How to Share your Work

I have always struggled with sharing my work. How do you share creative work? How do you navigate creating work as consumption or via algorithmic meritocracy?

First of all, as an artist, you have perfectionism. This trait is why your work is high-quality. But you need to manage your perfectionism. You need to figure out your end goal and be done. You can’t and never will be satisfied with your work. Most of the time, you yourself are getting in the way. Get over it. You need to get it out to the world. 

Now, share your work. And stand proudly by your work. Tyler the Creator: “[the younger generation below me] put a song out. They’ll put it in their story. And that’s it … and you mean to tell me you’re gonna be passive with your own work? … Tell people!” So many people don’t have this … you gotta be a fan of your own work.

If you have no following and haven’t shared much of anything, that’s fine. Share it online without reading the rest of my writing now.

Now, once you have a solid corpus of work, see how traction goes. It might feel embarrassing if nothing happens. 

One way is by asking people who have wide followings to read and give feedback. Everyone loves giving advice and it gives them personal buy-in to have you succeed. So most times, people will share your post.

Here’s the thing about network effects. You can cover the human population with 7 connections. So if only a few people share your work, you can reach huge audiences.

If your work is good, you need to share like crazy for your audience. Your numbers will not come because you deserve it.