Your secret weapon against overwhelm & being ignored
How an agile business practice can help writers publish sooner and at the same time avoid the deafening silence of “crickets” feasting on your work
If you want to make money — or gain recognition and impact — from your writing there’s a lot more to be done than putting words on (digital) paper.
As terrifying as hitting “publish” can feel, it’s a mere pebble in what feels like the ginormous mountain of everything you need to do to get what you’re after.
Creators tend to procrastinate on all of that.
Not only because it’s not fun and it doesn’t feel creative. But also because it needs to be done with monotonous regularity. Not to mention that most writers have plenty of hang-ups around the business side of writing — even if they’re “only” after recognition or impact.
The mindset being that it takes away from what they crave: the joy of creating.
What I’ve found is that the joy of creating (eventually) dissipates just as much when you create in a void: with little or no feedback from others.
What I used to do that didn’t serve me much
After hitting publish, I used to ignore the page with Substack’s sharing suggestions.
Euphoria had washed over me. And I wasn’t about to let tedium get in the way of it. Especially, because as usual, the sidenote1 had been long overdue and had taken me longer than anticipated.
A lot of that euphoria came straight from the relief I felt that it was finally out there. And I used to take Nina2 for what I considered a well-deserved, long, leisurely walk in the woods.
It was great.
Until a few days later.
To say I was disappointed when I saw the open and view rates, doesn’t do justice to what I felt. I don’t usually pay much attention to stats — of any kind — but they’re hard to avoid on Substack. And they’d usually hit me hard.
I’ve found I don’t like crickets much
“Crickets”. It took me a while to understand that “crickets” is meant to convey a total lack of response on what you’ve published, so all you hear is the sound of crickets chirping in the otherwise deafening silence.
Crickets. I don’t like them.
Oh, the creatures are fine (if I don’t have to eat them and they don’t come in a swarm) but figuratively speaking they are demoralizing at best.
Now, before you start doubting your abilities (like I did), or whether anyone will be interested in what you offer (like I did), or, more to the point, whether anyone would be willing to part with hard earned cash for it (like I did), let’s get real about something.
We all love to create.
It’s why you started a writing side hustle and dream of living off of the proceeds.
But doing what’s needed to get those proceeds? Those pesky “businessy” things?
You hate that. You’d prefer not having to do them. So you procrastinate (like I did).
You’ll do it tomorrow. Next week. You’ll start when you have enough articles to add some variety to your social media posts. When generating revenue becomes more pressing. Or when even the crickets have gone deafeningly silent.
The truth?
You attract the darn crickets
expecting the world to find you and your creations without any help from you.
Euphoria won’t pay the bills
As much as you (and I)’d like it to be different, creating for the pure joy of creation, isn’t sustainable unless you have other sources of income.
Creation is only the first step of a long list of stuff to be done if you want your creations to pull their weight in generating your income.
Like it or not, the business side of things is often more important than your ability to write. Getting clients or subscribers takes more than putting the whispers of your soul out in the public eye.
You’ll have to promote your creation. And, yes, yourself at the same time.
It’s an essential step — one you can’t do without1 — however unsexy and uncomfortable, sleazy and undesirable it may feel.
Apart from the bad examples2, what keeps you from promoting, marketing, and selling, are all the messages about it you’ve heard, adopted, and repeated ever since.
The truth is, they are wrong, unhelpful, and counterproductive to your success.
Because, let’s face it, no one will read, look at, or share your stuff unless they come across it somewhere. And no one can3, if you don’t tell at least one person about it.
Someone has to promote you. Who better than yourself? After all:
You’re the only one on this earth
who has a 100% interest in your interests.
Discomfort dissipates quicker than you’d believe
However, short of an epiphany, it would take a lot of self-work to shift your emotions. So, I wouldn’t bother. There’s a simpler, quicker way: put the reps in. It gets you comfortable doing anything simply by doing it often.
Let’s do an experiment.
Fold your arms. Notice how you do it. Right over left or tother way around. Good. Now fold them the other way. Doesn’t feel comfortable, does it? Keep them as they are. Count to whatever. Notice the discomfort disappearing. (And note the number to which you counted.)
Do it again. And again. Notice how the more you enter and “suffer” the discomfort, the shorter it lasts.
That’s exactly how you get over the discomfort of marketing and selling.
The way I started was to acknowledge the emotions and then pull a Nike: “just do it”.
Once. Then once again. Then one more time. And another, and another, and another. Soon enough, the discomfort starts fading.
You’re doing it. Victory!
Not so fast.
Problem is, without that self-work, the message tapes feeding your discomfort have not been erased or recorded over. As soon as the going gets tough(er) the tapes and the emotions pipe up again.
Full blast.
So, you need some extra insurance. Something to keep you from falling of the wagon. Something to keep you at it, until…
Keep at it until the fat lady sings
You’ve probably heard this phrase before:
It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.
(The phrase refers to her — the fat lady’s — farewell scene4.)
It’s intent is to keep you from assuming that the end of something is fully determined long before you get there.
I’ve hijacked it to mean: you’re not done until you’ve done every single thing you need to do with and around your creation to reach your goals with your work.
How do you know when you’re well and truly done?
By defining what “done” means. Beforehand.
In agile5, this is known as a Definition of Done (or DoD for short).
Definition of Done: it’s more than a checklist
A more down-to-earth name would be… — drum roll, please — checklist.
So why call it a Definition of Done?
Because a checklist feels way too non-committal.
A Definition of Done states exactly what will have been done when a piece of work is declared “done”. It’s an agreement, a contract (even if only with yourself) that offers clarity and transparency.
There’s more to it, so, let’s dig into the benefits.
What using a Definition of Done gets you
The benefits I’ve found most appealing:
Creates clarity around what's in and what's out of scope.
For example, what does it mean that a piece is finished? Has it been edited? What did you look at? Does it have visuals? Have they been checked against your brand guidelines?
Maintains consistency.
Avoids running yourself ragged. You’re far less likely to overestimate what you can accomplish, giving you more confidence to say 'no(t now)' to (client) work.
Avoids the overwhelm of bulldozering “not-so-fun” tasks into an insurmountable mountain ahead of you.
Helps manage expectations. For clients and collaborators. Also, perhaps even especially, when you work alone.
Beware of these mistakes that’ll trip you up
If I have persuaded you that a DoD is a good idea and you’re raring to go… Yay!
But hold on to your horses a little longer so I can tell you what mistakes to avoid.
Cramming everything and the kitchen sink into your DoD from the “get go”
Don’t turn your DoD into a wish list. Make it the non-negotiable list of things you will do, no matter what.
Negative outcome of this mistake: disillusion and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Solution: Start small and with the big rocks. Your first version may well have a single item: Publish! You can add things and expand them later.
Changing your DoD as the mood strikes you
A DoD isn’t written in stone. It is supposed to with your priorities and methods. But don’t change it all the time. Also because of mistake #1.
Negative outcome of this mistake: negates all the benefits of using a DoD.
Solution: Re-assess and adjust your DoD on a cadence, a cycle. Bear in mind your DoD defines the minimum standard for your work. You’re free to do more and that means you’re free to experiment and decide later!
Including future actions
Don’t include anything you can’t complete together with everything else.
Negative outcome of this mistake: Cluttering your work list with stuff you can’t take action on, and robbing you of the satisfaction of getting to “done”.
Solution: Change the action in your DoD from “doing” to “scheduling” X. For example, instead of “publish a promotional post” have 1) draft promotional post; 2) schedule post using a social media scheduler; 3) create a to-do to copy the post to platforms that require manual posting.
Including what you don’t control
In other words: any result you can’t or don’t want to create yourself.
Negative outcome of this mistake: Frustration is the kindest word for what happens while you wait. And what if what you get isn’t up to par?
Solution: Split it up. For example, one DoD for the whole with 2 parts: 1) for what’s under your control — include sending work to the others here; and 2) one for what you’ll receive from others. The latter detailing what you need to check to ensure it’s up to par and to integrate it with everything else.
Time to ban those crickets forever
There you are. You now know how to avoid hearing crickets when you publish your work — how to avoid feeling done when you really aren’t yet. It’ll help you make the difference you’re after. Whether that’s recognition, impact, or revenue.
Your first steps:
Create your first, short and sweet Definition of Done. Just three steps: create, publish, and promote.
Set up a schedule to reflect, re-assess, and adjust it.
Stick to it!
Enjoy!
Unless you’re only writing for yourself. And then I’d ask you: why are you doing it in public?
Like disreputable (car) sales people and TV channels like Tel Sell.
Discovery on platforms like Substack only helps to a point.
The “fat lady” refers to valkyrie Brünnhilde in Wagner’s opera cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen“, and “till … sings” to her (very long) farewell scene that leads directly in to the finale of the entire cycle. See Wikipedia on this.
Agile is a way of working that’s ubiquitous in the software world even if it’s often not practiced very well or effectively.
I totally agree with you that publishing something is not the same as getting it done. But the done thing remains ever elusive. You can do lots of things but in the sense of done being the things that helps you reach your goals, it feels as if I am forever destined to be a thin lady with a sore throat.