Where Do Words Go?

a taxonomy of internet writing

If the medium is the message then I want to be clear with myself about what messages are available for me to tell you. I have a substack and a website with a blog and an email newsletter and a twitter account and now I have a new offering, Masculine Witness, with its own blog because that feels correct.

Five! Five places for words! Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.

I stand on the precipice of a writer’s dark night of the soul and I want to write through it. On a call I had today, it was made clear to me that if I believe that my new witnessing offering is my north star, if I believe that it is my gift to give - and I do believe this - then there are value providing, sales-y things I can do with my twitter account to help people become aware of this paid service. I can give people free, useful resources for the sake of their emotional healing.

I was only persuaded by the math: right now I get ~1.5 million views on twitter per month. Even if going sales mode was so off-putting that I lost half of my audience, getting a minuscule fraction of those 750,000 views to become email subscribers would give me let’s say 750 email subscribers per month, and then perhaps 7 clients monthly with additional value providing, sales-y stuff.

But I flinch at the idea of making my twitter banner a sales-y thing, and at throwing link in reply much more often than I do. But this is the path to the thing I care about, healing emotional wounds! But I might wound myself in the pursuit! Ahhhhh!

It’s just anxiety, everything is fine now. To go sales mode on my twitter account feels like a contraction of how I show up online now. I write a hodgepodge of stuff everywhere. My website’s blog has my strongest convictions, twitter and substack are a bit of a catch-all, I’m still finding my voice with my email newsletter but it’s good for monthly roundups of what I’ve been doing, and the Masculine Witness blog has writing relevant to that offering. It’s not strategic, but it is authentic.

Authenticity as a guide will resolve my advertising Gordian Knot. If and only if something is good and true and authentically me, I will write it and share it. I know that good, valuable writing cuts through the noise and finds its audience.

There’s also curiosity to enjoy here. I have the least resistance to setting up a short educational email course that would teach readers about ideas and practices related to emotional healing. What does that look like? Let’s find out!

I’m sure other creators have been here before. They’ve found ways to expand their writing in ways that prioritize their creative essence, their authentic voice. I will do the same because I don’t want to shy away from this offering. It’s something that only I can give, and I want to give it my best effort by acting from courage and love.