| Hey, Stand-up comics must be the bravest people on the planet. I've never done comedy — to everyone's great relief — but I have done lots of public speaking which is basically the same thing with fewer jokes and higher prices. I enjoyed it a lot but there were bad days which stick in the memory. There's nothing more demoralizing than speaking to a crowd which have absolutely no interest in what you have to say. Any public speaker — and comedian, presumably — would take a small room of passionate punters over a sparsely populated arena. Or a grand ballroom packed to the rafters with people staring down at their phones and plotting an early lunch. Yet this is the unqualified message we get all the time as writers: grow your list, increase your following, build your audience, blast your message in all directions and it's bound to hit the mark, right? It Is a pernicious philosophy because, yes, bigger is often better. However, if you build your platform indiscriminately then you are creating a much bigger mess to untangle. Yeah, if you don't care about open rates, there are lots of ways you can build your email list quickly — and cheaply. And if you don't care about engagement levels, there's an app which will post Al slop for you every day on Facebook. But why stop there? After automating one social network, you could add Insta and TikTok too. After your PA has scheduled posts thru 2025, maybe ask her to check out that new site which turns blog posts into animated YouTube videos. Soon you could be broadcasting to no one on five different networks simultaneously! Such audience. Very wow. how the internet really works The internet is dominated by one thing in 2024. Engagement. The algorithms that rule everything treasure content which keeps people engaged. Clicks, likes, shares, conversion rates, time spent on page, products you browsed, shopping carts you abandoned, books you DNFed (or tore through like a ravenous wolf). Everything you do online is weighed and measured, sliced and diced, all through the prism of engagement. Why? If users aren't engaged, they will click away. But if users remain engaged, the average time on the platform increases, the amount of dollars they spend grows, and the number of ads they scroll by increases exponentially. The logic is irrefutable. Inescapable too, driving every major platform in 2024. What does that mean for the pesky humans like you and me who are just trying to sell some books and carve out a readership? Quality matters much more than quantity. Treasure each interaction with readers. Respect their time. Put effort into each bit of content you create from posts all the way up to books. Easier to say, harder to do, so let me add this: if you don't have time to create a quality piece of content, then don't bother. Trash that post. Skip that newsletter. Even trunk that book, if you must. This doesn't mean that everything needs to be perfect (if your brain is anything like mine, there's always the danger if perfectionist tendencies gumming up the works completely). I think if you strive for good, you will hit the target regularly. But if you aim for middling dross, you might not even reach that level most of the time. Resist the temptation (and the bad advice) to plug into the machine and crank the generic content factory up to 11. Instead, lean into what makes you truly distinctive in the marketplace — your voice, your ideas, your characters, your tae on this crazy mixed-up journey we all share. There's enough pablum online already and there's about to be a lot more of it. Make your stuff matter to readers by only putting good stuff out into the world. Be the signal, instead of embracing the noise. Fundamentally, the algorithms weigh engagement much higher than frequency — and this goes for selling books on Amazon, posing on Insta, uploading on YouTube, dodging spam filters on Gmail, dancing awkwardly on TikTok, or creatively pruning your employment history on LinkedIn. "OMG this meme was totally lame but there's a new one like every day," said absolutely no one. "Wow this book was terrible but he releases two more each week!!" said no one else, ever. Create good stuff. Care about it. Make it count. And maybe leave the dross on the cutting room floor. If you write quickly, great! As long as you also write well - which is the most important thing. Readers will thank you. Algorithms will love you. And you might feel better about yourself too. Dave P.S. Writing music this week is Beggin' by Måneskin. | 
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