RE: An artist vs. the algorithms
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Sounds like you have talent but lack focus. You touched on this a few times throughout; how you do multiple things - podcasts, music, fiction - but think it's too much effort to separate things on different accounts etc to help the algorithm.
How many successful artists do you know who are musicians, writers and podcasters all in one? I'd bet either not many, or zero. Personally I'd make a decision on which one should be the main focus for success, and which two should be relegated to hobbies/passion projects. Then work your ass off for the one.
Unfortunately, art is as much of a business as it is an art. What is often never shown is just how much musicians work on the business side of things, analysing and studying algorithms, calculating finances and return on time investment, studying the markets to see what's in or out, crafting and compromising their own art to find a balance between filling a niche, and filling a demand.
For example, the 'short form' curse on our culture thanks to things like TikTok is what people want nowadays. How can one make this work in their music career without making any compromise? Well, they can't. Compromise is necessary whether it's short form or anything else that changes in the coming years such as whatever apocalyptic results come from AI's new domination.
But there are ways to make the short form work, as a form of advertisement to bring people to your channel. As long as I watch something to the end, whether I like it or not, I'm gonna see more of it for the next few days unless I start skipping quickly.
So logically you just need to make something that keeps people engaged for at least 15 seconds or whatever.
If music; what kind of visual element can complement that? Is a new skill needed such as motion graphics, photoshop? A LOT of musicians have these skills now because nobody wants to discover music that isn't a meme at this point.
What else can one do with a podcast to make short clips, other than simply cutting out an interesting segment and posting it?
It goes on.
In short: Find out what people want, what the algorithms truly want, and how you can apply your work to those without sacrificing your own style.
Focus on one. The rest can come back later if needed.
Work out how much time - perhaps even to the minute - you can reasonably dedicate to that one, and maximize it.
Perhaps more importantly, don't stop. Some of the huge influences out there got barely no attention for 10-12 years before they blew up
It’s funny. I kind of look at Elon Musk as a success story for doing all these different projects successfully, never mind the level of arrogance I have to think I’m talented enough to achieve anything even close, even with something less physically impactful on the world.
But you’ve highlighted something that I know but keep forgetting. Not all of my projects need to be earning money for me to live on my art. Rather than trying to succeed a little bit on all of them, it’ll probably be a lot more effective to focus on succeeding with one first. And while I don’t know if any major compromises are absolutely necessary to make money from my work, I better be willing to accept failure if I’m not willing to make those compromises, because they make success a whole lot easier and nothing is gauranteed.
I think a lot of my frustration stems from social media. I actually spent a lot of time to learn the algorithms and work with them (what i saw as the compromise and grind that i was ok with) but as soon as Musk came in at twitter, all the momentum was lost and it’s been really hard to recover. I tried adapting and even tried to buy that dumb checkmark. I took out ads and all that. Everything had the opposite effect. I think I am still coming at it from what I want to make rather than what the market wants… to be honest, that approach makes me feel like it might be better to seek my well-being through other means, like maybe I need to accept not being able to quit my day-job for a long time, or maybe ever.
I appreciate your advice a lot and I’ll keep thinking about if there is any kind of artist grind that I might actually be willing to work at, but on the other hand I kinda feel like maybe I should shut up about earning money from art and just appreciate the fact that I can make a few dollars from this post. I’ve never cashed out so the hive earnings have never really felt real to me, even after 6 years. Maybe its time i give myself a bonus.
I think a strong enough connection to community can bypass some of the issues of social media and trends, but for that I’ll have to build up the energy to go out and do more. That combined with lower expectations and keeping some of what you’ve said in mind, I think it’ll be fine.
I still have a lot of thinking to do.
I think a lot of the social media algorithm BS is really pretty good as a tool for marketing. Pander enough to get the audience pulled in. When you're at a good point, spread out introducing who you really are.
Sacrifice doesn't have to be forever.
Imagine you're that person in a busy ballroom trying to grab everyone's attention by tapping a wine glass with a knife, but nobody is listening, so you briefly change who you are to stand on a table and yell like a gorilla. When everybody turns round in surprise, you then return to you and say 'right, as I was saying, dinner's ready' or whatever.
Also, I wonder if you actually follow people who do similar work to yourself. That's one of the best ways to learn by mimicking their success. Hope to see you climb! There's no rush
Thanks man. Yeah it was working pretty well on twitter and now it’s not. I think I just need to choose one focus there but I guess I’ll take a break for a bit because I lost it anywa. Regroup!