I really don’t.

Maybe I could make $5000 on Medium in my first month if I just followed these tips. Maybe. Doesn’t sound like the worst thing ever.

Then again, I don’t think I want to find out.

I have 188 beautiful followers . (I had to come back and change that number because I lost one today.) That’s fucking cool and I’m grateful that anyone wants to read anything I write. Seth Godin and tribes and all that jazz. Sometimes I wish I could promote more, but the second I start putting the lion’s share of my emotional energy into external validation, my content suffers. I know because I’ve experimented with that. It becomes about what I think people want to hear, and not what I actually have to say. It feels like shit. It isn’t honest or authentic.

This is not to say that there isn’t some degree of self-promotion required in pretty much any endeavor, but the energy spent on it can’t trump the energy expended on content.

I won’t judge those who really know how to work a room (or an IG). We all make the choices most palatable to our sensibilities and motivations. People write for different reasons. Focusing on self-promotion isn’t on the menu for me. It’s too expensive (metaphorically).

And that’s okay.

Thanks for the reminder.

ETA: Here’s another excellent piece along the same vein: