Hi and happy Friday,
I’m almost blind in one eye, from severe astigmatism. The other eye would be great if it didn’t lack distance vision. As a kid, first time I got glasses I cried. I’d had no idea how beautiful the world was and ran around looking at everything for hours.
When I go to the optometrist, I sit in front of weird binoculars as the optometrist turns dials and knobs for each eye. Everything is out of focus and fuzzy until suddenly, magically, it all lines up and voila - I can see!
Sometimes, life is like that. You don’t see clearly until everything suddenly lines up just right. And then, boom. You see what you didn’t.
The other day, I got two emails in a row.
First email.
A reader emailed to say he’s leaving Medium. It’s not working. He’s struggled to grow an audience. Not enough results for the work. It gets demoralizing. So he left.
Second email.
A new writer’s third post went viral and got picked up by a Medium publication. Brand new to Medium and she earned 10K followers and $6,000. Her first month.
One dies, one flies.
Sometimes, we can’t see the forest for the trees…
The writer that left? Photography and poetry. The writer that earned $6k? She wrote about how much she earned on YouTube for a video that got a million views.
I’m sure every poet and many others sigh and nod as though their subject matter must surely be the problem because they can relate to the struggle.
Sometimes, we can’t see the forest for the trees.
The way to build an audience is to resonate with the reader. It’s truly as simple as that.
There’s been a surge in meta posts and people writing about money because they get clicks, and of course they do. Over 36.5 million people have filed for unemployment since covid. Money resonates with people.
But it’s not the only thing that does.
When push comes to shove, it’s not that they write about money, it’s that they resonate with their reader. For some reason, a lot of writers and creatives are spectacularly bad at knowing who their reader is, much less how to resonate with them.
Like the way I see without my contact lenses. Fuzzy and lacking detail.
Interesting to note that none of the popular posts or editor’s picks have dollar signs in the titles. Know what I mean?
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart
that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
These could use a little love if you haven’t read them…
If you enjoyed this, please click the little heart because that’s how I know which topics you enjoy reading. I’ve opened comments in case you’d like to share your thoughts.
Thanks and have a great weekend.
:)
Linda
The woman who wrote about how much she earned for the YouTube video wrote two other articles that didn't do nearly so well. She happened to be in a unique position to write about something practically nobody else can and in which a lot of people are interested.
My most popular story so far has been about The Seven Sutherland Sisters. I attribute its success in large part to the freakishly fascinating photo attached. The story itself is pretty fascinating, so once I attracted their attention enough to take a peek, most of the readers were hooked. You never know what's really going to appeal to people. My second most popular story is about Roman vomitoria. Go figure.
I was eleven when I got glasses. I had gone though Grade School without being able to read the blackboard or recognize other people's faces at a distance of more than a few feet. I never learned basic Math, I never learned to pick up social cues from people's faces at a young age when my nervous system was malleable. I really wonder what was going on in my parents' and teachers' minds when they heard me say, 'I can't see the blackboard,' when I got in trouble for my poor grades.
But I also remember vividly my stunned excitement when I got the glasses and ran around saying, 'Everything has got edges!'
The noise overhead? It was an airplane!
Where the pale blue of the sky met the dark blue of the sea? There was a sharp line there!
The grainy golden surface under my bare feet? There were seashells lying on it!