Branding Humble Brag, and Advice to New Writers
On April 21, 2020 by Michael FrancisHello friends!
At this point I’m 100% still talking to myself. I’m not even sure if anyone knows this website exists, outside of my girlfriend, who hears me talk enough already that I can’t imagine she’s indulging me here as well.
But that’s another point that I want to make to someone that may be discovering this months or years from now (maybe when I’m a renowned author, dare I dream!). When you’re starting out, write for yourself. In fact, you should always be writing for yourself!
But I get it, that sounds hard. Boring. Mundane. Crazy! Why would I write if no one is reading it?
So was the struggle with the first few blogs I started. If I got 10 page views, it was a lot. It was hard to stay at it, so I didn’t. (RIP ‘The Daily Merge’.)
I only really found motivation to take writing seriously when I ‘made it’ on Medium. And by ‘made it’, I mean I have had 10K views, and made around $300. Which is a double edged sword in itself. Because, holy shit I’ve had tens of thousands of views, hundreds of hours spent reading, and made real money from writing.
On the other hand, meh.
Meh?!?
Yeah, meh. I can’t explain it, aside from my working knowledge of philosophy and psychology – the human mind adapts quickly, and finds suffering wherever it can. No different here.
One of my first articles popped off for 1K views and $100. Felt amazing! And when it happened again? Well, it felt like that last time it happened. It was already normal.
How incredibly frustrating!
Which is why I’m here to tell you that all the times I read it and it didn’t make sense, I now understand the “write for yourself” nonsense.
Because if you’re writing for anything else – money, views, exposure, acceptance, shares – it’s going to happen, and then you’re going to lose that metric. I promise.
But if you write for yourself – then it’s not you chasing something. It’s honest expression. It’s just you spilling your reality on to pages. It’s therapy. It’s learning. It’s progress. It’s yours!
Humble Brag
So I didn’t come here to tell you about writing for yourself. That was just an aside that I wanted to share in the moment. (And I could, because why? Writing for my damn self!)
What I came here to share is my branding. I’m really proud of it! Not just the logo and this little website. But I finally found a system to create high quality graphics for my posts to share to Facebook and Instagram that are engaging, pretty, and MINE!
Take a look!
Has everything that I want! A quote, all my info, links, logo, everything! Best part? Takes me less than 10 minutes to create the graphic, AND share it to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
It took me a LONG time to polish that process down. Very excited to have done it! I’m sure I will share that in time with anyone who wishes to see it.
I think writing is great. But I think that, now more than ever, we are all marketers more than anything else. If you aren’t innovating or creating something entirely new, then you’re trying to find traction doing something old. That’s marketing!
So while I strive to improve my writing day in and day out, I also work to create a beautiful brand that is an extension of who I am.
And one that I can maintain with minimal effort.
So far, so good!
#BeKind
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