readers, yeah... readers.
So if you can put yourself in the reader's shoes, if you can think about the last time that you read a book, and you felt this overwhelming desire to tell everyone you know to read that book, like it just ha- I just read this book about Munchausen by proxy called Mother Next Door.
Mm. I read it in 48 hours. I went on Instagram, I made a video, I tagged the author. Like, I just felt like I have to share this book, I felt...
So if you can think about why would someone do that with your book, put yourself in that, those shoes, put yourself in the shoes of a bookseller.
You know, what would they say when they press this book into someone's hands? Like, "Read this, it's gonna make you laugh," "Read this, it's gonna make you cry," "Read this, it's gonna change your mind-" Mm...
"about something," and that's gonna help you market, pitch your book to agents, to book editors, to readers. Like, I'm very involved in the pitching of my own books. Yeah.
I think there's something here too about like when you're, whether you're a, as a writer, whatever kind of creative, it's like what do you want from this?
Do you want to just have made the thing, and that's your satisfaction? Do you want to have been read by other people? Do you want to have been read by thousands of people?
And if, if it is you wanna be read by thousands of people, you do have to be honest about like it as a product and think about it from that business-oriented perspective of it.
Like, how, wh- how does this go to market and why, and why do people share it? Yeah, and it's the difference between being process-oriented and outcome-oriented, and obviously- Yes... I'm very outcome-oriented.
But I know there are writers that are process-oriented. They really love it for the process, and they just might stay hobbyists, and that's okay if writing is your hobby.
Like, if you really love and enjoy the process- Mm-hmm... I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I just don't relate.
[laughs] Part of what I try to promote here is to like, yes, you can be process-oriented too, but if you wanna make a living you do have to be honest about the outcomes.
That's so interesting, 'cause it's also making me think about the difference between art and content in that I think of content as like a dialogue that I'm having, like you get to comment, like you get to participate.
Yeah. Like, we're having this conversation because you read some of my content. Like- Mm... if you read my novel- It's on these platforms, these two-way platforms.
Yeah, it's two-way, whereas my novel, like when my novel's published, it's done.
You can tell me that you loved it, but if you tell me, send me an email a- and like to point out like something that could've been changed or different, [laughs] like we're not- Yeah... this is not a conversation.
The author's dead. Yeah. [laughs] That book is done. That book is complete, you know?
So content, it's like I don't think how would I monetize this when I'm thinking of something about content, but I am, my instinct is more like, "That's interesting. I wanna talk about this.
I wonder if other people think the same thing," or like- Mm-hmm... "Six people are saying X, I think they're all wrong. I wanna write about Y." I wanna like participate in the conversation. I wanna be in the discourse.
Hmm. Okay, so I'm gonna make this even a little more confusing. I think a difference between content and art is... This is, this is gonna be too confusing, 'cause I'm use, gonna use the same word twice.
Difference between content and art is content is form, and art is about content, which, by which I mean to say, like, if you're making an Instagram Reel,
w- if you want it to reach people, what's less important than the content of that Reel is, is the form of it and the way, the quality of the camera you've used, the cuts you've made, the editing choices you've made.
Those are all formal decisions that are s- that are primary, and the content is secondary.
If you want it to reach people, you have to take the formal decisions first as a way to get the, the [laughs] content of it out there. I disagree. Does that make sense? I disagree. Oh, okay.
I disagree, and it's from being on TikTok. Hmm. Because I think TikTok prioritizes this kind of fast, loose, um, style. Mm.
Like, I don't have a fancy camera [laughs] like you ha- We talked about this earlier before you started recording. You have a fancier camera than me.
Um, but I love TikTok because it doesn't have the same perfectionism as Instagram. Mm.
And I have found on TikTok, the videos that I make in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of forethought and like no script always go viral. Mm.
So there's kind of a fast lo- And I actually think, I think writers in my world spend too much time think- Like, they'll ask me questions.
They're like, "Well, what hashtag should I use, and what time of day should I post?" And- That's, that's like-Thinking from 15 years ago Well, what ring light should I use? But I would tell them- Yeah...
like have something interesting to say, because I think that's actually more valuable than the production. Mm-hmm. Going back to the Karla, the YouTube- Karla the Music Cat...
like, her produc- like, because of the space that she's in, her production level has to be so high. And for creative- Mm-hmm...
writers that I'm talking to and I'm working with, like, we don't, [laughs] we don't have to have a professional crew come to our homes to make video content.
Like, I think anyone with a phone can just start making TikTok. Like, that's the bar- Yeah... where I'm at. Okay. I think I, I agree and disagree with you here in a, in a couple ways.
So, one, I think that, like, on TikTok, that's still, like, a, a formal consideration first, right? Like, the informality, and I'm sure, I've watched some of your TikToks, you, you don't have the millennial pause.
You instantly go in and you're talking quickly, and you've got this cadence that is a formal matter. Um, I... But maybe the form and content are more married there, and it's less important to just hit the form.
You're right. And even like- You're right that I am- Yeah... thinking, I'm creating for TikTok, so what am I gonna do for TikTok? Exactly. Yes. It's, the formal consideration differs per platform- Yes...
and per, um, niche you're in.
But I th- maybe a more important point about form is that it's, I'm speaking about form in relation to, uh, algorithm for you discovery-based platforms, whether that's Instagram Reels or TikTok For You or Twitter or whatever.
What's going to...
Like, it, it's why o- on, you know, on, on X, formerly Twitter, on X, like, the, um, the blue check revenue share creates a different incentivization where you wanna have these, like, controversial tweets that travel fast and far, and they shouldn't be, like, written in necessarily correct grammar or whatever, whatever, because that's the form that succeeds there.
But that, that is a different formal consideration than any other given algorithm-driven platform.
Yeah, when I first started getting on TikTok and learning BookTok, I would be driven insane by these videos of book hauls, meaning, like, stacks of books from the store. Mm.
But it would always say book H-A-L-L, and I was like, "Are these women so dumb? Why can't they spell haul?" Ah. But I realize it's an engagement tactic, because then you get- Yeah...
all the comments from people- Exactly... correcting the spelling. And then I- You idiot, this has been spelled. I was like, "That-" You are the idiot. [laughs] I was the idiot- [laughs]...
but I was like, "This is genius." Um, I, this actually, I do wanna hear about BookTok.
So with TikTok, I should say you wrote a piece about this for Lit Hub in 2023, and you said that it's the most powerful, uh, word-of-mouth engine the book publishing industry has ever seen.
And I understand it's this thriving culture that mints best-selling authors and creates more readers, um, and is this net positive force.
Um, but I'm curious about the state of it now, especially in relation to the TikTok ban that never was. I'm worried about it. Um, I'm, it's, [laughs]
I was getting really upset the weekend that it was banned, and then it was kind of resurrected by President Trump, but- Mm-hmm... the reason I was getting upset is... Well, there's a couple reasons.
I, I got on the platform in 2022 because I heard that literary novels were going viral. So it's not just commercial fiction, that's the stereotype. Mm-hmm.
But literary novels were going viral, so I got on- Well, for, for, for our listener here, make the distinction between a literary novel and a different type of novel. Sure. So a literary novel, think of the classics.
Think of a book that you read for the quality of the prose- Mm-hmm... the in- innovation of the structure, the style of the novel, compared to a commercial novel, like a thriller or a romance. Mm-hmm.
So when people think of BookTok, they often think of Colleen Hoover or Rebecca Yarros, who's romantasy, or Emily Henry, who's romance.
But there are a lot of literary novels, like weird novels, like Big Swiss by Jen Beagin was a big hit, hit on BookTok. Mm.
Um, bell hooks' All About Love, which is like- We're talking about, like, novels qua novels versus, like, commoditized literature? Yeah.
Yeah, but literary novels, like, they might not get on the bestseller list, but they're- Mm... like, cool. Like, you wanna be seen reading these in a cafe. They're gonna be at the bookshop.
They're always gonna have a couple copies. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So those books exist on TikTok. There's a whole community dedicated to those, those books and those readers. And so I really got on the platform.
I made friends in the BookTok community. For a while there, I was teaching classes about BookTok to writers.
I wrote this piece in Lit Hub, and the weekend that it was about to be banned, I was very upset, because I saw a lot of people online kind of mocking the influencers who were gonna lose income if TikTok went away.
It's like, and the stereotype of, like, the 19-year-old girl in Lululemon- Yeah... athleisure wear, like, with her smoothie. But I was like, "I'm 40 years old, [laughs] and this is part of my business.
Like, I have wrinkles." Yeah. And like- It's so naive. [laughs] Like, there, I'm one of these small business owners that makes income thanks to TikTok.
I don't make income from the app as a creator, but I make income as a consultant helping book- Yeah... publishers, nonprofit organizations, and writers use TikTok.
So that was a very precarious time, and now it's like I have client projects where, like, I'm on the fence. Like, should I help them get on BookTok or not? I don't know what to do.
I don't know if I should invest the time and energy in doing that, because what if it goes away in April? So you say that, um,
the ways you make money, you have four different income streams: writing, coaching, teaching, and Substack. Mm-hmm. And that you make income by marketing to two different audiences, readers and writers.
My audience of readers has grown with each book I've published, sixth one about to come out, and my advances have gone up with every book, not counting my poetry collections.
So for the listeners here, what do you, what do you do? Well, my backstory is for three years I ran this private Facebook group of women writers called The Binder. Some of your listeners- Mm...
might have, might be members of The Binder. 40,000 members, correct? It had 40,000 members by the time I left. I was organizing conferences in New York City and Los Angeles for women writers.
I did that for three years, burned out, um, asked myself, "What am I gonna do?" Like, I was literally googling, like, coding boot camp for women. Like, that's how low, that's the low point of my life.
I applied, I applied to work at The Wing as a community manager. Mm. Did not even get an interview. We work for women. [laughs] Coding boot camp for women, we work for women.
Everything.Yes, I was going through a major transition in my life, um, but I asked myself, like, "What do people ask me for advice about?" Mm-hmm.
And writers would always ask me for advice about book publishing, because until you have a literary agent, who do you ask? Mm-hmm.
There's that, like, window of time before you have an agent where you can ask your other friend who's a writer who also doesn't have an agent, but it's, like, hard to get...
It's easy to get, like, general how to query advice, like, there's some general information out there, but it's hard to get advice- Mm-hmm...
on, like, y- like, your specific problem, which might be, like, "Oh, my first agent was ineffective. I need a second agent," or, like- [laughs]... "My first book underperformed. How am I ever gonna sell my second book?"
Like, there are these big problems. And so I decided to become a b- book coach. I didn't know, I didn't know the term book coach. I can't remember how I first...
I might have heard it from Jenny Nash, who's, like, a top book coach. Mm. But I didn't even know that term at the beginning.
I just started, like, um, offering services where writers could, like, hire me to talk to me about their problems. So my mom is a therapist, my sister is a therapist, and I'm a book coach, so I'm like a book therapist.
[laughs] Okay, that makes sense. That's, that's g- going back to what I asked at, at the beginning of have you always been like this- Yeah... in helping people. That, that makes a lot of sense.
[laughs] Yeah, so that's what I do. So I work one-on-one with clients. I have about 10 to 15 at a time, um, and I help them. Um, I'm not a ghostwriter, I've never ghostwritten a book. No.
So they're the writers, they're writing books, and I'm helping them. I'm editing their work, I'm helping them develop book proposals. I'm helping them after they've sold their book to a publisher- Mm...
but they need some accountability and editing on a more frequent basis than their publisher can provide, so I do that. You, in a business sense, you, you kind of do go to market for, for authors. What is that?
[laughs] Like, go to market, it, that would be the side of the business that's, like, um, marketing, branding, sales, all the stuff that is not making the product, but is about bringing it to market. Yes.
I didn't know that term. Thank you. Yeah. And then I also do, um, like, platform building and content strategy for writers. So writers come to me, this is happening more and more, like, my business is actually changing.
It's interesting- Mm... because it's like- Oh... helping a writer sell a book is really hard. [laughs] So if the writer has already s- Yeah, there's only those 20 imprints, right? I mean... [laughs] It's so hard.
So if a writer has already gone through that gauntlet, like they've already won Hunger Games and they're on the other side, and they're like, "My book is coming out in a year," like, "Can you help me with my content strategy?"
Like, in part, my job is easier. My job is challenging in a different way then, but- Yeah, yeah... so I'm doing more and more of that.
So, like, a big success story for me was the literary agent Betsy Lerner, who's 64 years old. I helped her with her TikTok.
She went viral on TikTok for reading aloud her college NYU 19-year-old diaries, and she got written up in The New York Times, she was on CBS Sunday Morning. Mm.
So she was, like, a, a client that I helped, like, learn, learn TikTok, um- Yeah... in order to promote her first novel.
Okay, going back to the content of it all, in another post, I think this was in the writing versus content post, you list the ways that you make money through content. So I'm gonna quote you here.
Um, "How I make money on my content: by selling more copies of my novel, by enrolling students in my classes, by building trust with writers who become my clients, by demonstrating my expertise which leads to speaking and teaching invitations, by earning income directly from my readers in exchange for offering them special events with publishing professionals."
So I think
o- one point I wanted to make, 'cause that's just another way of differentiating [laughs] content and writing, is again, content is this, like, top of funnel thing for your various other businesses, and really for all of your various businesses.
Um, another thing, I wanna ask about that, but first I need to ask you to define the term creator as you see it. I, I think of creator in contrast to influencers.
So I wrote a novel, Self Care, that is a satire of the influencer era circa 2016. Mm. Like, I lived it. This was when I was running Girl Boss conferences. I was a broke nonprofit Girl Boss, like, I survived.
Everything on Instagram was, like, beautiful women with their hair professionally done, their makeup professionally done, like, standing in the Rent the- Still images, not reels. Still images. Different era.
Wearing Rent the One- Runway- Yeah... like, holding cocktails. Like, it was so posed, and I never participated in this, 'cause, like, this was not my vibe. But, like, this is what you had to do on Instagram.
Jia Tolentino wrote a whole thing about Instagram face. Yeah. That was a whole era. I read Trick Mirror. There you go. So when I got on TikTok, it was so refreshing. Like, I saw TikTok, like, anyone could get on TikTok.
Like, you could look very weird [laughs] and go viral on TikTok- Mm-hmm... because you were funny. Like, and I was like, "This is my place." Like, this is the place for the weirdos. It felt very refreshing to me.
So influencers, I see them as almost, like, walking fashion magazines. Like, influencers have- Yeah... to appear a certain way. They have to maintain a certain youthful beauty.
Only certain women can even become that level of influencer. Like, they're mostly white and thin. [laughs] Yeah.
Um, and they're making money from brand deals in order to sell products to their, to market products to their audience. They're like this, like, hollow vessel of marketing.
Um, where I think of as creators as being talented, interesting weirdos like me, like the outsider weirdos that are using these platforms to share their ideas, their comedy, their creativity, their expertise, um, with an audience, and they're making money directly from that audience, whether that's a Substack subscription or a Patreon.
Um, not because... Like, no one wants to buy the juice that I'm selling. I'm not gonna be selling juice. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm selling ideas. Yeah, yeah. So I, I like that. I've... A slight tweak I've put on it is that
I, I, I like to think that now everybody is a content creator. There's nobody that's just an influencer.
And, and, and there are, there are some, um, but the way I've thought about it is that influencer isn't necessarily a
distinct thing on its own, but influencing is one of the many revenue streams, business strategies available to the content creator. Mm. Which...
And, and what it means is, i- is what you said about, like, being an empty vessel for marketing.
And, like, a- an influencer is a freelance marketer who-Who their skills are maybe locked into one audience, but what they bring is a locked-in audience that trusts them and wants to buy something from them.
But an influencer is a subtype of creator, or, like, i-influencing is something a creator can do, but this doesn't have to be the only thing they do. Yeah, I like that. Does that make sense?
I like you making it into a verb. Yeah. Like, a content creator can be influencing. We're, we're, we're out of the influencer era.
It's like, it's, the, the, the competition to, like, produce con- to make content that is successful on any of these platforms, you have to be making a quality product that has a lot of work go into it.
And again, some exceptions, but I think in, because of that, influence has be- influencing has become a verb and not a noun. Yeah, and the bar has just been raised for the content. Exactly.
Like, posting still photos, like, who cares? Like, but a content creator- Yeah... like Stay At Home Girlfriend, like I was completely obsessed with Stay At Home Girlfriend.
Like, she looks like an influencer, but, like, she's making content. Like, that's time-consuming, what she's doing. Yes.
Um- What, and what, what it is is it's a recognition of the labor that goes into it, uh, which, to, to that point, in your post from last June, If Your Novel Doesn't Sell, Can You File For Unemployment?, you kick off by saying, "Do novelists work for their publishers or do they work for their audience?"
And this is related to a question that I like to bat back and forth, which is, do creators work for the platforms they're on? Do they work for their audiences, or do they work for themselves? Curious what you think. Ooh.
I g- I mean, I like to think I work for myself, because I get to make choices every day about what, what I'm spending my time on. And, and, and I think of platforms as, like, tools I use- Mm-hmm... to reach my audience.
Now, would I be very upset? I mean, I was very upset when I thought TikTok was gonna go away. It's very precarious. So I think of diversifying my platforms. Like, I'm not just on TikTok.
You have to be diversified, which is very time-consuming. Um, you can't just rely on one. So, but I think of myself as working for myself. I think you're totally right, and I think you do work for yourself.
I think the scenario in which somebody works for a platform would be, let's say somebody's on YouTube, they're only on YouTube, they're not monetizing in any way besides YouTube AdSense, but they have a million subscribers, and they get a million views a week, and all the money comes from YouTube AdSense, then they're working for the platform.
But once you start, once you, like, take a step back and YouTube is just one arm of a multi-arm business, then you're working for yourself- Yeah... and, and YouTube or insert platform is a tool.
And so you're definitely working for yourself. Yeah, and I was gonna give this example earlier. I wrote a post this year about, like, how I'm thinking about content creation in 2025, and I paywalled it. Mm-hmm.
And usually when I have a paywalled post, usually what I've paywalled on Substack is, like, these exclusive conversations with book publishing people. And so when I have one of these conversations- Mm-hmm...
I might get, like, 15 on average new paid subscribers f- to, uh, from people who wanna come to that. So that's, like, my average per post- Yeah... conversion. This content post got 50. Wow.
So it's by far the most I've ever gotten, and it g- it got so many, I got so many, um, client inquiries of, of novelists who wanted to hire me for their content strategy from that one, that I had to shut down my website.
I can't take any more. I've hit my limit. You're good for a year. [laughs] I'm good, I'm good.
So that told me really interesting, valuable information, which is that I don't think writers are totally opposed to the idea of making content, which is kind of the stamp.
I feel like I'm always writing to persuade and convince, and maybe I should stop trying to persuade so hard. Like, I think they've been convinced, they just don't know how. Hm. Yeah.
Yeah, again, it's like the making it palatable, which is something I try to do with Creator Spotlight, is I try to speak to both, to people who come from both a creative mindset and a bus- more business-y mindset.
But I especially, I care about the more creative-minded people, because I think
somebody who's really business-minded has no obligation to create really high-quality content, um, that they, they understand how to game these systems and make money regardless.
So they aren't necessarily obliged to learn much from the creative who cares only about quality. That's just one business model.
But the creative who's really good at making art or high-quality content, whatever you wanna say, they are obliged to learn something from the more business-minded people, um, otherwise they won't survive- Right...
and the market will be flooded, and they won't be able to find a purchase in that market. So I think that's kinda what, what you're talking about too. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Um, I do wanna ask about your, your, your, your paid offering, but I realize we haven't really talked about your newsletter to begin with, Attention Economy. Um, so [laughs] let's talk about that first.
You've been doing it for about six years. I think you moved it from MailChimp to Substack, like, two years ago. Mm-hmm. What is Attention Economy? Give me the, give me the, the breakdown.
It's a newsletter about the internet side of book publishing, because I think there are a lot of newsletters about, um, how to be a writer- Mm... how to find an agent.
I just find, like, the same advice, um, peddled everywhere. Yeah. And it's like the people that went to MFAs, you know, are writing posts about, like, um, setting and character. You know? It's, it's a school.
It's an education in writing. So I feel like there's enough of that. I don't have- I would, I would say, I just read Alexander Chee's How to Write an Autobiographical Novel.
I would just say read that, if anybody listening wants to know how to be a writer. That was a great book. Anyways. [laughs] His essay about Annie Dillard as his teacher, I teach that essay in my, in my memoir class.
Oh, there you go. That's a great essay. I love that book. So good. So writing about writing, uh, almost, almost every writer is writing about writing. [laughs] You have to do something else.
So I write about publishing from the author's point of view. So- Yeah...
my, I'm not writing to people who work in publishing, though people in work in publishing now are following me a lot, and they're actually sharing my newsletter with their writers and with their marketing teams. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. I find out that my newsletter gets circulated in mar- book marketing departments. Yeah. But- You're a must-read industry rag.
[laughs] But, like, I talk to writers about what they themselves can do, 'cause there's a lot that's not in our power. Like, I'm not in the sales meeting-At my publisher, I don't know what goes on in those meetings.
I'm not invited. So instead of being, like, an- anxious or upset that I'm not invited to those meetings, I'm focused on my own, my own yoga mat.
Like, what c- what can I actually, what can I actually do to market my own book? So I'm trying to share what I've learned with other writers because I want them to succeed.
Um, and some writers, some writers are really good at creating content. Like, it comes naturally to some people, especially younger people. Like, I feel like- Mm...
there are a lot of, like, young adults getting book deals because they're great at content creation, like Eli Rallo is one example.
This is, this by the way is one of my, my pet idea, my pet ideas I've been putting forward recently, is that media literacy from a consumption side may be lower than ever, uh, but media literacy from a production side is higher than ever.
But maybe it's shifted from, like, people used to be able to write cursive and now they can't- [laughs]... but now they can make TikTok videos. [laughs] Now they can make TikTok videos. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so I feel like what I have to offer is a kind of, um, pulling back the curtain on the book publishing industry for writers- Yeah...
and helping mid-career authors, like writers who put out books two or book three, and, like, things are not going as well as they had hoped.
And, like, they're hoping for book four, it's really gonna be their breakout book, and they're- They'll actually earn that advance. [laughs] And they're like, "What can I do differently this time?"
So anyone who has an attitude, like, "What could I be doing differently?" Like, I welcome them to my audience. Like, that's the attitude I try to bring. Mm. Like, run an experiment, try something different. Um- Yeah...
I- People who are open to learning. I, when I was...
So my new novel that's coming out is about TikTok, and so this is partly why I got on TikTok, and I hired these two young women to be my TikTok assistants and basically hold my hand.
And I taught classes with them, and I told one of them, Theodora, I was like, "The writers are gonna be very afraid of looking stupid on the internet." And she said, "Lee, everyone looks stupid on the internet." Yes.
As [laughs] This is the big maxim: don't kill the part of yourself that's cringe, kill the part of yourself that cringes. [laughs] That's perfect. Um, okay.
Uh, so the, the paid portion of your newsletter, uh, as you were kind of referring to, um, for a whi- I think you... So you launched the paid version, was it last summer or the summer before? Yeah, last summer.
So I started my newsletter in 2017 on Mailchimp, and I- Mm... went paid in the summer of 2024. So that's almost- Yes... seven years where I didn't Were not paid.
Mainly, so the main offering is your chat room series, which is, I think, once... Is it once a week or once a month? I try to do it twice a month. I'm doing the best I can. Okay. Sorry. Well, twice a month.
So twice a month, um, it is a Zoom meeting where s- somebody from the publishing industry generally comes in, and, uh, your, your paid subscribers can come into the meeting, ask a question.
Uh, and then you also, this I like, you post the recording, but it's only available for seven days after, which is good marketing.
I have very strong opinions on this, because everyone, no matter if you teach a class or do a Zoom event, everyone wants to know, "Will it be recorded so I can watch later?" Which I understand- Yeah...
because people have jobs. But nobody watches it later. Nobody. Zero. No one watches it later, and so you have to create, like, this FOMO. You have to, like, manufacture... You have to give them- Yeah...
a deadline, or else they're not gonna watch it. Really, really smart. So seven days.
Okay, you don't have to tell me exactly how many paid subscribers you have, but you were saying that often you get, like, 15 per chat room.
You got 50 from the recent, here's what I had posted in 2025, which I paid for a month, by the way.
I unsubscribed right after 'cause I can't subscribe to that many newsletters, but I did pay, and I would, I would recommend to anybody who's enjoying this conversation to pay for your newsletter 'cause it's good.
Um, where was I going with this? Are you happy with your, your paid subscriber base? Well, I'll tell you. I don't, I don't feel shy about it. So I have- Oh, good... I have 11,000 total subscribers. Mm-hmm.
And I have about 400 paid, so I'm making about $2,000 a month. That's good. And I will add that I pay my guests for chat room. So I pay $200 to each guest who comes because I feel like that's an hour of their time.
And also- Mm... this is another reason I only allow the video to be there for seven days. I don't feel like it's fair to my guests that I would have evergreen content, like, forever of their conversations- Yeah...
that I would be selling through my subscription. So it feels more fair to me that they get $200, the video's available for seven days. I, I really respect that. I should say that I didn't pay you to come on this podcast.
No. [laughs] And that I don't pay anybody to come on this podcast. But it's also different because this will be sent in a newsletter to 350,000 people, so it's, it's marketing for you. This is important.
This is a kind of currency. Yeah. Like, your... I think of an audience as, like, a savings account or a form of currency.
Like, your audience, the size of your audience is what makes it valuable for me, besides it being, like, a pleasant conversation, but, like, for me to participate in this. I'm not doing this for money.
I'm doing this because you have this audience.
Another thing I want to bring up here is, uh, you have this great post from September called How to Get People to Share, and you first tell the reader to figure out what makes a thing worth sharing, which is a bit of that, like, how do you bring it to market we were talking about earlier, and then you urge them to personally ask other people to share it, which is really important, and I think scary for a lot of people.
And what I like about this is it acknowledges, you're unafraid to acknowledge that there is, like, you do have to go and, and graft a little bit.
And I, it's not, I think it's not quite quid pro quo, and it's not quite mutual aid, but it's something in between that's neither as sinister or benevolent, right?
[laughs] Well, the way I talk about it is, like, putting... Ideally, you want to have put deposits in the bank of goodwill before you make a- Yes... withdrawal.
So when you're asking someone to share, these should be people that, like, you've done nice things for them in the past, and now- Mm-hmm... you're giving them an opportunity to repay the favor.
I mean, I do think people like to repay the favor. I mean- Yeah...
one thing that happened, I wrote about in my newsletter recently, is, like, seven, no, not even, 10 years ago, this other writer in an emergency situation wrote me a blurb in 48 hours. Yes. I, like, never forgot it.
It was like- Who? I remember you, you say s- a single mother with a two-month, a two-month-old child. Yes. It's like this was a huge favor. Yes. It was a huge favor, and unbelievable. I never forgot it.
And then last summer she sent me this email, like, "Hi, Lee. I don't know if you remember me, but I wrote you this blurb in 2015." How could you forget her? [laughs] How could I ever forget her?
And she said, "Will you blurb my book?" Of course. I mean, of course I would blurb her book, because I remembered that, like, just seeing her name in my inbox, like, I remembered that generous thing that she did for me.
So can you instill that, can you s- instill that warm, fuzzy feeling in others so that when it's your turn to be in the vulnerable position of having to ask for favors, they, they, they have that feeling toward you?Okay, something I wanted to ask about really when we were talking about, like, attention as this limited resource and, and the fact that not everyone deserves...
You don't deserve any other person's attention. You have to earn it. Mm-hmm. It's, it's, it... You have to go out to the market and earn it. Um,
I am curious what you have to say about self-publishing, and last summer you did write a newsletter issue called Destigmatizing Self-Publishing, so I have a bit of an idea of [laughs] what you think of it, but I'm curious who it's right for and who it's not.
I've really changed my thinking about self-publishing since I started as a book coach. Mm-hmm.
When I started as a book coach, I, I didn't work on any self-published books, and I still rarely, rarely work on self-published- What year? What year did you start as a book coach? 2017.
Okay, so, so platforms were a little less powerful then, too, we could say.
Yeah, but just watching, watching how frustrated people get with traditional book publishing and how many, how many, like, um, hurdles you have to jump over to get your book published, and then what if that book doesn't sell?
Yeah. And then asking yourself... The, the common advice is, "Put it in a drawer. Not everyone's first book sells. Write the next book." That's never resonated with me. My first book didn't sell.
My agent said, "You're gonna have to write a second book," and I said, "No." [laughs] And then through a friend I got my book to an independent publisher, and it all had a happy ending. So,
um, I, I really understand the f- the feeling of, "No, I know this is my... Like, I believe in this book, and I want to bring it to an audience."
And so, to your point, like, I think w- because of the platforms we have now and the ability that writers have to build their own audiences and their own mailing lists, it's more feasible than ever to self-publish.
Mm-hmm. Um, I'm trying to remember her name. I listened to this great interview with Chelsea Fagan who runs this website- Mm...
The Financial Diet, and she had published traditionally one or two, um, personal finance books with publishers.
But when it came time to write a romance novel, she was like, "I'm gonna do this my own way," and she invested in marketing, invested in publicity, and she gave the people who were working on her market and publicity shares, like, in the royalties.
Oh, this is so smart. So she like- Yeah... invented, like, a new business model for her own self-publishing, but she was like... To me, she's like the perfect person to do it. Mm-hmm.
So that kind of intentionality I really admire. So people, it's not, it's not like your granddad's self-publishing.
Like, I think we're in a new era of self-publishing, and I also think traditionally published writers can look to self-published romance novelists to see what they're doing.
Like, look at what some of these successf- successful self-published authors are doing that traditionally published ash- traditionally published authors could learn from.
This is probably too open-ended a question to ask, but let's say you are an author self-publishing. What's like, what's like a good sales number? Like, how many books are you selling?
And I, I know there's too many factors, so maybe you can limit it in a way that would make s- make sense as an example. [laughs] I'm just curious- Mm... 'cause I have no idea the answer.
Well, The New Yo- this is a debated statistic, but The New York Times reported, um, that 98% of new releases in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies. Wow.
So if you're an author of any book published in any way [laughs] You wanna, you wanna go above 5,000. If you sell more than 5,000 copies, you're doing well. I wanna talk about your early internet history.
So I know you were super active on LiveJournal as early as 20 years ago, but you've also said that you were active on the internet in, like, a discursive way as early as 27 years ago.
I'm curious, uh, about your early experiences of being, as I like to call it, this is one of my definitions for being a creator, contributing to the corpus of the internet, your early experiences doing that.
So as a teenage girl, I was, um, a member of an online fan club Listserv for an author named Francesca Lia Block who wrote these, like, fairytales for teenage girls, like set in Los Angeles, but there were like- Ah...
witches and fairies. I was very into these books, and through that Listserv I made, like, my first internet friends, and we exchanged mailing addresses. And I remember I got my first mixed CD in the mail.
I'd never seen a mixed CD. Like, I didn't know you could make a CD. Yeah. I have a vivid memory of this. It was through that group that I, like, learned about Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.
I was just, like, exposed to literature- Mm... that I was not being exposed to in school, you know? Probably I was a little too young to be exposed to that in school.
But that was, like, the magical portal or the, the wardrobe to Narnia that it was like- Mm-hmm... there are all these, like, weird people that are like you that a- [laughs] that also feel strange.
Like, I guess for me it was like I wasn't... I didn't feel like I fit in at school. Like, this is a very common story. Yeah. Classic story, yeah. And so the internet was where...
The internet has always been where I've found people that are obsessed with the, the uniquely- The things you're obsessed with... personal things I'm obsessed with.
That's the magic of the internet for me, and so I, I think for writers, a question I get a- asked a lot is, "How do I have time to make content?" They're like, "How do you do it?" Yeah. Because to them it's a chore.
It's like one more thing to do, like washing the dishes. But to me, it's like if I got to finish my work, I get to go on the internet. To me, it's like the thing... It's my treat. It's not my chore. Yeah.
I get the sense you're not really nostalgic, though, for any specific era of the internet. Like you said at the very beginning of this conversation, now is the best time to be a writer.
You know, I am nostalgic for LiveJournal, and in this new novel that comes out in August, the main character is 39, and she was, like, a LiveJournal photographer,
so she took these kinds of self- There's a little bit of self-insertion. Yeah, yeah. But I was never a photographer. I just- Yeah... I admired the LiveJournal photographers. I was not one of them.
But it, these, this kind of, like, black and white self-portraiture of this very specific era in the early 2000s- Mm-hmm...
that I am nostalgic for, and so I did get to kind of revisit that time and place in writing the book.
And I was thinking about the relationship actually over time between self-portraiture or confessional writing on the internet when we were pseudonymous, like when- Mm...
we had these kind of avatars and it wasn't attached to our personal brand, and how that has evolved to the TikTok generation.And TikTok content, you could find a lot of examples of self-portraiture.
So that's interesting to me to kind of compare and contrast that over time. Yeah. Uh, okay, I guess we should talk about the new book. Um, so I know it's called If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You.
I know it's a comedy. I know that the main character is a 39-year-old woman managing a D-list, kind of falling apart hype house. Uh, it's, it's about the creator economy. I like what you were just saying about it.
W- First, when's it coming out? And then tell us more. It comes out August 26th. Um, it's, it's been hard for me to describe out loud 'cause every time I say...
My elevator pitch is like, "It's a gothic novel set in a TikTok hype house." Yeah. And then the other person goes, "What's a hype house?" [laughs] And then I say, "It's, it's a mansion, but it's filled with influencers."
They go, "Oh." Well, the, you know, I, I would imagine anybody who's been, who's, who's this, an, an hour deep into- [laughs]... this podcast episode better know what a hype house is, so. They're my...
You're my dream audience- Yeah... if you're listening to this right now. Yeah. Um, but the hype houses, you know, they had a moment. They had a moment when you were on TikTok. Like, that was the moment- Yeah...
for the hype house. Mm-hmm. Addison Rae comes out of the, one of the early hype houses, right? The original. Yeah, yeah. Thought so. She's like- Um- I was thinking about this.
She's like the final girl from the hype house. Like, it's her and Charlie. Mm-hmm. Like, who else has name recognition today? The... C- can... You know what?
I guess maybe you don't wanna spill too much, and you've already said a, a little bit, good amount, but, uh- Well, the, the plot's... So, so this 39-year-old unemployed woman, um, her boyfriend breaks up with her.
She has nowhere to live. She has no job. A man from her past, um, invites her to come live in his mansion and manage his hype house, but she's not even on TikTok, so she has to learn TikTok and manage- Oh, God...
this, um, Gen Z hi- hype house. This is like a millennial nightmare, right? There is a lot of self-insertion here. [laughs] I know.
But one of the influencers, who is a tarot card influencer, has disappeared from the hype house. Leave it at that. Leave it at that. That sounds great. Um, I'm excited. Do you have any exciting marketing plans?
Which I, I say this, um, you've already said this on so many podcasts, so I'll try to give a quick summary. Uh, about a year ago, a little over a year ago, uh, you were promoting, I think...
Was it, like, the second release of, of your book, Self Care? I was just promoting Self Care. You were just promoting the book. Okay, yeah.
And so you did this thing where you deleted every post on your Instagram or archived them, and you're like, "I quit book publishing to work at this wellness company called Richual," spelled R-I-C-H-U-A-L.
And it was this bit. People who'd read the book were in on the joke 'cause that fake company is from your book, Self Care. People who, uh, outed themselves as not having read your book were not in on the joke.
And then pretty quickly you made this reel about getting fired for talking about, like, the enforced colonoscopies or whatever it is they do.
[laughs] Uh, I'm probably getting some things wrong here, but, [laughs] but then, um, anyways, the, the bit works. People think it's funny.
Uh, people are, are weirded out, and then even, like, the real brand called Richual, spelled like the normal word, which is, like, a vitamins company, they get in on it, whatever. Basically, it was a really clever,
um, clever marketing stunt, and, like, you making content qua content really. Um, yeah, do you have... So are you, like, cooking some plans for- Yeah... the new book? That was a pretty good summary of, of, um, the prank.
Yeah. I'm working now on my marketing plans for the new book. I do have a stunt. I can't reveal what it is yet, but I am working- No... on a stunt.
I've been watching, um, with great interest the Severance season two social media- Mm-hmm. Same... and, like, Kelly R's, um, posts.
So I am, I am working on something behind the scenes, but it's, it's too soon to describe. Okay. Let's just say that the 39-year-old, uh, millennial TikTok hype,
um, hype house manager is probably gonna make an appearance. [laughs] Yes, I think you're onto it. Okay. Um, I guess my last question is about your, the platforms you're on and the audiences there. So
in your recent If, If I Were You: Here's What I'd Post newsletter, which we've talked about a couple times already, you describe your three audiences on three different platforms and that you serve each audience decidedly different content, uh, which I think is something-
Mm-hmm... that it's, not everyone has to do, but I think is an important thing to think about, is that your audience will be different on each platform, and you shouldn't have the same strategy for every platform.
So I'll quote you here.
What you say is, "In 2025, I'm personally focused on TikTok, where the younger audience for my novel lives, Substack, where the audience for my classes and coaching services lives, and Instagram, where the older audience for my novel is.
And by older, I mean my own age, LOL." [laughs] Full quote there. Um, I guess which platform do you enjoy the most or feel is the best use of your time on, like, a personal satisfaction level?
I actually had a revelation about this last night- Mm-hmm...
um, about my different audiences, and I made a video that's doing pretty well on TikTok about, um, my memories of going to something called Barbizon Modeling School in 1996 when I was 12 years old.
But it's going viral because all these other women are like, "Oh my God, I went to Barbizon in 1980." Mm-hmm. It's triggering a lot of nostalgia for millennials.
And what I realized is I don't have to try so hard to reach younger people on TikTok.
I should just keep posting for millennials, like, keep posting for millennials, whether I'm on TikTok or Instagram, because I think the younger readers will find out about my book through my connections with BookTokers.
Smart. So, like, I grade the ground- laid the groundwork with BookTok creators. When they make videos about my book, that'll reach younger 20-somethings. So that was, like, liberatory.
Now I don't have to have three different audiences. [laughs] I can just kind of think of, like, millennial novel readers- Hmm... and customers from my business or that audience on Substack.
Is there any advice on, on posting or on, on being online that you would urge people who, you know, trying to dip the toe, it's a little cold, they don't wanna jump in. What's your number one advice?
I would say come up with a side project. So think about what would be a fun side project, and be like, "Okay, what if I..."
Instead of thinking of starting a newsletter, it's almost like, "What if I started a project where I invited other people to do this thing with me? What if we did it for 30 days? What if we did it for three months?"
Like, give it a limited time window or say, "I'm gonna post on this platform once a day for X number of days." Um, let people in on the project. Tell people. You know, it doesn't have to be a secret.
You can announce and say f- you know- Mm-hmm... "I'm gonna try to do this. I'm a little nervous, and I'm worried I'm gonna look stupid."
You know, invite people along, because even if that side project doesn't get you 10,000 followers, you'll learn. You'll learn by doing it. Mm-hmm.
You'll learn the platform or you'll learn, wow, those nine things didn't work, but the thing I did on 10 da- on day 10 totally worked. So it's just trying something and having, like, a s- like, a,
just a, a mindset of someone playing on the playground. I fully agree. I think we'll leave it there. Um, I would say go subscribe to Attention Economy.
Maybe pay for the paid subscription if you've made it all the way to here and you're, you've liked what you heard. Uh, look out for the book, August 26th. Mm-hmm. Anything else? That's it.
Thank you so much for having me. This was so, so fun. Thank you for coming on. [outro music]