MORE THAN PLASTIC
Your value is in more than what you're selling
I’m not a designer, but Mike Monteiro sure is.
He wrote a book in 2012 called ‘Design Is A Job,’ which was mostly about the job part of being a designer, which is why I bought a copy around 10 years ago.
He’s sent a few emails about this new book, including the one below (which you can read online).
This guy is one of the tops in his biz, with a new book to sell, and yet he’s talking about.. a painting?
Yes. And that’s the wonderful part of all this.
You are more interesting than what you’re selling.
Coca Cola commercials are more interesting than a 2L bottle of sugar water.
A live show is more interesting than a CD mock up.
Your Twitch stream is more interesting than a shirt.
There is no shortage of vinyl records or songs to stream on Spotify or podcasts to listen to.
But there’s only one of you.
You aren’t just a bass player, you are a songwriter.
You aren’t just a guitar tech, you’ve got stories.
You aren’t just a writer, you weave stories.
You aren’t just a photographer, you capture timeless moments.
ALSO: look at the example above, and get it through your head that you don’t need to labor for hours over your email newsletter. The email sent from Mike Monteiro is made up of one image and about 150 words.
That’s an Instagram post, friends.
Like I wrote in ‘YOUR NEXT NEWSLETTER IS ALREADY WRITTEN,’ “re-purposing the content you’ve already posted means less time thinking about your next email newsletter, and gives you a jump on the creative process.”
This is part of the Social Media Escape Plan.
We all fell for the promise of eyeballs and audience, like foot-traffic at the local mall food court.
But Zuckerberg and Musk own the eyeballs and the audience. They own the mall, they set the hours, and they keep raising the rent.
They’ve got the email address of everyone who signed up for their platform, and they’re not sharing it with you, because they know how valuable that information is.
Figure out your angle, start an email list, and get your fans to sign up now. Today. Twitter is in disarray. Facebook just laid off 11,000 people.
Run. Get your fans on your email list while you still can.
SMART THINGS FROM SMART PEOPLE:
This from Ryan Broderick in his Garbage Day newsletter, on people fleeing Twitter for Mastodon:
“The metaphor I’ve used a few times in talking with folks about a Mastodon migration is that suggesting Twitter users move to Mastodon is the same as someone saying, ‘don’t drink at the the country club full wealthy and well-connected famous people, come to my bar, it has the same alcohol.’ The alcohol isn’t the point. It’s the people in the bar.”
I could Tweet that Korn’s ‘Coming Undone’ is one of the best metal songs in the last 20 years and the band could retweet my post to their to their 1.7 million followers. That’s what makes Twitter so powerful; it’s “the people in the bar.”
Earlier today (Wednesday) the new Twitter owner Elon Musk spoke about verified accounts and more on a Twitter Spaces Q&A:
“Elon just compared non-verified accounts going forward to emails in a spam folder. Sounds like you'll need to pay for Twitter Blue for people to actually read your tweets.”
Are bands, labels, media outlets, writers, photographers, producers, publicists, and everyone else ready to cough up $8/mo so their Tweets don’t go to the "spam folder?”
“When you rely on social media subscribers for your business, you are committing to an uphill battle. Algorithms want to keep users on their respective platforms, whether that means recommending your content or not. "Owning your audience" (e.g., building an email list) is the only way to cut out the middleman.”
This from the Ghost newsletter, and it’s solid advice even if you never use their platform.
Got questions about starting an email list?
Just want to bounce some ideas around? Reply to this newsletter, leave a comment, shoot me an email at seth@heavymetal.email.
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