Want More of Me? Do You Punk?

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Kevin Kelly made a name for himself with his essay, One Thousand True Fans. The idea being that to succeed as a creator, you don’t need a million followers — you only need one thousand true fans, one thousand people who will read or buy or talk about anything you produce.

It’s a game-changing concept if you’re a creator.

The question to ask yourself is not how to get more followers, but how to get more true fans. Different people prefer different forms of content, primarily written, audio, or visual. So perhaps your true fans would appreciate a broader set of options for following you.

I usually ignore social media icons and links on the web pages of writers, but if I’m a true fan, then I want more, like when I stumbled across the writing of Sophie Lucido Johnson on Medium.

I liked her writing soooo much that when she mentioned somewhere along the way that she had a podcast, I went and had a listen. It wasn’t new content, just her, reading her written work out loud, but with some commentary and added personality. I loved it. I thought, “I wonder if anybody would like to hear me reading my writing?”

The answer of course was a resounding “No!”, but I made the mistake of mentioning the idea to a colleague who suggested that recording a video of me reading my stories with some commentary and personality would provide all sorts of ammunition to use on social media to promote my writing.

Knowing how my mind works, she said, “Why don’t you give it a try, you know, as an experiment?”

I can never turn down a good experiment. Writing on Medium and creating my own newsletter was a damn good experiment and I’m still here, so why not give podcasting a shot? Feel free to tell me in the comments exactly why I shouldn’t have given it a shot. Or volunteer to come on my podcast and tell me on the air. If you dare.

By my best estimate, I have about 50 true fans right now. I’m hoping my true fans will like more Sanjay Says enough to make this experiment a success. I’m going to try it for six months and see how it goes, and in the meantime, I’ll be entertaining myself by using a dramatic voice or making funny faces when I read my articles in front of a camera.

My video and audio posts are only of my more well-received articles, and are a bit behind my writing chronologically. I’m also learning fast, so more recent recordings will have better quality and structure.

If you’re a true fan and want more than a piece of me, here I am.

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1. My favourite article in podcast form, 23 Questions I Get Asked By Complete Strangers.

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