marketing Archives » Lyndsey Medford

I think if you knew what others pay for your attention, you might covet it more, yourself.

For over a year now, I’ve been learning the business of writing. Folks don’t seem to like hearing that writing is a business—we all prefer our artists starving. Still, while writing is a privilege, it’s also hard work, and I have the audacity to hope to get paid.

I attended conferences. I took an Instagram course. Listened to podcasts. Started an email list. Because to sell books these days, you have to have a platform—and to have a platform, well, buckle up.

If you’re already gagging at the mention of the word “platform,” I’m sorry, I guess; but this is how the sausage is made. Every writer you know and every musician you love obsesses over these things. An artist is just one more competitor in the attention economy; we’re supposed to demonstrate to publishers that you love us long before we can ever ask you to buy from us. So we’re learning how to market—how to manipulate your emotions, your brain, your thumbs—and we’re just hoping we can keep up with the trends and keep our integrity at the same time.

Do you want to know what they’re saying about you, the audience?

They say folks should focus on solving problems for you. They say we should get you hooked on an easily-consumable, glamorous version of ourselves so that you want what we have. Bloggers and online teachers are all about the how-to post, the five helpful tips, the twelve outrageous facts you need to know. As an expert, they say, don’t solve the underlying problem you know people have; solve the problem they think they have. And they’ll come back again and again.

I’ve often struggled to find a voice as a writer—and just when I was seizing upon mine, I came across advice like that. Humming above my writing was the pressure to “stay top of mind,” “provide quick wins,” keep the reader hooked, and produce, produce, produce.

But as time went on, I recognized in myself an addiction to the hustle. Not a commitment to faithfulness, but a need to be seen as hardworking, clever and confident in order to be seen as worthy.

And I realized, by trying to make it as a certain type of writer, I was teaching to the test of a culture of busyness, production, disconnection, of jobs half-done and a life halfway noticed, half-lived.

So often we get the message: don’t let life pass you by; decide today what you’re going to do! But lately I’ve pressed into that desire to seize the day, and found it’s far more important to decide how to be. And how I want to be is simple, and slow.

Just because I’m a bit of an analog person doesn’t mean that’s easy. Part of me believes deeply in the hustle, in working harder and smarter and longer to prove your value. And every social justice issue appears so very urgent. And that Instagram course I took a year ago is already largely outdated. And starting a new church? Easiest thing to talk about values, grace, rest, Jesus on Sunday—then hustle and grind your way through the rest of the week trying to do and be and attract more, more, more.

Then again, even if I thought I was ditching the hustle, it could be easy to buy into a certain brand of simple. The minimalism that’s actually far more attainable to the rich than to the poor; or the many products that are supposed to make my life easier by hiding complexity from me (exhibit A: the Keurig). Or a sort of tourism into simplicity—simple when it’s convenient or pretty.

And yes, being slow is an aesthetic choice. I want the slow-simmered stew, the long read. I’d go so far as to say that I long for them—that the aesthetics of my choice mean something. But slow is also a spiritual choice. See, the more I learn about empires and injustice, the more convinced I become that the heart of our resistance is love, and nestled close to love is simplicity.

The simple person doesn’t covet or steal; the simple one has time to listen to her neighbor. The simple one is not deceived so easily, because her own values are so plain to everyone. There are many areas of life where we can simplify; but slowness is what simplifies time. We need slow food, mended clothes, Sabbaths, bicycle commutes—all things that disappear when we cram our schedules full.

We need, too, slow writing. Even if I know you’re only going to skim, I am compelled to practice a craft, not perform a trick. I don’t know if my words will solve your problem. I don’t know if I can be relied upon to comfort or inspire every day. There aren’t ten steps to grace, or justice, or love, or simplicity. You don’t wedge Jesus into your Instagram grid as part of your brand. I mean, I don’t.

So I’ve been quiet lately, after a good year of weekly blogging; some of my writing has gone to my email list, some stays hidden in my black-bound notebook. It’s not that I mind writing here weekly. I just gave up on keeping the schedule for the schedule’s sake. I gave up on the notion that you need me here all the time (because, really, how much time would I get back every day if I stopped asking the Internet to tell me one more time that I’m important, worthy, lovable?)

I’m not so talented, spiritual, or Real™ that I’m exempt from hard work or even marketing. But I’m figuring out how to show up to those things with the best of myself. I’m committing to knowing the difference between timely and hurried, interesting vs. sensational, relevant vs. compromised. I’m committing to an audience that’s willing to go deep with me because we simply can’t help it, one that’s trying to do this Internet-connection thing with savvy and wisdom, one that’s still reading—and this is outrageous, I know—a thousand words later.

I don’t know yet what any of this means for me. I’ve done enough announcing projects and ideas and beginnings lately. I’m not quitting Twitter, or blogging, or my job; I’m not swearing off productivity or ditching my car (yet). I still want to get paid to write, and to be honest, I still want millions of adoring fans. I only know I’ve made a commitment—when in doubt, slow down.

I am writing by hand in purple fountain pen. I’m savoring the vegetables from a local farm and sticking with the fits and starts of my own garden. I’m tending to the ritual of handmade coffee, cleaning the house slow like a madwoman’s meditation. I’m letting my Youtube-intoxicated youth group swirl around me and then asking them, once again, to stop and breathe.

Then, here, in my writing, I am snatching back the quick win. I am asking you—not to do more and do better, nor to adjust your attitude in five easy acronymized steps—I am asking you to walk with me a long, long path of truth and beauty and hard things and laughter—and there is plenty of time yet to stop and breathe.

I was laid off from my day job a few weeks ago, and so were four of the five coworkers in my department. Now, suddenly, we have all found each other on LinkedIn. We are recommending each other’s work and making up words for the skills our boss took for granted. Savvy people are on LinkedIn all the time, even when they are employed, but we all had to resurrect our accounts from graves of various depths. We are not savvy people; we are English nerds of the highest order. Book people.

So I have a barely-updated LinkedIn account and I’m thrilled to have a new website, too, but I’m not always sure how to talk about it. Every time I do so I mean to say something grateful and happy, because that’s genuinely how I feel. The new site does feel more like home; it makes me want to write, and write well; I am proud and excited about it. But I worry intensely about it nonetheless. If the Internet is a layer on all of our lives, my layer is a piece of paper with too much glue: it wrinkles, smudges, sticks to my fingers when I try to smooth it out, and never, ever lies snugly next to the other layers.

People get really irritated when someone preaches about the evils of technology, so I’m not here to do that. The Internet does plenty of wonderful things, from informing you about stuff you’re afraid to ask about, to fostering very real connections between people. That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? It does that stuff just often enough to keep us all dripping it into our veins for hours every day; and the hope of providing something like that to someone else keeps most of us contributing to the stream. Photos. Words. Videos. Links. drip. drip. drip.

The Internet, then, has given us all an audience to manage. Precious few of us have ever run a PR campaign or even a Glee Club quarterly newsletter, but now we are broadcasting to hundreds or thousands. We post so Grandma can see baby pictures. We post so Mike From High School will change his mind. And we post, most of us, most of the time, for the Monopoly money of little hearts and thumbs-up. drip. drip. drip.

If you’re not promoting a business or whatever, you might not think about all this in very analytical terms. I hear people say my phone has taken over my life or I feel like I have a big responsibility to interact on social media or Facebook makes me anxious or I’m not sure whether to post pictures of my kid, but aside from quitting social media entirely, we rarely have tools for answering these questions very well. One reason: our phones and our networks are designed to make us feel like the center of the universe. But that leaves us confused when the universe turns out to be so very far beyond our control. By contrast, social media consultants and Instagram stars have a lot fewer of these dilemmas, in large part because they are focused on two things.

First, they know their goals. For businesses, bloggers, and Instagram celebs, those little hearts and thumbs aren’t Monopoly money, and they’re not adrenaline shots or personal validation stickers. They’re real gold: engagement with their posts translates into dollars. Maybe the things you want from social media are a little less measurable than theirs, but it’s still worth it to write them down. Every time you log on, you’re seeing content from people who have identified what they want you to do and invested a lot in getting you to do it. Even if it’s something as simple as a refreshing coffee-break distraction or a glimpse into your friends’ lives, shouldn’t someone occasionally be checking in on your priorities? This coffee break isn’t refreshing anymore can be a powerful realization.

Once a social media master knows what they are aiming for, their Internet choices become a lot more objective: these people need a better picture of the universe if they’re going to succeed. Their second focus, then, turns from being the center of the universe to cultivating an obsession with their audience. At its worst, this turns into tailoring every moment of your own daily life to others’ tastes. But at its best, the question who am I posting this for? can bring clarity. Your audience isn’t yourself—if you just want to save something, there might be a better place you can remember and access it later. And your audience isn’t your sworn enemies—they’re never going to admit you are right or feel chastened by your successes. You probably don’t have the time or the headspace to interact with them and the people who actually like you.

There’s one final thing the consultants likely won’t tell you. To succeed on the Internet, yes, you have to know your audience. But to be happy on the Internet, love your audience. Be a giver. Be a liker. Be yourself. Pray for your (political) enemies. Give out the recipe.

Don’t let this love be a shallow thing. Let it be wise. Know when to share the strong words, and when to tell it slant. Know the difference between #grateful and #gloating. Be vulnerable, by all means; but NO ONNNNNE needs a picture of your (literal or figurative) open wounds.

Most consultants won’t tell you to love your audience; it won’t get you attention through manufactured controversy and it won’t get you dollars that people shouldn’t spare. Maybe love isn’t really even what this stuff is designed for. But maybe, I’m realizing, we each have layers we’ll always have to wrestle into the contours of a love-shaped life.