Make Gifts not Products
March 5, 2025
If I don't know how to do anything, I know how to verbally process.
I have always assumed you need something to say, to be an expert, in order to be a worthy Substacker. (I suppose you could be really interesting or funny too.) Regardless, I assume a sort of "value exchange" is necessary for my own writing. But then I remember why I am writing in the first place...
To keep me on the path of new and challenging creative habits.
To provide feedback on becoming a better writer and find my voice.
To reinforce things that I learn along the way.
It's easy for me to view Substack as a marketplace. A marketplace of ideas. In this shopping mall of ideas, I like to shop around. I pop-in and browse different stores. Perhaps my "like" is the equivalent of a head nod to the owner behind the front desk. Embarrassingly, I am a quiet shopper and fail to strike up any sort of interesting conversation. At best, I quietly purchase something with my paid subscription.
Without realizing it, this approach becomes the lens by which I view my own little storefront. Given my initial reasons for writing, this calls for a recalibration.
I will be writing with a few people in mind, making gifts instead of products. And that's it! If other people want to join the conversation, silently or actively, I would welcome it. But the content, the style, the genre, are written for a certain few people, myself included. The pressure of the marketplace will always there, but I still want to create something meaningful, even if it's for a single person.
Perhaps that's why books are dedicated to certain people?
Make gifts not products.