Bad at Marketing Myself
and do I really wanna change that?
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I see the way people market themselves and their “offerings” online and I feel jealous, judgmental and apathetic. I see people who have hundreds of paid subscribers on here act like they have zero. I see people who ask their subscribers every other week, “what will make you become a paid subscriber?!” I obviously don’t know everyone’s financial issues, but sometimes I feel over-marketed to and I don’t want to do that to others. On the flip side, I probably don’t do enough marketing because of my own weirdness around it.
It just feels really hard to be a writer and get paid for it. It’s also a shitty reminder that having a following on any social media app does not automatically equate to paid anything.
I continue to hemorrhage followers on my Instagram, but 226K people have stuck around so far. This following is what keeps me stuck on Instagram, to be honest. It’s also what makes me feel even worse that I don’t have a silly orange checkmark next to my publication here on Substack. A part of me wants to delete it all… the Instagram, the Substack, everything.
I’m tired of trying to think of attention-grabbing offerings I could add to entice people to become paid subscribers. I’ve tried various things and it’s just not what the people want. It’s hard to not take this personally as though I’m just not what the people want, but there isn’t anything I can do about that.
I have a book out and I naively thought that would change things. There are people I thought would share about it who haven’t. There are people who clearly don’t care and that is their right. I am becoming more and more disillusioned with online spaces, online “friends,” online bullshit. I’m interested in collaboration, but I feel a sharp pull towards isolation instead.
Why am I telling you this? Because I can’t fake anything. I’m also just really struggling in my 9-5 job currently, which makes everything feel harder. Also to say that I am rethinking how I show up here. I’m rethinking my paid subscriptions. I’m rethinking all of it. If you have any words of wisdom or feedback, please let me know.
I appreciate all of you here. Thank you for seeing me and liking what you see (for the most part, ha).
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